The B-52 Gets New Pylons, The South China Sea Quakes and Shakes At The Thought

China builds militarized sand dunes out of ocean bottom and corals in a land building grab. The shallows of the South China Seas is China's new empire building. However, a rarely also talked about Geo storm is a possibility and is only witnessed during massive earthquakes or volcanic eruptions. The US has a secret weapon and its called Liquefaction. 



This GEO term arose to prominence during the 1906 San Francisco Earthquake and reappeared again in 1989 except this time it turned the now called "AT&T Giant stadium" into quicksand during the quaking. The stadium sits next to the water and is a built-up landform much like what China is doing in the South China Sea. Except China is using sand and coral for a military base for aircraft or ships patrolling the South China Sea. An Island won't sink! Or can it?

The US Airforce is now refitting its B-52 with new 20,000 lbs pylon capability on the B-52 wings. It reminds me of the MOAB used in Afghanistan against terrorist tunnels.  The MOAB destroys square miles of an underground land structure by turning it into a mucky GEO structure. 

The MOAB could be repurposed as an explosive which could take out or sink a two-mile-long sandbar in the South China Sea. The seven-decade-old B-52 is a very special aircraft which has the capability of making a San Francisco Bay area liquefaction event while sinking man-made islands with just one pass of a quake making MOAB.



I guess a new sandblasting bomb weighing 19,500 lbs is now in the US arsenal turning sand into wonton soup.

A Little Of The Old Bamboo Airlines

Boeing Marketing scored a big order today even though it isn't firm, delivery will start in 2020. That alone suggests a Farnborough confirmation announcement next month as Bamboo Airlines of Vietnam has deposited money for an order for 20 787-9's. The Boeing Marketing will display it pleasure in this youtube video leading with Dick Van Dyke as the key promoter. 

The Chitty-Chitty Bang-Bang affair kicks off an ordering binge for the second half of 2020 where Boeing keeps leading in widebody sales of late. It promises to be a big show as Emirates may confirm another 40 of its 787-10 it's already committed.

Or is it I just like Dick Van Dyke and that "Ole Bamboo".  

Darren Hulst, senior managing director of marketing at Boeing Said,

Boeing is asking for buyers in the Middle Eastern Part of the world after 60 customers have been contacted.

and... “I think airlines in the Middle East, in the Gulf, have shown very similar interest to what we’ve seen globally in terms of how this aircraft would enable them to grow in different ways and enable them to expand capabilities,”

Full 797 story Link: Gulf News Aviation:

The Farnborough Airshow Headline "The 797"

I don't see Boeing waiting for Paris because the market window for the NMA is 2018. The 797 has its customers base and waiting for a few more customers to come onboard by the 2019 Airshow is a fool's errand.

The Farnborough Airshow is a slight to the Paris airshow home of Airbus pride. Boeing has been working on the 797 since 2010 or earlier depending industry intel you want to believe. Eight years of development in the paper world has an opus result. 

The result will show at Farnborough next month and not wait another 13 months until Paris. All those waiting for Paris should bring umbrellas because they will be standing in the rain watching the second traunch of 797 orders come into the Boeing fold.

A conservative estimate for a 797 launch announcement is 400 launch units and the follow-on year at Paris will bring another 200 orders. During the months between, 100 orders will be booked totaling 700 NMA's during the twelve months of the Boeing launch announcement. The potential is too much for Boeing just to sit on it until Paris of 2019. 

It has what it needs for next month's airshow and it will launch. Some think it's Paris from what Boeing exec's have hinted with being in the next year before it decides. That sentiment is for an Airbus fan and its leaders to muse about until the official memo is sent leading in with a "Holy Sh** Bateman". 

If I'm wrong with this comment then I think Boeing has a poor sense of timing keeping its customer strung out as 767's and 757's are parked in the desert and A320's and A-321's are the upcoming airshows' main talking points.

I smell a show stopper is coming to England as a direct tribute to our neighbors across the pond. Paris is a no go for a launch announcement because of Airbus and being late in the cycle giving Airbus a response with its own counter. Singapore in January 2019 is no go because a monumental announcement would underwhelm the aviation world unless China comes through with a massive 797 order book. I think China will wait until Paris before it gets on the 797 train. It will have time to play Boeing for a year to get its order price in place for its Chinese strategy.

The orders will come just the same as Boeing has the ingredients for a market "disrupter", which its competition has not an answer at this time. Since Airbus will only have A-320 window dressing and A-321 curb appeal. Cargo will be addressed and is not an Asian factor for sales numbers.

Another 767 Approach Has Landed

The venerable 767 is finding a way to keep alive. Boeing's backlog website shows about 98 767 to be built as of May 31, 2018. Adding the recent 12 ordered by FedEx, the number rises to even 110 frames to be built. No more 767-300ER passenger aircraft have been ordered at this time nor is it expected.  Why do customers keep ordering the 767F such as the US military tanker program, the freight haulers UPS and FedEx?

UPS.com photo

AJOT Quote:

"The 767 Freighter, based on the 767-300ER (extended range) passenger jet, can carry approximately 58 tons (52.7 tonnes) of revenue cargo with intercontinental range, making it a flexible platform for serving long-haul, regional or feeder markets."

Airbus admits it builds airframes for passenger traffic only and a freight version from the same passenger aircraft would have a gross shortfall for freight hauling due to its passenger optimized design. Boeing has designed all its family of aircraft for passenger or freight hauling even though freight is a Boeing secondary goal. The 787 family has yet to reveal a freight market or its freight capacity. 

However, now that the A-330 has replaced the 767 in the marketplace for hauling passengers. The 767 has reared its heavy capacity legs above the marketplace. The 767 frame can haul 58 tons in a conveniently configured frame for which the A-330 won't match. 

The military saw this airframe in a bidding war with Airbus over the KC-46 tanker project. It took two bidding processes to settle the airplane makers differences and Boeing won the bidding war, where it hasn't looked back since then. It just sells 767 freighter models based on the 767-300ER, even though it doesn't have the latest engines nor aerodynamic attributes, the A-330 passenger model is based on. The 767 can haul a semi-truck load of weight including the truck weight itself.

The news has now reported 12 more 767 freight airframes are ordered by FedEx, thus Boeing announces plans of increasing producing from 2.5 units to 3 units a month. The future freight order book may continue to rise as other competitors to FedEx may join the freight battle with more orders. This is the third production increase for the 767 in recent times.

The DDG 1000 Is Just Prototype "A"

The Zumalt DDG1000 doesn't have half its weapons capabilities envisioned. As an example no railgun (too expensive), no advanced cruise missile (under development), and finally, its concurrent adversaries ( the competition changes how it does its business every day).

The plug and play ship is not a destroyer since its bigger than a cruiser. Its invisibility on a radar screen is its chief design attribute as known by anyone paying attention. A new ship class designation should be assigned. A battleship is too big and old, a cruiser is so 1980, and the DDG1000 is just a weapons carrying ghost. Not to mention frigates and LCS, the DDG1000 has its own number sequence. What will really get the ball rolling is a new enumeration and class designation for what the navy has wrought.

The Zumwalt class ship is every ship thrown into a seabag stirred not shaken. Concurrency is plugging whatever works well into its hull. The ship lacks its own class. A class name comes to mind best representing what it is on the ocean. A destroyer destroys everything in harm's way including itself if necessary. A battleship is the main gun in a gun battle. A frigate is just a frigate with some hops to its propulsion system. The Arleigh Burke class is a very effective upscaled WWII Tin Can with everything that has been long since scrapped from what destroyers dream about.

Therefore the prototypical number should be as follows: 100-A,100-B, and 100-C. A new class name should be a Formula-1 class of ship. It goes faster than a cruiser and destroys the competition in a battle and can do it all in the littorals once upgraded for its time and place. A Formula-1 is constantly being tuned and tested not unlike the race car on race day or during track testing. The weather plays into what tire a Formula -1 racer uses not unlike the DDG1000 Zumwalt needs an over-expensive cruise missile for moving targets. The class designation and ship sequence number should be F-1-100A until its dialed in as a warfighter. The Navy has until the letter Z to get it right. The DDG1003 is the third version which should be designated as F-1-100C.

I Will Defend

The DDG1001 is named for Michael Monsoor. He died for his country, his team and most of all for his family. He will not be forgotten, his ship's namesake carries his spirit into battle.  Like most Medal of Honor recipients, he was a vivacious soldier, sailor or an Airman for this country's preservation. Now a ship bears his name. I take time and blog space to re-link this story from "The Drive" and offer the below video in memory of Michael Monsoor, and his dedication to this nation and its defense.

God Bless this ship and its mission 

The Cattle And The Bean Stock

It's not a fairy tale but a real tale chasing its head going in a circle. Cattle, formerly known as airline passengers, is not what's it all about, but becomes a useful tool which all airlines require. A cow must sit in a seat for up to 17 hrs but not exceeding 20 hours as airlines have not conceived of a 20-hour cow hauler, but is trying in some sort of maniacal burst of genius. Of course, the "head" is an airline CEO. Now another head is the airplane builder who can invent and promote how more "efficient" its airplane flies holding cows going east or west. The planemaker has big barns holding its ideas for the airline. The cow is an airplane passenger that gives milk to the airline and the planemaker.

The Belgrade Theatre in association with Imagine Theatre present

Jack In The Bean Stock Just For Kids Below

Chapter II describes the bean who counts things and writes down those things with a pleasing stack of beans. It too needs cows with lots of milk to give. The bean counter is hired to please the stock which will be described in Chapter III. They all love the cow to death and chapter IV will describe that love. Back to chapter II. The bean is the driving force behind every behind. A collective "huh" is heard throughout the kingdom. The whole scheme is driven by the stock and not the cow. The bean counting proves the airplane-maker, is in the business of making beans count more than the cows giving milk, but milk is what grows those beans driving the stock upwards. Let's put cows in its proper seat assignment and make more efficient meat hooks for the cows. Let's compress the meat in smaller and smaller WC's with hand sanitizer coming out of its partition. A sink? I don't see no stinking sink! Cows only need a trough the size of a banana. These were bean counter's ideas, I know, I used to count beans.

Chapter III is about the stock going skyward to the great kingdom of mythological industrial giants. The stock is what bean counters do in its spare time hence the words bean stock. The stockholder has a slang name bantered about as "every man's Jack" or commonly known as common Jack or better known as common stock. The higher the stock grows the more common Jack becomes relevant. Getting more cattle in smaller spaces came from the "doing more with less" paradigm. The guy who called it an oxymoron was fired. Milk was needed to grow the stock since the bean counter said so. The airplane was built for more cattle and meat hooks were allocated hanging next to the very small WC. In fact, "the do more with less" VP's were busy slapping each other on the back when the oxymoron guy left the building unnoticed. 

Chapter IV is an ever ending love for the cow and its milk. After that, the cow is on its own leaving an airport in some sort of yellow conveyance. The CEO's love their milk, hence they love the cow, but will only go so far since the real dependency is on Jack and his common bean Stock. The airplane is built for stock growth and the Airline serves as many cows as can be counted even without having adequate troughs in the WC. The single-aisle "Max" becomes another "oxymoron" and its an American airline idea making the planemaker so very pleased as its stock grows so high and after the bean counters keep counting while the nearby cattle only just moo and low, hanging from its efficient meat hooks for every cow's "comfortable flight"?

The flight attendant read somewhere the latest Max passenger will have a tissue box sized sink fold out of the wall with a push of a red button. It is recommended the passenger should not deploy the sink if standing or sitting in the loo. It could cause great passenger harm if the airplane hits rough air.

The Aggressive Nature of Boeing's "All Hands On Deck"

Ever wonder why Boeing sales have taken off in 2018 which was predicted to be a down sales year? You are not alone. Perhaps 2017 was just an anomaly as both mega builders, Airbus and Boeing booked about thousand airplanes each during 2017, but Boeing was honing its strategic spear. It had a big tent approach to its market. An airplane customer walks into Boeing's tent and asked for military accessories. 



The sales chief offers, "it's on aisle 17 just behind the drone section hanging from the tent beams".

Not only does Boeing have drones it has a whole world-wide customer services campaign. It has established a way for an airline customer to get from Actuators to airplane ZZZ's and that's in the seat department. An airline can hire Boeing to maintain, build and fly your business. The real secret to the Boeing sauce is that all hands are on deck welcoming the buyers and talking the same language with one another. One sales trooper will grab a peer out of ancillary sales department and say, 

"I want the airline customer to shake this person's hand, they can fix you up with a fully automated Boeing product kiosk of your choice"  The ancillary salesperson starts talking how good is the Max 7 and if you can't go big, the Max 7 is just the right size.

Hold on, "I thought we were talking airport kiosks," says the customer?

The sales team looks on with a knowing smile and mutters to the customer, "let's go to dinner".

Over the horderves, "You have no airplane, No ground team, no problem,  we can build your airline for you in this big tent. You say you need a headwind report on a route? No problem it's on aisle 22 just behind the weather balloons which are behind computers and wifi department. Did I mention the Max 7 flies 3,800 miles connecting almost any paved landing strip, anywhere? The headwind wind women can help with your Max 7 order as well before you check out. Did I mention loans?" 

"We have a banking kiosk at the front, making loans, just for airlines needing anything under this big tent, we are currently loaning with favorable rates on the Max 7".

Before the main course is even served the customer is beginning to get it. Every salesperson is on deck with the full suite of Boeing product. Not only on deck, but they can put together the deal and get you the right people to do it! Even as far away as aisle 39  located in the far corner of the "Big Tent".

The DIY airline only wants airplanes and that's it. The Boeing, "no problem team", spurs into action and offers the right airplane for DIY airlines, of course, the Max 7, at a sensible discount.  

The Airbus sales teams are looking for the "Big Tent's" exit, nobody got the memo and they are lost.

and... that's why 2018 is having a great Boeing sales year.

Oder Wars 787/777X VS A350 ULR

There airline carriers all over the map pleading for big RFP's from both Boeing and Airbus. June saw the news about Qantas, New Zealand, and Oman asking for airframe what if's from the makers.  The airlines want to go big in passengers and miles. Project Sunrise is a Qantas tease for either mega airplane maker. New Zealand well entrenched with its 787-9's seeks to provide service across the wide Pacific going to both New York and all destinations possible in South America.

Oman wants a bid with the 787 and A330 much like Hawaiian airlines just held where Boeing won the day. The wildcard is how the 777X can play into the deal-making. The A350ULR is the Airbus hold card for both Qantas and New Zealand deal making. The 777X becomes the spoiler and timing of such an aircraft the determiner. Airframe price is an influencer on those who seek a fleet strategy. Since Boeing already has a foothold on all three airlines mentioned it has a good chance of winning orders from two out of three mentioned. The fleet A-330 is hiding in the background as its models' age so the 787 has to go against replacing those older A330's with a 787 instead of an A-330NEO. Hawaiian went with Boeing in the same circumstance and Airbus may be in the mood of giving away is airframes on the cheap. Its airplane ordering trench warfare and Boeing has the high ground at this time in the A-330NEO battle.

June saw a lot of airplane talk about what airlines are looking for and both makers heard those talking those points.