North Korea Eye On The South

North Korea is blustering its way around Guam, Japan and other military locations, but its eyes are really on South Korea. In a surrogate role for China, whose own aspirations are for the time being the South China sea with a blocking move for all of East Asia's traffic, it would be a strategic mistake thinking it would be just about Guam with a North Korean missile strike.

Game Board:

The target is South Korea with all its technological and industrial might. American's would really get angry if it lost Hyundai-Kia or some other techno product to the Chinese/North Korean aspirations. 

Therefore, like all gamesmanship pieces the options for peace are limited and the probability for war are wide open. The Asiatic Game of Monopoly entails threats from players until the next roll of dice.

North Korea:

• Launching missiles
• Vast hidden bunkers
• A million soldier army
• Nuclear Capability
• A fearful South Korea
• Crazy leadership
• China

The US:

• Launching Missiles
• Vast Military Complex
• Allied partners
• Nuclear Capability
• A Fearful South Korea
• Somewhat Crazy Leadership
• China

China:

• Launching its own stuff
• Vast Military Populations (millions and millions into Tai Chi)
• Secretly using North Korea for its own Aspirations
• Nuclear Capability
• A Fearful Military Complex
• Crazy Leadership
• Itself

Let's play the game with these pieces. The first roll of the dice is launching North Korean missiles willy-nilly with a purpose for scaring sensible people into a let's make some appeasement with the North. Where the US is seeking an elimination of the "problem". 

The US has a treaty card with South Korea and it will use it on the next roll defending South Korea. China has billions and billions of $'s in trade with the US and is really mad at North Korea (not) for causing a problem with its roped in trade partner. It won't supervise North Korea into any sensible resolutions nor does it really want to do that, since it already has a "billion" man army at its disposal. North Korea can be dealt with at a future date after China plays the US out of this game.

The US has a turn because the rules say it has a turn and for no other reason. It flips up a Japan card and moves the F-35 Southward. The dice moves its game piece to Guam while passing "Go". It gets two; "get out the B-1's"  money cards. 



North Korea's turn: It launches its thirteenth missile since January 1, 2017. it then rolls its dice landing a one and then it moves Kim Jung Un deep into the peoples bunker's barber shop for a trim on his edges. Not feeling too edgy he (Kim) orders up a parade showing North Korea's latest cardboard missile cut-out on wheels. 



China rolls the dice and moves its piece to Marvin Gardens for a "I'm getting really mad special". It draws its South China Sea Threat card sending in more dredges for its "floating" sand bar navy. 

 Note: China has has a large Navy of aircraft carriers made of sand in the South China sea. 

Operation Occupy is a knock-off of the America's Occupy Wall Street, China stole the plans from Occupy Wall Street. They just don't move until sand erodes away as nature intended. The US is developing a weather event to wash away sand collecting in the South China Sea.

The spinner, every game has to have a spinner, if it is including dice and cards, moves the US to the White House for a pressor. Its leader proclaims it has a B-2! No one saw that coming(stealth). China chimes up, "me-2!" 

The US draws a Go-To-Hell card. "Do not collect another B-1 card going-around-Go, just go straight-to-hell. Ouch, the US goes for a Community Chest draw and it gets a South Korea "can't we all just get along" card.

North Korea shakes the dice as it shakes the ground when it blows-up an under ground H-bomb, because it can. Kim Jung Un is confirmed to have Rabies from CNN reporting. Someone from his entourage of fearless small people with big hats notices whipping creme on the corner of his mouth. It is a mistake since Kim Jung Un was really slobbering foam from Rabies. The small guy to his facing left with a big commanders hat is sent to an airport and is poisoned.

China again draws the angry card and seeks a way with North Korea to do the US in, as it pivots to the US seeking a way to do North Korea in without any face losing collateral damage. 

It's down to the million man starving North Korean army verses the 10 million man all dressed up and no place to go Chinese Army. 

The US has a B-2, flying behind the B-1 bomber in some kind of natural order. China once again rolls the dice and moves more sand around the South China Sea just for pounding purposes only. The US treaty with China allows it to just pound sand in the Sea's traffic lanes, only if it wants to do that little thing.




The US draws the one and only "Headline News Card". It must find a way to counter the democratically elected arm of the news government as well as the press in the Russia and China. The US goes to the spinner and the arrow lands on "Twitter This!" It can't win no matter what option is presented and it chooses using dice to move away from the Peoples Democratic Elected News. 

It rolls a five and goes forward landing on the B&O railroad location where it's leader promptly begins talking about jobs and trade deals. North Korea launches another missile in some sort of applause metaphor. 




North Korea has run out of missiles until next months replenishment. It must roll the dice and slam South Korea into another fear position. The US sends two more B-1's and one more B-2 in an effort for confusing North Korea with its numbers game. 



All the players are pushing and bumping towards drawing the last card. Being the last card, it would be the war card, where the rules are thrown away and everyone looses. 

How did we get to this point and why did  "the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Hungary, in June 1914, a Serbian-nationalist terrorist group called the Black Hand sent groups to assassinate the Archduke", starting WWI, happen?

The Assassinated Archduke quoted as saying "the Arches of Duke in Belgium have fallen (circa 1914)"!

Germany Attacks France As Assassination occurs in Serbia and... North Korea fires another Missile and so forth.

Boeing.com Orders Update

Boeing updated its website at the end of August with its order count. It added then subtracted 7 single aisle orders suggesting an order change occured from NG to Max thus not affecting gross or net single aisle counts from its 737 family of aircraft in 2017.

Sun Air Express was the order notation when it mentioned a customer has cancelled an order for seven NG's while Max increased by a count of seven during the same reporting period on August 29, 2017. 

Winging It Charting based on Boeing.com numbers reported from its website. 

All Things 787 Lists Big 787 December Deliveries

An often relied upon and cited web site All Things 787 has captured an interesting firing order for December 2017. If thinking December will be a dull production is a farce. There about 17 787's scheduled for delivery in the month. Blogger,  Uresh Seth is seldom wrong with his tracking and reporting from his website  AllThings787.

December should not disappoint Boeing's year-end game plan.

All Things 787 Scheduling during the Month of December 2017 

Marking  90 -delivered  787's  YTD, pressures Boeing for a strong finish during Boeing's fourth Quarter of its 787 deliveries. It has about 55 frames remaining for its customers delivery in this year's production schedule. Not counting December's listings leaves about 38 frames remaining for September, October and November,. Reaching a 13 month pace plus the 17 listed for December makes for a "NO Holds Barred" ruckus on the production floor. A "don't drop a tool" control over plant production, should show up starting with the Month of September. The Uresh "tables" can't predict an absolute outcome but is does predict Boeing's intent going into its final quarter for 2017.

US Starting Line Up Announced For North Korea's Big Game

North Korea, the antagonist  in our thinking, which is probably an absolute truth. The US the protagonist, even though it has much to account for themselves find themselves at the pre game tip off, kick-off or what any other sports metaphor applies. The US doesn't enslave its people to a level North Korea would nor does it kill off its dictator's (fearless leader) relatives (named Boris or Natasha), as a cultural practice. The US offers a strong response from Commander in Chief, Rocky The Flying Squirrel. A high ranking general, Bullwinkle, at the pentagon  strategizes  how the US will respond after he names it "Operation Peabody".

The first half starting line up for team USA top to bottom: B-1, F-15, F-35 (A or B?)

  
Photo by Japan Air Self-Defense Force

Should North Korea order the US into having fly-by's by firing missiles at Japan? No! Since they can't even rent a "Robin" costume from "Batman's" footlocker. 

Holy Snickies Batman, what is a B-1?

Now for the commercial break analysis of the impending mess and ejection of players from North Korea (NK). 

The F-35 as mentioned by this web site, is a flying combat computer which hasn't shown its chops in a combat scenario. The US would like to sell more of its pride and joy to the world.  Kim Jung Un (NK's Boris), says he can help that proposal and rattles off a half dozen or so ballistic missiles in a few short months, claiming it can shoot down Guam in the process. NK also shoots one over Japan in a free advertising scheme with the US. What if NK has discovered how to arm its missiles or worse yet detonate one over its planned target? By-the-way, Guam is an Island and Kim can't shoot it down?

Robin then again pipes up, "Holy annihilation Batman, what's a B-1?

Batman then succinctly lays down his NK prognostication, "Robin, the F-35 is a flying computer which can plug its wi-fi into the B-1 and play an arcade game of Pack man. The F-35 with its vast sensors can identify multiple targets, lock and load the B-1 and "Bamm!  NK wakes up in the stone age. The fight is down to sticks and stones and the US has bigger stones, so says Rocky."

The F-35 can fly between the radar hedges and storm the field like a Bulldog. It eludes 1950's radar like a roach when the lights turn on. It then passes a long bomb to the B-1 flying over the F-35 shadow dance below. The F-35 can launch a "localized nuke" if asked nicely by General Bullwinkle. The F-35 precision refines dumping an explosion to within a zip code, if NK even has one.

General Bullwinkle is harrumphing himself in front of CNN for the sake of its last remaining viewing sycophants. He loves it when a plan(e) comes together. The explanation is directed to any would be egomaniacs of the world. "We have bigger stones and will use them if provoked." 

Rocky, without extreme ego-humility addresses the nation in solemn tones, " I should of, would of, could of made Nk's (lower case k) leading export of radiated glass, but it would have no value for our stain glass industry. Instead I ordered the Surgeon General to conduct precision surgical strikes on Nk's extensive bunker system, thus saving its population from using its own mass transit system and then blocking use of its vast rock gardens throughout the Nk nation.  We didn't use the name Operation Market Garden from WWII fame, but settled on "Operation Peabody" sending Nk on its "way back machine", to the stone age."

By the way, El Rocky, as fondly referred to in the oval office with a round table, mentioned a new deal for the F-35's with its Island Nation of Puerto Rico. F-35B's will land on the sovereign beaches of US Territories, thus expanding tourist trade to any Island nation within the US Territory Trade Agreements (USTTA).

The "Us To" agreement fully allows every Island or peninsula adjacent to a US Territory the same access to military base canteens within a 2,200 mile sphere of influence this making Nk and Guam a partnered canteen guest and host. 

The last word about Nk's future and territorial trade agreements, "Huh!"  

Boeing's August 787 Production and Program Recap

The Boeing 787 program numbers are available with both summary program numbers and August's units in its production activity. Below in Table one is the steady erosion of 787 backlog numbers as it reports 89 787 delivered YTD for the 787 family of aircraft. The second number of interest is the number of YTD 787 sales at a net of 78 units.  

Table 1.

The second table below shows Boeing has met its own guidance for delivering 12  units a months over the last 90 days. More will summarized as the year closes and Boeing closes in on its 787 production goals for 2017

Table 2.

The table below is a snapshot of quarter by quarter 787 deliveries and orders. Boeing has slipped behind on orders as its deliveries out pace the orders by 89-78. The much watched for book to bill ratio of "1" has slipped to a .87 factor, indicating a pause in the sales as compared with its production output.

Table 3.

The program progress chart below provides a snapshot of YoY  787 Orders compared with its deliveries, and a backlog perspective during the program's progress. The backlog has dipped to its lowest level with a total of 689 unfilled 787 orders. since 2011 when Boeing made its first three 787 deliveries.

Table 4.

Table 5. Is a break out of Model by Model orders, delivered and corresponding unfilled orders.

Table 6. Is a 787 snapshot of works in process reflecting on historical processed aircraft as deliveries and the current production floor units.

Boeing Order Summary August Chart Tests

The final numbers are not in for Boeing's August Order and net numbers. An attempt is made by Winging It, formatting a break out for YTD tracking especially zeroing in on the NG/Max single aisle counts. This chart's intent was to isolate how many 737 NG's are booked as compared with the 737 Max and what customer has contributed to that total. 

Boeing does not break-out single aisle transaction in a clear method where it will only list gross orders in its order book for all types but net adjustments are lost when it updates its website each week or update cycle. However it does show a netting number for both the NG and Max when an update does occur. 

The below chart is an attempt to fill in using a journal type approach for all its orders and adjustments from July 31, 2017 only. The data from January 1, until July 31, does not have a break-out of individual changes to its books from gross to net numbers of aircraft ordered. It does not break out current year or prior year adjustments as a subset but it includes all adjustments applied to current year orders.

 

Logistics Will Sell the 747-8F

Logistic was a word foreign to me way back in 1990’s, then a working partner introduced the word logistics to my lexicon. What in the heck was Logistics? A quick reach for Merriam Webster dictionary made it clear, that is what we do. A trucking conglomerate uses logistics for managing its fleet at the right time and at the right place with the minimal amount of resources used to make it happen. The next layers keep piling up when considering equipment maintenance, human resource availability or even fueling stops. Before you know it, you have to hire more computers, dispatchers, and customers for continuing for it to work smoothly.

Fed-Ex was a pioneer in the concept of just-in time package processing while using airline hub and route synchronizations. Then another giant UPS went from ground to air sorting scheme in a big way.

Originally, somewhere somebody did a college research project on what logistics can do for you. A belief is that the originator of efficient logistics came to the Fed-Ex business model.

This comes back to a point of why the 747-8F may hang onto having a future. The freight companies must learn how to logistically work outs its kinks before buying a 747-8F. It has to pay for one from its own operation’s cash before placing an order which somehow connects to the word “Logistic”.

Are you ready for the online definition from Merriam Webster?

logistics

noun, plural in form but singular or plural in construction  lo·gis·tics \lō-ˈji-stiks, lə-\

Definition of logistics

1:  the aspect of military science dealing with the procurement, maintenance, and transportation of military matériel, facilities, and personnel

2:  the handling of the details of an operation the logistics of a political campaign

Now, that really clears it up for those trying to find their way to a 747-8F. Another question is why an A-380 could not sell its passenger version as a freighter? The answer is a many fold response so big it had a limited freight airport availability. Airbus did not or could not successfully design an efficient A-380 cargo hold for multi-dimensional cargo loads. It had no front door like the 747-8F.

The list could on, but the idea is that the A-380 is a flying whale where the cheaper 747-8F was already fit for the job from its 747-400F roots. The threshold of payload weight was not much different for the 747-8F than what the A-380 was capable doing. After-all the 747 carried America’s space shuttle on its back. Another point, is freight haulers are not a dime a dozen commodity and has a low ceiling for customer potential for its air frame purchases.

Boeing stole the march against the A-380 from having a better experience while building 747-400-F. The logistics for having an A-380 where too enormous for any freight company. 

Another way of analyzing the A-380; business risks could not make a solid case for any Freight Company, from above in the previous paragraphs suggests.  There are a plethora of technical concerns and other statistical data supporting not buying the A-380 for freight. Hence, the 747-8F stole the slim market away from Airbus at the big end of the freight market. 

The companion 777-F also complimented the 747-8F in a family of large freighters. The final straw was the lucrative 767-F market would not be matched by the A-330-F having a lower purchase costs and right sized capacity. Boeing had a suite of aircraft for any freight haulers logistical nightmares and Airbus has proposed alterations for its commercial passenger aircraft when going into freighter configurations.  

Continued logistical efficiency will increase the probability of more 747-8F’s sales in the future. As the few freight companies learn how to manage the business better by steps in inches, the heavy freight business becomes more active over time. The A-380F can’t wait since it is no longer evolving for its nonexistent customers. The 747-8F is in the logistical cross hairs. The question from the market place is how can “we” stuff more freight through the nose of a 747-8F? Every-other metric is in place from the frame’s operation. It’s down to several freight business factors:

• Demand for its package delivery timing
• Demand from aircraft availability and reliability
• Demand for having operational constants known (experience)

This opens the door for specialty crops from Asia, bulldozers from John Deere and airplane structures from Boeing, just to name a few. The market is a just-in-time logistical nightmare where the floating freight container ships are for those who ship a large quantity anytime for some future trade tied to a seasonal schedule.

The person who studied for a Fed-Ex solution, had a key cog in its wheel. It was air freight. The 747-8F has to stay alive long enough until the market catches-up through learning its how logistics makes it possible.

Computer Box 101 and the F-35

The F-35 critique must start with "it's no more than a computer box". Also known as the thing that sits on floor plugged into a monitor at your work station. So for future reference, let's call the F-35 the Flying Computer Box or FCB-35.

A 1990's computer box mounted by a screen with a keyboard at its foot pads. 

Having cleared up how computers have advanced let's look at a 2017 computer Box



Critiques weigh in, once again it has six sides as did in 1990 so it is a complete fraud and a flop as a operating box.

It is time to look at a 2006 Flying Computer Box, affectionately known as the FCB-35. It can't dogfight, it cost too much and the future adversary has sexier and meaner looking fighters in its development. Its been 11 years since it first flew as shown below.



Not only does it not have a six sided box look, its has six cameras for its pilot virtual reality(distributed aperture if you must look-up). The important lesson submitted is that in 1990 a computer box was just a a computer box without losing its box configuration. While in 2017 the "Box" has become a super computer. It defies logic how a six sided box can change the world during 27 years since 1990.



Below is the year 2044 showing the latest FCB-35 but it has a 10-F upgrade with a new suite of weapons. However, the six eyed beast is one that combatants fear the most.

Its a 2044 flying six eyed monster.

What Changed? The answer came starting with installation 3-F software this September. It can do a full combat suite of bad stuff. What will software version 10-F do? Anything it wants to do as the 2017 entertainment "box" pictured at the top of the page suggests.