Buyers wishing to position and hold “line up and wait” in their new Boeing 787 Dreamliner are going to have to wait yet again, since the test article is having a wee problem with its engine:
The new delay is largely because of the failure of a Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 test engine, which broke apart internally while being run on a ground-test stand at the engine maker’s plant in Derby, England, this month.
Since that failure was first reported on the website of Flight International trade magazine last week, both Boeing and Rolls-Royce Group have declined to comment on the report’s assertions that the failure resulted in parts of the engine innards penetrating the casing around the engine — a dangerous occurrence referred to as an “uncontained failure.”
An uncontained failure in flight could potentially bring down an airplane. If it happened during testing, the Federal Aviation Administration and other regulatory agencies would certainly require extensive testing to find out why and want further verification of any fix before the engine could be certified.
Boeing spokesman Jim Proulx said Thursday night that only Rolls-Royce would provide details of the engine failure. Rolls-Royce did not return phone calls inquiring about the problem’s extent.
This failure moves the debut of the composite construction Dreamliner further to the right – the program is now more than two years behind its original schedule, and for my own part I was surprised to learn that the Rolls-Royce engine has become the pacing item from a risk reduction standpoint.
But, if you can’t wait for your first peek, Canada’s CAE corporation can show you what you’re waiting for.
Looks pretty cool to me, if you like that sort of thing. Triple seven jocks should feel right at home, according to the accompanying article.
For my own part, I took Citabria 8643 out yesterday afternoon, along with my new toy. Two and two 3-point and wheel landings at Ramona followed by a brief overhead tour of some local airparks, where people live next to their hangars, which are in turn next to their private runways. First fly-by was on Blackington Airport, where I happen to know of a house for sale, a 3/2 plus guest house atop the hangar, pitch and putt in the front, pool in the back. Something like this is where I would like to live out my days, or as many of them as I am numbered to have with an FAA medical in my pocket. Although it will probably not, when it comes, come from California I don’t think. Nor come in at nearly $800k. And there is still that little matter of a trout stream running by. Then over to Pauma, where there is at least an actual golf course, and which the Aera 550 GPS found for me admittedly more readily than I could have found for myself. The GPS is a neat addition, even if it does feel a little like a ten dollar horse and a $50 saddle on the beat up old Citabria. I had to remind myself to look outside from time to time, what with “see and avoid” being the rule of the day in VFR flying. It’s easy, at first, to get caught up in all the technology.
Back to Gillespie for the full stop on 27R, winds out of the south at almost 90 degrees and about 6-10 knots. I had planned for a wheel landing on the downwind main gear, but landed a little firmly, obsessed as I was with ensuring no lateral drift on touchdown. We bounced sufficiently that I had to bail out of the wheel landing, but I was a few knots too hot to transition directly to a three pointer without getting airborne again. I fed aft stick gradually and she tried to get away from me before I could fully plant the tail, which made for an exciting moment or two sawing away on the rudders to avoid the dreaded ground loop.
Probably, in retrospect, a little more exciting than I found that video of the Boeing 787 simulator.
There are some things in life I take for granted. Crosswind landings in Citabria 8643 are not numbered among them.
I like that.
Capt. Lex,
I thought the domestic Dreamliner had the GE engine? Yet they’re pacing the whole program with the Rolls-Royce?
In the meantime, welcome back to VFR-land… as a somewhat amusing anecdote, when my father (O-4 Naval Reserve, retired) was at Charleston during the late sixties (he was a doctor over there), he was out for a spin in a 172 when ATC called urgently, “Two-Nine Sierra, hold course and speed, and DO NOT DESCEND.”
Dad looked around and didn’t see anything. Rather abruptly, the front end of a C-5A appeared below the nose of his aircraft, and Dad cheerfully added a few hundred feet to his altitude (he never told me the flight level). Of course, this was back when the FRED still was having problems with its cargo door seals and couldn’t fly above 10K feet…
There is s film clip burned into my memory from the first landing of a C-5 at Charleston AFB. The camera breaks away from the bird and follows one of the wheels rolling down the runway. Truly inspired confidence.
It got even better, QM. I was sitting in a Starlifter at Altus AFB (C-141 and C-5 schoolhouse) one day, #1 for takeoff behind a C-5 that had just pushed power for takeoff, when one of it’s engines DETACHED ITSELF FROM THE WING and began tumbling down the runway. To paraphrase Admiral Beatty at Jutland. . .”Something seems to be wrong with our aircraft today”. Not something you see every day.
Zipper
I may have heard about that, but don’t remember. Losing an engine when you push to take off power would definitely inspire confidence.
I think it’s because ANA (not a domestic) is the launch customer.
Zipper
787 = paper airplane…
As an alternative to home with a hard runway….
http://www.seaplaneproperty.com/
Somehow I don’t think Lex’s wife is going to buy into the *Bathrooms: O* bit, Airmail…
Lex:
I don’t fly, but have you ever thought of building your plane?
A A&P mechanic, Aero engineer private pilot friend of mine once remarked “There are guys that build airplanes and guys that fly airplanes, few that do both.” 10 years and +$100K, I doubt it.
I have thought often on it. The Vans RV-8 seems just the ticket. But they are non-trivially expensive and take thousand of hours to construct, time that I cannot imagine having.
Too, I’d scarcely trust myself to ride a bicycle that I had myself constructed. An actual plane?
Don’t know ’bout that.
You may want to look at a Pazmany Storch-or a Volksplane…
Stephen, I’ve constructed several road-worthy contraptions myself, though in my defense mostly I was bolting on and fitting parts, not exactly casting the iron myself in molds using my own forge. I did a fair amount of what I’d call non-precision machining to make things fit, and some welding when I had to make them fit anyway. Motorcycles, cars, a bunch of tractors… That was when I had spare time, and money, when the machine shed was a den of solitude where Hank Williams was on the radio and there was nothing that couldn’t be done.
If it can be done, I can do it. If it can’t be done, it takes me a little longer.
Then I had a daughter. Parenthood reared its head, snarling and biting at hobbies.
Lex still has them. Some are in *college!*
Trust me, there’s nothing like having a three-minute attention span trying to help you in the shop to make even the most simple task an exercise in frustration. Once you’ve accepted that you’re getting no work done until the kids go to bed, you find yourself so fatigued that you repeat the same steps over again the next night, and the next. Did I mention how difficult it is to even look for the proper wrench when the 2 year-old has discovered the welder and is happily flipping switches, or is trying to suck on the nozzle of an air compressor at 800psi?
Such things are for people who can devote time to building rather than parenting, for parenting always comes first in the mind.
That said, I cannot wait to have my son in the machine shop with me as a ready and willing assistant who has outgrown the desire to stick his tongue into the sockets on the trouble light.
I still have that ’66 Honda I first rode, it would be nice to restore it with him and let it be his first motorcycle. If we built it together with matching attention spans I think I’d trust it for safety.
– Max
Some of my most “interesting” flying moments have been landing the 7KCAB and the GCBC (Scout) in brisk crosswind conditions. As the old saying goes, landing a tailwheel aircraft is a lot like being a duck. . . .all calm and serene above water, but paddling like hell underwater. Although I’ve never done one, Lex, I would think that the feeling you have after making a tailwheel landing in max crosswinds is much like that which you feel after successfully making a night trap in stormy weather. . .elation and relief that you beat the beast one more time.
Except that I always looked forward to the NEXT tailwheel landing. LOL
Zipper
When I was last up by Boeing Field, I spotted one of the 787s on final. Pretty plane.
Two years ago, I was in Seattle. I went to visit the Center for Wooden Boats at Lake Union. While standing on the pier admiring the work, there was a B24 in the air, a P51, the usual two or three float planes landing and taking off on Lake Union, a 747 coming out of Everett, and a Steerman doodling around, plus a couple private AC. Oh yeah and some very lovely wooden boats.
I love Seattle………………..
Taildragger down about ten miles from here, nobody hurt. Pilot said he crashed two hunderd times previously…….
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/broward/pompano-beach/fl-pompano-plane-crash-20100828,0,5997103.story
Airmail,
One of the ‘witnesses’ said he didn’t hear anything wrong, it didn’t back-fire…
I’ve NEVER heard a PT-6 ‘back-fire’. Not after running them for years!
Chris,
I believe the NTSB has compiled a database of “aircraft accident/incedent witnesses” and found that non-pilots make unrelaible sources and the variance between what they think they saw, heard, remember and the real facts are so great that eye witness accounts are more often than not, unrelaible. What gets me is that newspapers, television news media outlets so often rely on and print/publish statements from eye witnesses. I hope that the media types take the extra time to validate facts in a story before they publish/broadcast. So often I see the well dressed official sounding TV newsman or newswoman reading text about the “Boeing” crash only to see a picture/graphic supporting the story of a McDonnel Douglas airplane…….the news media needs to spend some resource fact checking instead of relying on a junior production assistant to fill in the details. All the major networks are guilty. CNN used to have one guy (Miles O’Brien) who did his homework.
Makes sense though, doesn’t it? Aircraft-aware people and those in the investigation aren’t going to make statements, while the goober stepping out of the mall will say darned near anything to show himself worthy of time on the TV camera. Having nothing else worth running, television and newspapers use the commentary of the goober.
Now think about this in regard to UFO sightings, or Bigfoot, or crop circles. You *never* read Steven Hawkins’ take on these matters, or those of some Rhodes Scholar. You always read of some goober with an education approaching high school and a southern accent that, the slower the speech and the more vowels per word, the better. He’s the only idiot the news could find willing to talk on camera about it.
Wait for the official word backed by people who can sign their name to the report.
Gotta admit, the goobers have much more interesting theories though… See the Pentagon strike on 9/11 for examples, and of course those who think fire cannot melt steel. In spite of their stellar qualifications regarding Google search phrasing or hosting
daytime TV, they seem unaware of basic facts regarding strength of materials.
– Max
A portion of a justification for the “Boeing crash” news … Boeing bought McDac … so all MD-80 now are Boeing MD-80 … legally correct but inaccurate.
Old-
Yep, your observation is correct, however when the TV announcer says McDonnel Douglas DC-9 two engine jet and the picture beside her head is a Boeing 737, I cringe.
wunner how that 787 flies after an EMP burst? The new Boeing plant is fast rising out of the Charleston swamp. Should be fun to see those things on final right out my office window. But, like our host, I still prefer to be at the controls of even a lowly Lance versus watching something else take all the lift.
Speaking of “lowly Lances”, I saw the demo model of the Lancair Evolution turboprop at KMYF last weekend.
Golly.
Uncontained failures are some seriously bad juju in our business. Makes one’s skin crawl at the thought, it does. But that’s exactly what has had me concerned about this vertical lift fan on the F-35. That sucker sits RIGHT BEHIND the pilot. It’s built by Rolls. I’m probably just a pessimist, but dang, the whole thought of an uncontained vertical lift fan failure makes the bile rise in my throat.
Look on the bright side, Bou — the Harley-Davidson motorcycle has the rear cylinder pointed exactly at the Courtin’ Tackle of the rider, and has for generations. Cylinder head failure, connecting rod failure, piston failure, the rider is in danger with no recourse.
In the case of the F-35 the shrapnel goes behind the pilot, and while it pooches the aircraft the pilot still has the Martin-Baker option. That poor biker “Chainsaw” who disabled his rev limiter has no such options.
Yet I bet he’s not concerned about safety from a design flaw.
Riding and flying are inherently dangerous. They need not be fatal.
– Max
Lost an EMC EOOW because Main Control had his back to the SSTG. He had nightmares about the fan blades coming out and more than eviscerating him. He could not bring himself to stay in Main Control. He was terrified.
Lex,
The problem with Boeing now is that the same folks who drove MacAir in St. Louis into the ground are now in large and charge at Boeing and doing the same thing to its ComAir side and slowly doing the same to its MilAir side. The only thing that is remotely keeping the company in the black are some tax concessions given to it by the WA state Government and thier space division.
To most observers in the commerical air business world, there isn’t any suprise that the 787 keeps falling further and further behind. The only question now is when will Boeing can’x it and how many months till Boeing itself becomes like Douglas, MacAir, and Lockheed with regards to developing large, long ranged, and successful commerical air transports.
Charles -
“The problem with Boeing now is that the same folks who drove MacAir in St. Louis into the ground are now in large and charge at Boeing and doing the same thing to its ComAir side and slowly doing the same to its MilAir side. The only thing that is remotely keeping the company in the black are some tax concessions given to it by the WA state Government and thier space division.”
…Interestingly, I have heard stories from folks who were there that Boeing lost the F-35 contract to a great extent because their final presentation was something along the lines of, “Okay, we’re here, now give us the contract you morons”…and apparently did the same thing on the KC-X presentation. The attitude seems to be, “We’re Boeing, you HAVE to give it to us.”
The Dreamliner is actually far from dead – when you look at it objectively, all Boeing’s done is overpromise some things, and comparing it to the Airbus fiascos of the last few years they’re not doing bad at all. Where Boeing really screwed it up was in outsourcing as much of the aircraft as they did and then not following up on the subcontractors as far as they should have. It seems to be a case of Boeing leadership using the following formula:
1. Design airplane.
2. Outsource as much as you can to save money.
3. Hope nobody bollixes it up too badly.
4. Profit.
Mike
Mike,
I do believe that Boeing did execute something like you said about the JSF project. One of the issues with the KC-X is that they were dumb enough to hire someone from DoD acquisitions office who by ethics rules and laws shouldn’t have been hired and presented them will all sorts of data from the Airbus presentation. So when they did walk into the office they did say “We are Boeing and we are better and here are the facts to prove it.” even before everyone had presented all the numbers.
I hope that your right that the 787 isn’t dead and all Boeing did was over promise.
I just know from living in the region that KC-X and 787 projects are both hoped and prayed (or is it preyed if your a politico) on to bring need revenue to the region via jobs. That is why the state government tried to entice Boeing to stay and build both projects in WA state. Right now the 737 line is slowing down and the hope of the P-8A is the only thing keeping that factory running, the Everett plant is actually experiencing a slow down since the 777 and 767 series aren’t being bought as much due to the current economic crunch.
I don’t have any doubts that Boeing on a whole can and shouldn’t have a problem weather the current issues with the 787 and it isn’t like Airbus and their A380 failing. At the same time I feel as if again the same folks who were at the head of MacAir when it died are currently at the head of Boeing and they are starting that slow decent into trouble.
Actually Lex, “Line up and wait” is the ICAO terminology for position and hold. To bad you never took the opportunity to see this aspect of aviation.
“Line up and wait” is a little more ambiguous than taxi into position and hold.
Brings to mind a time I sat at the end of runway 4 at DCA watching airline arrivals and departures for 35 minutes. If Uncle Sam wasn’t picking up the tab for my TDY travel I would have been pretty steamed. Turned my usual 3.8 round trip to a 4.4.
Got one of the test units here at Edwards. He was doing take offs, landings to a full stop and going again. Multiple times from 0700-1200. Did a series of touch and goes on Friday. The guys who had the weekend watched him do a max nose up take off.
Nice looking ship. Doesn’t make a lot of noise. I have no idea what engines are on it.
“There are some things in life I take for granted. Crosswind landings in Citabria 8643 are not numbered among them.
I like that.”
Lex, kind of like riding a motorcycle; one never takes it for granted that it will be a “safe ride”. Stuff Happens -some I can control, some I cannot. I surely will miss it when I finally have to stop riding.