Long road to a S.C. Dreamliner!!

[Navy1960]

The first Boeing Co . 787 made in South Carolina will roll out of its Charleston facility on April 27.

The Charleston, S.C. Post and Courier reports Boeing (NYSE: BA) is planning a big event, with Boeing executives and 6,000 local plant employees being joined at the invitation-only rollout by South Carolina dignitaries and media. This will be the first time Boeing has assembled a commercial airplane outside Washington state since World War II.
Boeing's first S.C.-made 787 rolling out April 27 - Puget Sound Business Journal

I thought that after the recent dust up with NLRB and both sides of the political debate on this issue that its worth mentioning that the first 787 produced in S.C. is set to roll-out and I add my congrats to all those hard working Boeing employee's that made this happen. Perhaps the best thing when looking back on this issue is to realize that when Americans set their mind to do something we can accomplish it, and often times when Washington gets out of the way even more so, or better yet Washington acts in a manner that helps Americans bring this amazing aircraft to the world its a good thing for all of us.

 

[waltky]

Are Dreamliner jets safe?...

Boeing Dreamliner incidents raise safety concerns
9 Jan.`13 - Boeing Co's 787 Dreamliner jet suffered a third mishap in as many days on Wednesday, heightening safety concerns after a string of setbacks for the new aircraft.

Japan's All Nippon Airways said it was forced to cancel a 787 Dreamliner flight scheduled to from fly from Yamaguchi prefecture in western Japan to Tokyo due to brake problems. That followed a fuel leak on Tuesday that forced a 787 operated by Japan Airlines to cancel take-off at Boston's Logan International Airport, a day after an electrical fire on another 787 after a JAL flight to Boston from Tokyo. Asian customers rallied behind the U.S. planemaker, however, saying such teething troubles were not uncommon on new planes and confirming they had no plans to scale back or cancel orders for the aircraft, which has a list price of $207 million.

Japan is by far the biggest customer for the Dreamliner to date, with JAL and All Nippon Airways (ANA) operating a total of 24 of the 49 new planes delivered to end-December. The aircraft entered commercial service in November 2011, more than three years behind schedule after a series of production delays. Boeing has sold 848 of the planes. JAL spokesman Kazunori Kidosaki said the carrier, which operates seven Dreamliners, had no plans to change orders it has placed for another 38 aircraft. ANA, which has 17 Dreamliners flying its colors, will also stick with its orders for another 49, spokesman Etsuya Uchiyama said.

State-owned Air India, which on Monday took delivery of the sixth of the 27 Dreamliners it has ordered, said precautionary measures were already in place and its planes were flying smoothly. "It's a new plane, and some minor glitches do happen. It's not a cause of concern," said spokesman G.Prasada Rao. There was no immediate suggestion that the 787 Dreamliner, the world's first passenger jet built mainly from carbon-plastic lightweight materials to save fuel, was likely to be grounded as investigators looked into the fire incident.

Air China, which sees the 787 as a way to expand its international routes, and Hainan Airlines also said they were keeping their orders for 15 and 10 of the planes. "New airplanes more or less will need adjustments, and currently we have no plans to swap or cancel orders," said an executive at future 787 operator Hainan Airlines, who was not authorized to talk to the media and did not want to be named. Qatar Airways Chief Executive Akbar Al Baker, who has previously criticized technical problems or delays with Boeing or Airbus jets, said there were no technical problems with the five 787s currently in use by the Gulf carrier. "It doesn't mean we are going to cancel our orders. It's a revolutionary airplane," he said. Other carriers already flying the Dreamliner are Ethiopian Airlines, LAN Airlines, LOT Polish Airlines and United Airlines.

40 GALLON SPILL

 

[jwoodie]

...Only those produced by non-union labor (LOL)?

 

[waltky]

FAA playin' catch-up with Japanese airlines...

Aviation technology advances, FAA tries to keep up
Jan 19,`13 -- After two separate and serious battery problems aboard Boeing 787s, it wasn't U.S. authorities who acted first to ground the plane. It was Japanese airlines.

The unfolding saga of Boeing's highest-profile plane has raised new questions about federal oversight of aircraft makers and airlines. Some aviation experts question the ability of the Federal Aviation Administration to keep up with changes in the way planes are being made today - both the technological advances and the use of multiple suppliers from around the globe. Others question whether regulators are too cozy with aircraft manufacturers.

Even as they announced a broad review of the 787 earlier this month, top U.S. transportation regulators stood side-by-side with a Boeing executive and declared the plane safe - saying that they would gladly fly in one. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood repeated his endorsement Wednesday. A few hours later, the FAA issued an emergency order grounding the planes. Despite their concerns, many safety experts still believe that the current regulatory process works - the 787s were grounded before any accidents occurred.

The Dreamliner is the first airliner whose structure is made mostly from composite materials rather than aluminum. The plane relies more than previous airliners on electrical systems rather than hydraulic or mechanical ones, and it's the first airliner to make extensive use of lithium-ion batteries to power cabin-pressurization and other key functions.

Such technological advances may force the FAA to re-examine the way it does its job. "We've gone from aviation to aerospace products that are much more complex," said Richard Aboulafia, an aviation analyst with the Teal Group. "The FAA is equipped for aviation. Aerospace is another matter." Former National Transportation Safety Board member Kitty Higgins said the FAA must consider whether changes in its certification process would have turned up the problems in the Dreamliner battery systems. "They need to make sure the certification process stays current with the industry and the new technology," she said.

MORE

 

[Darkwind]

...Only those produced by non-union labor (LOL)?

I think that the only Dreamliners in service today are from the Union shop...but I don't know that for a fact. The OP says the first Dreamliner has yet to roll off the SC line.

 

[waltky]

Uncle Ferd says if the battery's catchin' fire when it ain't overcharged, den there's a problem with the battery...

NTSB: Plane battery that burned not overcharged
Jan 20,`13 WASHINGTON (AP) -- The battery that caught fire in a Japan Airlines Boeing 787 in Boston earlier this month was not overcharged, but government investigators said there could still be problems with wiring or other charging components.

An examination of the flight data recorder indicated that the battery didn't exceed its designed voltage of 32 volts, the National Transportation Safety Board said in a statement. NTSB investigators are continuing to look at the battery system. They plan to meet Tuesday with officials from Securaplane Technologies Inc., manufacturer of the charger for the 787s lithium ion batteries, at the company's headquarters in Tucson, Ariz., said Kelly Nantel, a spokeswoman for the board. "Potentially there could be some other charging issue," Nantel said. "We're not prepared to say there was no charging issue."

Even though it appears the voltage limit wasn't exceeded in the case of the Japan Airlines 787 battery that caught fire on Jan. 7 in Boston, it's possible that the battery failures in that plane and in an All Nippon Airways plane that made an emergency landing in Japan last week may be due to a charging problem, according to John Goglia, a former NTSB board member and aviation safety expert. Too much current flowing too fast into a battery can overwhelm the battery, causing it to short-circuit and overheat even if the battery's voltage remains within its design limit, he said. "The battery is like a big sponge," Goglia said. "You can feed it with an eye dropper or you can feed it with a garden hose. If allowed, it will soak up everything it can from the garden hose until it destroys itself."

There are so many redundancies and safeguards in aviation that when an accident or mishap occurs, it almost always is the result of a chain of events rather than a single failure, he said. The Japan Airlines plane caught fire Jan. 7 while it was sitting on the tarmac at Boston's Logan Airport. In a separate incident on Jan. 16, an ANA flight made an emergency landing in western Japan after a cockpit message warned of battery problems and a burning smell was detected in the cockpit and cabin. An investigator in Japan said Friday that the burned insides of the plane's lithium ion battery show the battery received voltage in excess of its design limits.

Since then, all 50 787s that Boeing has delivered to airlines' fleets have been grounded, and the manufacturer has halted deliveries of new planes until it can address the electrical problems. The batteries in two incidents "had a thermal overrun because they short-circuited," Goglia said. "The question is whether it was a manufacturing flaw in the battery or whether it was induced by battery charging."

Source

See also:

Dreamliner: Japan and US probe battery maker
21 January 2013 - All 50 Dreamliners in operation are currently grounded

US and Japanese authorities have begun a joint investigation into GS Yuasa, the Japanese battery maker for Boeing's troubled 787 Dreamliner aircraft. It comes after an All Nippon Airways (ANA) 787 had to make an emergency landing due to a battery malfunction. However, another US regulator said on Sunday the battery did not overcharge in a separate incident involving a Japan Airlines (JAL)-operated 787. Regulators have grounded all Dreamliners currently in operation. ANA has announced 335 Dreamliner flight cancellations including up until next Sunday. This is set to affect 48,000 passengers, including almost 4,000 international passengers.

Widening probe

Yasuo Ishii, a Japanese transport ministry safety official, said: "Engineers from the [US Federal Aviation Administration], Boeing and our aviation bureau started a probe this morning that is mainly focusing on GS Yuasa's production line. "They are checking on whether there have been any issues in the production process. We still don't know what caused the battery problem, and so we are looking into all possibilities." Japanese battery maker GS Yuasa has seen its shares fall 11% since 7 January when an electrical fire broke out on a JAL 787 at Logan International Airport in Boston, although they rebounded 1% on Monday as it became apparent the fault may not have been a pure battery problem.

Investigating that incident, the US National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) said the battery did not overcharge. "Examination of the flight recorder data from the JAL B-787 airplane indicates that the [auxiliary power unit] battery did not exceed its designed voltage of 32 volts," the NTSB said in a statement on Sunday. It said it would now widen its probe to look at the battery charger and the auxiliary power unit. GS Yuasa also produces batteries for motorbikes, industrial equipment and power supply devices.

Smoke damage

Last week, the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said both batteries had leaked electrolyte fluid, and there had been smoke damage to parts of the aircraft. The NTSB said a group of experts would meet in Arizona this week, where the battery charger is manufactured by Securaplane Technologies, to test and examine the part. The battery charger maker, a unit of Britain's Meggitt, said it would fully support the US investigation. United Technologies, which builds the aircraft's auxiliary power unit, said it would also cooperate.

On Friday, Boeing said it would put deliveries of the 787 on hold until the FAA approved its plan to ensure the safety of the batteries. It said it would, however, continue building the light-weight fuel-efficient plane. Japan is the biggest buyer of the aircraft, with ANA and JAL operating 24 of the 50 Dreamliners currently in operation. Boeing has orders for more than 800 Dreamliners.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-21115383

 

[waltky]

Investigative scope shifted from battery to monitoring system...

Boeing 787 probe shifts to monitoring system maker
Jan 28,`13 -- The joint U.S. and Japanese investigation into the Boeing 787's battery problems has shifted from the battery-maker to the manufacturer of a monitoring system.

Japan transport ministry official Shigeru Takano said Monday the probe into battery-maker GS Yuasa was over for now as no evidence was found it was the source of the problems. Ministry officials said they will inspect Kanto Aircraft Instrument Co. on Monday as part of the ongoing investigation. It makes a system that monitors voltage, charging and temperature of the lithium-ion batteries. All 50 of the Boeing 787s in use around the world are grounded after one of the jets operated by All Nippon Airways made an emergency landing in Japan earlier this month when its main battery overheated. Earlier in January, a battery in a Japan Airlines 787 caught fire while parked at Boston's Logan International Airport.

GS Yuasa shares jumped on the news it is no longer being investigated, gaining nearly 5 percent in Tokyo trading. The issue had plunged 12 percent after the battery problems surfaced in Japan. Ministry officials stopped short of saying that Kanto's monitoring system was under any special scrutiny, saying it was part of an ongoing investigation. "We are looking into affiliated parts makers," Takano said. "We are looking into possibilities." Kyoto-based GS Yuasa declined to comment, noting that the investigation was still underway.

Deliveries of the jet dubbed the Dreamliner were three years behind schedule because of manufacturing delays. Much of the aircraft is made by outside manufacturers, many of them major Japanese companies who make about 35 percent of the plane. It is the first jet to make wide use of lithium-ion batteries, the kind usually found in laptops and other gadgets. They are prone to overheating and require additional systems to avoid fires.

Investigators have been looking at the remnants of the ANA flight's charred battery, but it is unclear whether the battery or a related part was behind its overheating. Investigators have said the ANA battery and the JAL battery did not receive excess voltage.

MORE

 

[waltky]

Boeing failed to carry out thorough tests...

Boeing 787 Dreamliner tests 'missed fire risk'
7 February 2013 - NTSB head Deborah Hersman: "This investigation has shown that a short circuit in a single cell can propagate to adjacent cells and result in smoke and fire"

Tests on Dreamliner batteries carried out by Boeing when they were first certificated for flight missed the high risk of fire, US regulators have said. Boeing's tests underestimated the frequency of "smoke events" in the lithium ion batteries, the National Transportation Safety Board said. They also failed to spot that overheating in one battery cell could cascade to the others, causing a fire. The regulator said it still had many more leads to investigate. On Wednesday, the NTSB said it would take weeks for it to complete its investigations. Its head, Deborah Hersman, said the regulator hoped to produce an interim factual report - but not a final report - within 30 days.

The ultimate decision to allow Boeing's 787 Dreamliners to re-enter service will be taken by the Federal Aviation Administration in the US, and by other countries' air regulators in the rest of the world. The NTSB head said that Boeing's safety checks suggested that a smoke event would occur less than once every million flight hours. But the 787 planes have only clocked up 100,000 hours of flight-time since entering commercial services, and have experienced two battery fires. The 50 Dreamliners in service have been grounded since 16 January, after a battery in a Japan Airlines 787 plane caught fire in Boston, and an All Nippon Airways flight was forced to make an emergency landing because of a battery malfunction.

So far, the regulator has discovered that the Boston fire was caused by a short circuit within one of the cells of the plane's multi-cellular batteries, and that a fault in the battery's design allowed the resulting overheating to spread to the other cells. However, the NTSB has not yet found out what caused the short circuit in the first place. Ms Hersman said they were now following up two lines of inquiry - the actual cause of the short circuit, and why the certification process failed to pick up the defect in the battery's design.

BBC News - Boeing 787 Dreamliner tests 'missed fire risk'

See also:

Boeing working on 787 battery changes for fire risk: WSJ
6 Feb.`13 - Boeing Co is working on battery design changes that would minimize fire risks on its grounded 787 Dreamliner and could have the passenger jet flying again as soon as March, the Wall Street Journal reported.

Separately, U.S. aviation regulators said they would allow Boeing to make a one-off 787 flight from Texas to the company's facility in Washington State, under strict conditions. Boeing said the plane, scheduled for delivery to China Southern Airlines , would be a "ferry" flight - used to relocate a plane without carrying passengers or conducting tests.

Regulators around the world grounded the technologically advanced 787 in mid-January after a battery fire in Boston and a second incident involving a battery on a flight in Japan. Boeing is looking at changes within the 787's lithium-ion battery to keep heat or fire from spreading, though technical details have not yet been finalized or approved, the Wall Street Journal reported, citing unnamed government and industry officials. One of the paper's sources added that, under a best-case scenario, passenger flights could resume in March.

However, the Dreamliner's launch customer All Nippon Airways Co Ltd (ANA) , which has the biggest fleet of the 250-seat planes, said it will cancel 1,887 flights, affecting more than 25,000 passengers, from March 1 to 30. The airline said it had no information on Boeing's latest battery plans. Boeing declined to comment on the newspaper report. GS Yuasa Corp , the Japanese firm that makes batteries for the 787, also declined to comment.

INVESTIGATIONS ONGOING

 

[Navy1960]

European air safety officials extended checks for Airbus A380 wing cracks to the entire superjumbo fleet on Wednesday and said the widespread defects could pose a safety risk if left unremedied.
Airbus A380 wing checks extended to entire fleet | Reuters

An Airbus 380 superjumbo operated by Emirates Airline had to make an emergency landing in Sydney after suffering an engine fault shortly after take-off on Sunday.
Emirates Airbus 380 in emergency landing - FT.com

Aircraft maker Airbus has been ordered to ground and check the wings of all A380 superjumbo planes currently in operation.

The move forced by The European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) comes after Australian carrier Qantas Airways grounded one of its A380 aircraft after engineers found 36 wing cracks after the aircraft encountered severe turbulence.
All Airbus A380 aircraft grounded due to wing cracks | The Manufacturer

Here's the point, the battery issue in the 787 while not a good thing, it's an issue common with new comercial aircraft as well as Military aircraft, in that issue will arise over the life cycle of an aircraft that will require additional engineering. It is NOT a matter of Boeing or for that matter EADS not carrying out enough tests. If in the case of the battery it is gound to be a design flaw in the battery then that can be rapidly fixed.

As of August 15, 2011, the 787 test aircraft have flown 4,828 hours in 1,707 flights combined over 9 months. with one aircraft even struck by lightning with no interruption of flight. The previous Boeing Aircraft Test program the 777 had an 11 month Test program with the exact same number of aircraft and roughly the same number of hours and the 777 has been flying for several years now and it too had some issues like every new aircraft, but has grown to be a reliable American made Aircraft. So rather then spending our time talking about how bad our nations newest commerical aircraft is which it's not, much to our own demise, let's talk about how as a nation we can support our own industries and our own workers, and applaud those who in the interest of safety are doing all they can to make this aircraft the safest in the world.