Boeing When Will the Boeing 787 Finally Take Flight?

[FredGarvin]

Hooray for substandard improvements in technology! Hey, at least it has a fancy paint job...

Come back to us when you have had a nonosecond of experience getting an aircraft FAA certified. If you had any, you would know that because of a lot of reasons you don't see huge advancements in a single aircraft and still stay in business. There is way more than simple design calculations to look at. For example, before you even begin the process of building and testing a new aircraft, the FAA has to sign off on the aspects that go into it, basically saying that whatever problems you run into they will not require breaking the laws of physics, etc...In other words, the FAA knows of all of the issues up front and they think you have a reliable approach to solving. That kind of system does not lend to massive or Earth shattering advancements in one aircraft. Slow, gradual advancements are the way to go, especially if you are embarking on a program that will cost you tens of billions of dollars. Even in your chart, look at the one data point that showed "huge jump in technology!" The Concorde. While a cool aircraft, it made 0 money and cost huge sums and was, for all intents a business failure.

I'm not defending the marketing morons. I hate them too. However, this is just a bit more complicated than that.

 

[Cyrus]

Come back to us when you have had a nonosecond of experience getting an aircraft FAA certified. If you had any, you would know that because of a lot of reasons you don't see huge advancements in a single aircraft and still stay in business. There is way more than simple design calculations to look at. For example, before you even begin the process of building and testing a new aircraft, the FAA has to sign off on the aspects that go into it, basically saying that whatever problems you run into they will not require breaking the laws of physics, etc...In other words, the FAA knows of all of the issues up front and they think you have a reliable approach to solving. That kind of system does not lend to massive or Earth shattering advancements in one aircraft. Slow, gradual advancements are the way to go, especially if you are embarking on a program that will cost you tens of billions of dollars.

<shrug> and then you build the same airplane for 40 years. You need to read the book I linked to, which explains the current problem with industry. The 787 is a perfect example of small changes due to unambitious thinking. Wow...5% better performance in 40 years. AMAZING. It's time for something that is 50% better. Helicopters suffer greatly from this very problem. There are almost no new ones built in the last 20 years, and the V-22 is a piece of heavy, expensive, junk.

I'm not being a smartass, read this book, you'll love it being a helicopter guy Fred.

 

[FredGarvin]

You have to live with the business realities before you get a job doing it. Period. To get something that is "50% better" (better in what?) there needs to be a business case and a way to fund it. Boeing and Airbus bet the farm with every new aircraft that comes out.

 

[Borek]

SP = \frac{(\mbox{Max Payload})x\mbox{(Transport speed)}}{\mbox{Max T/o Weight}}

Thanks. But if it is defined this way nothing strange there is not much that can be done, perhaps that just means we are close to the physical limits for this type of the plane. I suppose if you could plot cost of kg mile (or passenger mile), or MTBF (or some other parameter of similar meaning) against time, plot would be not that flat.

 

[FredGarvin]

I don't agree with that metric being the lone one to compare to. How about "does the manufacturer make money and continue to do business" metric? Or in the case of the Concorde, which had very few routes to fly, how useful is the aircraft for which it was designed. I can think of a hundred more parameters to judge a design against that the Concorde would fail miserably in.

 

[Borek]

It's time for something that is 50% better.

Somehow I doubt such solutions exist. After almost 100 years of polishing and optimizing every single detail in the planes I am ready to assume every reasonable approach has been tried - and those that were better were already selected. Assuming it is still possible to jump higher by 50% just by doing it differently is getting us dangerously close to those crackpots that tell us now and again that car industry hides miracle solutions for water fuelled cars.

I would love to be wrong.

 

[minger]

Right now I would say things are limited by materials. Better materials will let us run higher temperatures, which will raise efficiencies. Will you see a 50% raise? I don't think so, the thermal efficiencies of those engines are already fairly high, and Cd values are of magnitude ~0.01.

I just don't see from even a macroscopic view you can expect to get an additional 50% from.

Fred: Those are the people that I was speaking of in fact. My graduate adviser split time between the university and Glenn.

 

[Andre]

Well if you want to improve 50%, Cruise altitude and speeds are optimized, if there was anything in the design to improve, it would have been already. Also, there is not a lot more efficiency to be gained from burning liquid hydrocarbons. What kind of fuel would we be thinking off in the first place?

 

[Cyrus]

I don't agree with that metric being the lone one to compare to. How about "does the manufacturer make money and continue to do business" metric? Or in the case of the Concorde, which had very few routes to fly, how useful is the aircraft for which it was designed. I can think of a hundred more parameters to judge a design against that the Concorde would fail miserably in.

I'm not arguing that is the only metric to compare to, nor does the book. It simply illustrates a point I was making. The book also explains why the Concorde appears to be an outliner, and taken with caution on the next page (which I didn't scan).

 

[Cyrus]

Somehow I doubt such solutions exist. After almost 100 years of polishing and optimizing every single detail in the planes I am ready to assume every reasonable approach has been tried - and those that were better were already selected. Assuming it is still possible to jump higher by 50% just by doing it differently is getting us dangerously close to those crackpots that tell us now and again that car industry hides miracle solutions for water fuelled cars.

I would love to be wrong.

You'll never find a new solution building the same old airplanes. That is the point. The point of thinking is flawed in industry in terms of innovation. They only make small baby steps.

 

[minger]

There are efficiencies to be gained, but not that amount. Aside from better materials letting us burn hotter, one thing I've also heard of it...smart "shapes" or...hell I can't think of what it's called.

Either way, the idea is to have the engine change its shape during the operating range to maintain efficiency, particularly during take-off, climb. How to accomplish this though...whew, no idea.

 

[Cyrus]

Right now I would say things are limited by materials. Better materials will let us run higher temperatures, which will raise efficiencies. Will you see a 50% raise? I don't think so, the thermal efficiencies of those engines are already fairly high, and Cd values are of magnitude ~0.01.

I just don't see from even a macroscopic view you can expect to get an additional 50% from.

Fred: Those are the people that I was speaking of in fact. My graduate adviser split time between the university and Glenn.

I hope I did not give you the impression that I meant 50% improvement in the engines. I meant 50% improvement in the airframe aerodynamics.

 

[Cyrus]

Note: It is quite interesting how many of you throw in the towel so quickly when presented the facts of the current state in industry.

"Cant be done"..."They would have found it by now"...etc, etc... not a good sign. There is a good example of a car factor that made a stamped part. It took 3 mins to make each part. Someone said he wanted it redone in under a minute. Everyone said he was crazy, impossible. They got it. Then he said, now I want it in under 30 seconds. Again, impossible. After much work, they got each part in under 10 seconds. Don't be those engineers who give up so easily.

Is the 787 a new airplane with composite materials: yes. Does that make me happy: sure. Is it the hottest thing since sliced bread? No.

 

[Borek]

I'm not arguing that is the only metric to compare to, nor does the book.

Trick is, selecting metric that suits you you can prove whatever you want. Weight of the EOS camera I am using now is almost identical to weight of the mechanical camera I used 30 years ago, yet it has a zoom lens, works at ISO 100-1600 instead of the one of the film that is loaded, takes 400 pictures and not 36 before "cartridge" has to be changed, allows me to check the picture immediately and so on. Judging from the weight alone there was no progress in the meantime

 

[Borek]

You'll never find a new solution building the same old airplanes.

http://images.google.com/images?imgc=color&imgtype=photo&safe=off&rls=en&q=strange+plane

This is not the same plane built again and again, hundreds of approaches have been tried and tested.

 

[Cyrus]

http://images.google.com/images?imgc=color&imgtype=photo&safe=off&rls=en&q=strange+plane

This is not the same plane built again and again, hundreds of approaches have been tried and tested.

lol...

 

[tmyer2107]

You'll never find a new solution building the same old airplanes. That is the point. The point of thinking is flawed in industry in terms of innovation. They only make small baby steps.

In an industry where it costs millions of dollars just to design and build a protype and millions of more to test it I don't see why you would expect such extreme jumps in technology. Advancement in this kind of technology usually comes from large corporations like Boeing who can afford such endeavors and can see the ability to profit on it in the long run. From a business perspective, wasting millions of dollars on trying to pursue an entirely new technology which might lead to a finished product isn't the best option, regardless of how much better than end product might be. It is smarter to slowly improve current designs one "baby step" at a time allowing the company to have the most advanced technology out there while investing a much smaller amount of money in R&D that could possibly lead to that massive jump.

 

[Cyrus]

Trick is, selecting metric that suits you you can prove whatever you want. Weight of the EOS camera I am using now is almost identical to weight of the mechanical camera I used 30 years ago, yet it has a zoom lens, works at ISO 100-1600 instead of the one of the film that is loaded, takes 400 pictures and not 36 before "cartridge" has to be changed, allows me to check the picture immediately and so on. Judging from the weight alone there was no progress in the meantime

However, your metric is not a good one. The metric I provided is valid (Note: that does not mean its the *only* metric).

 

[Cyrus]

In an industry where it costs millions of dollars just to design and build a protype and millions of more to test it I don't see why you would expect such extreme jumps in technology. Advancement in this kind of technology usually comes from large corporations like Boeing who can afford such endeavors and can see the ability to profit on it in the long run. From a business perspective, wasting millions of dollars on trying to pursue an entirely new technology which might lead to a finished product isn't the best option, regardless of how much better than end product might be. It is smarter to slowly improve current designs one "baby step" at a time allowing the company to have the most advanced technology out there while investing a much smaller amount of money in R&D that could possibly lead to that massive jump.

40 years...let's see something revolutionary. Not excuses.Where are airplanes that use active flow control technologies? Morphing bodies, or any other 'state of the art' technologies.

Is a carbon fiber fuselage with noise reducing engines something to gawk over? I think not.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Where are airplanes that use active flow control technologies? Morphing bodies, or any other 'state of the art' technologies.

I fly a lot and I don't want to step into some crazy state-of-the-art weird shaped plane. I want tried and true reliability.

 

[tmyer2107]

40 years...let's see something revolutionary. Not excuses.


Where are airplanes that use active flow control technologies? Morphing bodies, or any other 'state of the art' technologies.

Is a carbon fiber fuselage with noise reducing engines something to gawk over? I think not.

In time, I'm sure these revolutionary technologies you want to see will come. I just don't think it is reasonable to be expecting them now. I'm not gawking over the 787, I'm just happy to see improvement in the field. These small but significant advances in the technology puts us one step closer to the revolutionary things you long to see.

I think, and correct me if I am wrong, that you are expecting the technology involved in the aerospace field to be advancing at the same rate as the everyday technology around us. The smaller, more everyday, kinds of technology can advance so rapidly because research in these areas is happening all around the world in hundreds of universities and research companies. A lot of these technologies build off each other to allow even further improvement. The technology here is much more specific, expensive, and can not be tested as easily.

 

[turbo]

I think, and correct me if I am wrong, that you are expecting the technology involved in the aerospace field to be advancing at the same rate as the everyday technology around us. The smaller, more everyday, kinds of technology can advance so rapidly because research in these areas is happening all around the world in hundreds of universities and research companies. A lot of these technologies build off each other to allow even further improvement. The technology here is much more specific, expensive, and can not be tested as easily.

I might add that if your Blu-Ray burner screws up, you don't lose people by the hundreds in fiery crashes. Some technologies can advance very quickly in part because liabilities in the event of failure are low.

Incremental improvements and well-documented engineering studies can get a plane approved for testing, and help you put it on the path for certification so that it can be mass-produced. When Boeing intends to sink billions into the design, tweaking, and production of a new model, we should applaud their efforts and appreciate the jobs they will create, not Monday-morning quarterback them about a perceived lack of innovation. They have staffs of professionals (engineers, accountants, statisticians, etc) to guide their projects, and they have stock-holders to answer to if they want to keep attracting investment. I wish they'd build a plant in Maine.

 

[Cyrus]

In time, I'm sure these revolutionary technologies you want to see will come. I just don't think it is reasonable to be expecting them now. I'm not gawking over the 787, I'm just happy to see improvement in the field. These small but significant advances in the technology puts us one step closer to the revolutionary things you long to see.

Is 40 years not "in time"?

I think, and correct me if I am wrong, that you are expecting the technology involved in the aerospace field to be advancing at the same rate as the everyday technology around us. The smaller, more everyday, kinds of technology can advance so rapidly because research in these areas is happening all around the world in hundreds of universities and research companies. A lot of these technologies build off each other to allow even further improvement. The technology here is much more specific, expensive, and can not be tested as easily.

I never said any such thing, and your statement makes no sense because many universities around the world do research on aerospace engineering.Where is the revolutionary change as a result of this research? (This is also talked about in the book).

 

[Cyrus]

Incremental improvements and well-documented engineering studies can get a plane approved for testing, and help you put it on the path for certification so that it can be mass-produced. When Boeing intends to sink billions into the design, tweaking, and production of a new model, we should applaud their efforts and appreciate the jobs they will create, not Monday-morning quarterback them about a perceived lack of innovation.

Really, I should...Why? ...is their responsibility to make good airplanes, or jobs? I'm not "monday-morning quaterbacking" them, I'm conveying some facts based from a leading aerodynamicist.

It is quite clear that these incremental changes have lead to stagnation in the industry. Prove me wrong.

 

[tmyer2107]

I might add that if your Blu-Ray burner screws up, you don't lose people by the hundreds in fiery crashes. Some technologies can advance very quickly in part because liabilities in the event of failure are low.

Very good point that I forgot to mention.

 

[Borek]

The smaller, more everyday, kinds of technology can advance so rapidly because research in these areas is happening all around the world in hundreds of universities and research companies. A lot of these technologies build off each other to allow even further improvement. The technology here is much more specific, expensive, and can not be tested as easily.

I think there is more to it. Each technology has it limits. We have not yet found these limits for semiconductor & electronics, so there is plenty of room for advancement. That's not necesarilly the case with planes.

Think about history - we started with wooden frames, canvas and piston engines. If I recall correctly they hit the wall around 200 kts, they were not able to fly faster (even if they were able, it doesn't make my point invalid, read on).

We replaced wood and canvas with metal, and we made planes that were capable of getting around 600 kts. Again, that was technological limit, no amount of tweaking would change the situation (much).

We replaced piston engines and propeller with jet engines - and we get supersonic. Again, this technology has its limits - no idea where they lie, but I would bet Blackbird must be relatively close.

That's why I am not expecting much to change when it comes to planes. Sure, there can be some kind of technological revolution (I would be happy to vitness it) - but there are thousands of people, both professionals and amateurs, trying hard to reinvent the plane. So far most of their inventions were not substantially better than what we already have. Could be that's because we are again close to the technological limits.

Edit:

Where is the revolutionary change as a result of this research? (This is also talked about in the book).

Perhaps there is no place for it?

 

[FredGarvin]

I'm not "monday-morning quaterbacking" them, I'm conveying some facts based from a leading aerodynamicist.

It is quite clear that these incremental changes have lead to stagnation in the industry. Prove me wrong.

It sure sounds like you are. Who is this "expert" you keep quoting and why should anyone give a flying fig what his opinions are? He is one person who, apparently lives in a vacuum of a wind tunnel environment. Keep quoting him all you want but it is not reality and it is not keeping the public safety in mind.

BTW...40 years is NOT a long period of time. Perhaps to the Intel/Playstation generation it is but 40 years is a drop in the bucket.

 

[tmyer2107]

I never said any such thing, and your statement makes no sense because many universities around the world do research on aerospace engineering.Where is the revolutionary change as a result of this research? (This is also talked about in the book).

That was just my interpretation of your posts, I guess I was wrong, thank you for correcting me. Many universities do research in the aerospace engineering field and may have decent designs on paper but they don't have the ability to build the prototypes that they would have to build in order to get it certified.

 

[Cyrus]

It sure sounds like you are. Who is this "expert" you keep quoting and why should anyone give a flying fig what his opinions are? He is one person who, apparently lives in a vacuum of a wind tunnel environment. Keep quoting him all you want but it is not reality and it is not keeping the public safety in mind.

BTW...40 years is NOT a long period of time. Perhaps to the Intel/Playstation generation it is but 40 years is a drop in the bucket.

Considering the author is not from the "Intel/Playstation generation", invalid point. How do you know he 'lives in a vaccum,' when he frequently visits the pentagon to talk with sr. military staff on aircraft performance specifications. Really, your baseless accusations are uncalled for.

Look at the rate of progress of aircraft 40 years after the right brothers. Contrast that to the rate of progress 40 years after the B-707.

 

[Cyrus]

That was just my interpretation of your posts, I guess I was wrong, thank you for correcting me. Many universities do research in the aerospace engineering field and may have decent designs on paper but they don't have the ability to build the prototypes that they would have to build in order to get it certified.

I'm not sure where you are getting your information from, but Universities don't design aircraft.