Everything went well as in text
book well. Now it's back to limited scope work out on WI. The veritable
progress of aviation’s renaissance is back on track. Since I don't follow news
during in shop maintenance, it's a protocol thing, I will spend 24 more
hours getting back in the saddle again.Therefore,
I will relate to what's going on with Boeing. A ton of things to be exact. I am
expecting another order breakthrough announcement in the next 60 days. The
Dubai meetings have a pre announced slow sales activity benchmark. However,
something in the month of November is percolating up even though it may be a non-Dubai
activity announcement. The year's total for the 787 orders will be respectable
and interesting I am stilling leaning towards a 100 787 order year by
December 31, 2015.
787
production goals are going to exceed guidance. Boeing is coming in for a 2015
big finish. I am anxious on my predictions and how it plays out. Acting as a de
facto Boeing executive, my laser pointer says Boeing is going to continue its
positive march in forward for market share in spite of the Airbus single aisle
flurry it just put together with its key single aisle customers.
I am sorry to announce that I will have some
repair and down time! The Doctor and engineers want to install a new operating
system near to the center of my heart. It will make me fly a little longer. My
sarcasm and what little wit I have left was promised as an intact feature and will
remain operational after this system is installed and implemented. I should
be down for maybe, up to several weeks according to the KC-46 program heads. After
which, I will come out with parachute packed and safety net installed. If it
works, I will land back here at Winging It soon. Thanks for reading and
watching in advance, over this site while I'm down. Just keep clicking, there
is a lot of blogging within Winging It for your further confusion. You will
just have to get back to work. There is no other way, but work, it's your job!
Last of its kind before the Jet age. A Montana Teepee burner at Fort Missoula Historical Park. A complete train set and station sits behind me. It was spectacular when they put on a log afterburner show back in the day of the lumber mill. It was a wood burning jet engine that never flew.
The 737 Max in this Boeing picture is at the
start of line III. In front of its nose is open space going to the end of its
ground journey. Notice the wing tip feathers. Just for fun count the number of
people in this frame. I expanded the photo on screen and found 17 people. I may
have missed a few.
Not only is the KC-46 on the docket for next week’s military
problem reveal, the F-35 often criticized program will be there too. It’s
perhaps the most important discussion coming from the US Air Force affecting
the US military industrial complex in a long time. The stock market will parse
and analyze words spoken.
Aviation junkies must memorize these Air Force names, Lt.
Gen. Christopher Bogdan for the F-35, and Brig. Gen. Duke Richardson for the
KC-46. They hold sway over the future of these two critical
programs. They have been tasked with oversight and act as the canary in the
mine if something falls short of delivering what was promised.
Many doubts are raised about the F-35 meeting and exceeding fourth
generation fighters such as the F-16 and other foreign adversarial fighter
airframes.
What is purported on the F-35:
General Mark A Welsh III: AFA conference Chief Of Staff USAF Washington, DC
Counters these arguments listed below and makes the F-35 case during the video.
Check The 36:12 minute mark on video about the F-35 Program Status.
Standard complaints offered on the sideline:
Its falls short
to the F-16 in air to air close combat.
It has had
encountered too many program faults
It will not have
close combat air superiority over the latest generation foreign fighters
It compromised
its air frame, giving up performance for both STOVL and Carrier based
fighter configuration for the Navy and Marines. One concept does not
always fit all.
Concurrency is a
Military STD on its building complex.
This
now brings us to the Boeing KC-46 Air Force Report Card. The fixed cost has
been an impediment to Boeing trial and error approach during development, with
a follow-on air tanker from a commercial frame. Its error margin is already gone
when installing critical systems. When delivery time is a key element for the
military, it becomes a key cost to the supplier (Boeing) to make it on time.
The KC-46 needs
and error free flight test period
The Air Force
Should Tell Us straight Up Were The KC now stands
Boeing can
deliver and succeed on this key project but it will take an investor hit
because of it.
The
Air Force Presentation next week will sway the Boeing stock market one way or
another, when it comes to the KC-46 project. Lockheed's F-35 won't have a final
answer until it goes to combat someday. However, early reports indicate the
Marines have a winner. It is not known how well the F-35 super-secret internals
will buy back many advantages in aerial combat, or how it can be used as an interface
within the total combat arena assisting old technology.
Its
multi-systems and pilot helmet controls can help fourth generation fighters
with what they lack in the combat arena. The F-35's stealth gives it a longbow
advantage for incoming fighters 100 miles out. Close combat may not be its
specialty, but its added combat values nullify the need for close combat
encounters. The Air Force must learn how to leverage the F-35 technology into
air superiority, and that may take hands-on and brains-on time in the cockpit.
The military has to catch up to this technology and not look back at the old
paradigm of the F-16 as the role model. This is a different animal.
The 777X9 needs an engine. Boeing has chosen
GE for the honors for that task. They have named it the GE9X reflecting a
developmental label for the 7779X program. What is so different with this
engine over the 777-300ER GE90 engine is that it will be a lighter, smaller by
inches and made with stuff GE has been working on for ten years. The material
is called CMC or a carbon ceramic material that is lighter thinner and heat
resistant in a super-hot environment. This means, a more efficient Jet engine
developing 102,000 pounds of thrust compared with 115,000 pounds of thrust with
the 777-300ER. Engine Diameter will be 133.5 inches across. Sixteen blades are
needed for the main fan. It will have a 10% fuel efficiency over prior models
of the GE90 configured engines. A 5% improved specific
fuel consumption (SFC) versus any twin-aisle engine at service entry.
Regarding the CMC testing just reported. GE
has advanced its CMC materials used for fan blades and internal parts while
subjecting it in duration testing and gaining such positive results it will
proceed forward with those parts in the upcoming flying tests for the GE9X
engine on the 747 test bed. The remark coming out of duration parts testing, indicated
the materials retained a pristine composition after 2,800 hours of undergoing
the duress of heat and pressures exceeding engine operational conditions. Ten
years of research for the CMC material has paid off for GE. It is proceeding
with making a better engine for the 777X9 program, and may spin-off more
advances for the 787 program after it successfully testing out it engine building
propositions for the 777-X9 program.
Bank of America analyst have recommended Boeing build the
consummate tweener. A 757 2.0 version. Boeing could in one sweep of the design
board stop all the nonsense found in the A-320 Neo program. A new class of
Boeing with the possibility of 1,000 of its type in sales could be coming.
Boeing has said it is considering
a new jet that would fit a niche between its single-aisle 737 and long-range
787 Dreamliner, and the BofA analysts find "a strong case" for Boeing
to go ahead, estimating a market for ~2,700 planes from airlines to replace
older planes or swap in for inefficient, long-range jets that they are
currently using for medium-range flights.
However, the analysts
say Boeing's ability to recover its cost of capital on the program would depend
on executing a more cost effective production method than the 787, which has
struggled with high production costs building the mostly carbon-fiber composite
jet.
"Today there are 126 F-35s of various models in service (plus 19 test aircraft); by the end of 2019, that will skyrocket to 493. “When we have those 493 airplanes out in the field in 2019, guess how many of them will be in what I consider to be the right configuration?” Bogdan asked the ComDef conference here. “Not. A. One. Every one of the airplanes coming off the production line today and coming off the production line for the next two and a half years, plus all the airplanes we’ve built already, will need some form of modification to get them up to the full capability that we promised the warfighter. That is a massive undertaking..” So says, Lt. Gen. Chris Bogdan, program executive officer (PEO) for the F-35. This is from an intensive series of articles supplied by"Breaking Defense".
Currently exciting news comes from Italy: Via Defense News
In summary
Italian interest have built or should say assembled its first F-35 at an
airport plant, and rolled it out the door. It flew off for an hour and
twenty-two minutes. How about that, it's a F-35 project milestone?
Now comes the entanglement of production the F-35 finds itself in,
through the concept called "concurrency". They were right starting
the word with "Con", as in con job. The above Bogdan quote best
describes concurrency at its peak. "Not A One", is like any other
F-35. Bits and pieces litter the production trail, marking a project falling
apart along the production way. The mitigation of the problem is found with block
production runs, hoping containment stays within each block. However, containment
of production progress, within a concurrent plan allows seepage flowing into any
block when having daily updates applied to anyone's model on-the-line!
SadSack
is defending America from the production floor. Before "anyone" buys
the next bomb shelter, there is some hope for future military programs. Concurrency
is a buzzword waiting
for the next military industrial complex idea. It will be retired by a new
conceptual phrase, perhaps, "Next Fighter Up". The sum of all changes
has to reach a culmination where all fighters are consistent within not a block
but through entire division of military applications and concept.
Starting with one frame, and applying that frame to three different
applications is a nightmare. The Air Force, Marine, and Navy is a concurrent
design flaw concept. The Marines affect both the Navy and Air Force potential
capability. The Marine design must adapt a central fan for STOVL operations.
The Carrier version is beefed-up and heavier than the Air Force version. The
Air Force version is limited on speed and agility of what an advanced fighter
could have been if it had not been penalized by the Navy and Marine versions in
base designs. The Concurrent Three Musketeer sentiments flows with "A One for all and all for
one," mess.
The limitations arrive with having flying characteristics marginally
different than the F-16. There are faster more nimble fighters available as
adversaries. However, they lack the electronic sophistications of the F-35
which gives them "internal" air superiority, and a very long reach with
some invisibility.
This brings us to the biggest problem, internal computer codes
that have to have so many updates. The code corrections are awaiting its implementation
while in testing mode, assuring program stability and validation. The "main
edge" over other adversarial aircraft is scattered all over the concurrent
production floor within each "Block model" having a different "Block code version", installed controlling its secret military platforms. It is reaching its final giant Cluster F*** and then it will fly concurrently with Block 11, as its role model.
What the military and Lockheed are now doing for these dismal
concurrent conditions is sweeping up the technological crumbs that were swept
off the table after each "Block Release".
Boeing Building Business is alive and well in Everett. This Spring time photo shows the airplane will be built. The wing will roll out on a specialized carrier frame rolling into the 777 manufacturing site straight into the production building.
Note the orange or yellow colors of cranes in the background (center back of roof line). This is the wing plant under construction just behind the World's largest building. The Wing center remains dwarfed by the main show in the front of this photo.
It will receive the title of World's Largest Twin Engine Passenger Jet. It will be built in the World's Largest Building next to the Word's Largest Wing Manufacturing Facility. Records are made, to be broken. Today is Boeing's day as it embarks on a fanciful journey of airplane building, because it can. There is no glory in accomplishing what it can do anyways, as Airbus would have you believe. There is only glory in doing what no one else can do. Build planes that are needed for the existing market.
Space the final frontier, is Boeing's new Florida gig. They will build its Starliner in Florida on-site near the launch cape. They have to build it because there already a rendering of the spacecraft.
Its really big tub taking on an Apollo motif. What it can carry is a full space station crew and large amounts of space station type cargo. It's a sole source project for the ISS. Boeing with this sketch is not going to Mars or around the Moon. It could carry and plant small satellites into orbit during a crew change out run to the ISS while orbiting. The Starliner is not breaching new technology in its approach but enhance the old technology by making it bigger, more durable and well suited for its mission. Making the US space program relevant with the ISS mission.
The importance of this demonstration is for American industry, which can once again re-enter the space age filling a mission gap existing since the space shuttle was mothballed by NASA. It also gives another domestic industry a step into the space age, where it could later design follow-on long range capsules for a Mars trip. Boeing will have gained a real bench mark experience through this Starliner project that could lead to building a Mars capsule, and for its return with a same unit from Mars.
Every headline I take with a grain of salt as
misleading. The recent Headline oft repeated Goes like this:
Boeing 777-9X: World's Biggest Jet
This example of a headline is balderdash in the back pasture. So
let's get this straight from the get go, we are talking "Twin Engine
People", quoted from Yosemite Sam's cartoon series. The engines are bigger
with two identical cans hung from the enormous wing which extend 235 feet in
unflappable symmetry. Did you know the engine cowling leading edge will have
Laminar Flow Technology, patented by Boeing and shared with GE. For those who
don't care, I'll explain it anyways because you stumbled onto Winging It. Start
with dimples on golf balls which make 'em fly further on the driving range with
your new monster headed driver making you into an Arnold Palmer. Go to the
aircraft body maker and lifting surface gurus and they say we've done it and
patented it already. Boeing put edges on the Horizontal and Vertical leading
edges and have done some golf-ball like tricking on its 787-9's and next the
787-10 model.
They call it the Laminar Flow Technology Prominently Installed
Somewhere Serious (LFT-PISS). Remember
the old Spoilers on some race cars in the 70's with those awful looking wings
welded, bolted, or glued on the back of a car. They called those
"Spoilers". The really spoiled the looks of a race car on a short
track. Laminar flow is now added to the Jet engine opening reducing drag, and
you can't even really see it unless you are a maintenance guy with a scrub
brush looking for bug splotches on certain surfaces. Digress I must, because
people are expecting something World's Largest to happen, but it really bugs me
about any headline pimping and bugs have to be accounted for in such an
airplane as Boeing is building. They are going from a fly paper airplane to fly
swatter sized Airbus smasher with its new 777X build. When they start making
parts it's no longer a fly-paper airplane, it will include the LiftnPiss system.
Moving forward with intellectual commentary is the sole source of
any humor. Boeing has Sole Sourced the 77X trump card thrown down on the
industry. Everyone in the industry is blinking feverishly at the concept. You
don't build a Wing Plant in Everett Washington state unless you are holding
nothing but Aces as Trump cards in the game of Airplane poker. Say Goodbye
A-350-1000 and say good-bye, dare I say, A350-900, as Boeing backhands them
with a better product. Wide Body buyers are stunned. They bought Airbus
already, hook line and sinker. Fleet renewal just took on a new definition from
the 777X. It will replace the following aircraft in the next order round for
all customers. The 747, A350-1000, A350-900, and A380 as the 777X will fit into
nearly all high density airports.
Boeing has maximize the Twin Engine Concept (TEC). It’s the final pin Boeing has inserted
into the Airbus Voodoo doll, ouch. TEC is
here to stay and four engines is so 1950's for both big and small types.
