Boeing 777X

ADVANCEDBOY said:
I just hope Boeing would have learnt from experience with Ducommun Inc, when resorting to outsourcing everything.

The danger that has to be watched for is that Boeing used to be an aircraft company based in Seattle. Now it is a financial conglomerate based in Chicago, one of whose revenue streams happens to be aircraft.
 
ADVANCEDBOY said:
Stretching an existing airframe by simply inserting more panels in between while probably continuing the same old strategy of the cheapest bidder gets it all, would be a disaster begging to happen in long term run. Not even in a long term run, we are talking here even a short term and distance crash landing. A longer fuselage would surely be more suspect to breaking into 3 pieces like a spaghetti. -

Huh? Wrong on many counts.

What do you think is the difference between the 737-700, 800 and 900; 767-200, 300 and 400;and 747-100, 200, 300, 400, and -8. There are comparable stretches for many other aircraft, 707, 737, 747, C-130, C-141, DC line of aircraft, etc and the list goes on for miles. Stretching aircraft by inserting fuselage plugs is a common and sound engineering practice. This is not by far " a disaster begging to happen"

You really need to do some research before making silly statements.
 
malipa said:
Since the Boeing 777X could be built at another site, could the skin of the fuselage be friction stirwelded in stead of rivetted? Couldn't that save a lot of weight and get better aerodynamics. And besides, the overlapjoints of the fuselage skins could be removed from the design,

There is no overlap on riveted joints.

FSW is not really viable for fuselage joint due to access for the welding machine. It is easy for rockets since they are empty tanks on a fixture. For aircraft, the fuselage sections have their interiors outfitted and the middle ones sometimes have wings attached.
 
"Boeing 777X's 'Low-Risk' Approach"
Posted by Joe Anselmo 11:25 AM on Nov 18, 2013

Source:
http://www.aviationweek.com/Blogs.aspx?plckBlogId=Blog:7a78f54e-b3dd-4fa6-ae6e-dff2ffd7bdbb&plckPostId=Blog%3a7a78f54e-b3dd-4fa6-ae6e-dff2ffd7bdbbPost%3a183b7e9e-98f3-4b31-865e-efed4fee0983

The Boeing 777X launched at the Dubai Airshow will sport new composite wings and an advanced General Electric GE9X powerplant. But it also stands out for what it doesn't have: a composite fuselage or the lithium-ion batteries that have bedeviled the company's 787 jet.

"We took on too much risk" with the 787, says John C. Wojick, senior vice president for global sales at Boeing Commercial Airplanes. "In this case we're going to minimize the risk."

Boeing's goal was to design the 777X with as much commonality as possible with the current 777-300ER while improving the aircraft's operating efficiency. Dubai-based Emirates Airline, which on Nov. 17 announced a commitment for 150 777Xs, is expecting 16-17% improved fuel burn compared with the -300ER. The new aircraft family includes the 400-seat, 8,200 naut. mi. (15,185 km.) range 777-9X and the 350-seat, 9,300 naut. mi. (17,220 km.) range 777-8X.

Wojick says one driver of Boeing's more cautious approach is that it wanted to be sure the new 777 derivative would be ready to enter service by 2020. He says the company also did not want to tinker too much with an aircraft that already has a 99.5% dispatch reliability. "We evolved the 777 because it was the best in the marketplace."
 
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/negotiator-machinists-must-decide-boeing-offer
 
http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/01/04/us-boeing-777xvote-idUSBREA0302220140104
 

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Why did they ditch the chevrons on the nacelle trailing edge? ???
 
sferrin said:
Why did they ditch the chevrons on the nacelle trailing edge? ???

I suspect you didn't read the article in its entirety :)

"We are replacing the chevrons with a new nozzle design technology,” says Beezhold. “It provides equivalent levels of noise for the cabin and community, but is lighter in weight and has lower drag.” The proprietary design disrupts shock cells by mechanically mixing fan stream in the bypass duct with the ambient flow, but does not require the forced mixing provided by the chevrons which, as a result, cause some drag. Beezhold declines to discuss details and says simply: “We have found a way to do it.” The nacelle will therefore look conventional and more like today’s GE90-powered 777."
 
Mount those turbines any higher and they'll be in front of the wing.
 
But you can't place the engines any lower, because then you will need to lengthen the landing gear, which will result in higher weight, higher operation costs etc, which therefore will decrease the planes efficiency, which will eventually lead to making the engines fan span increase useless. I guess we are slowly hitting the boundaries of the podded engine under wing configuration. Maybe that Airbus Concept Plane isn't that a bad idea...
 
This might be interesting:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GDVfU5sAmwU
 
http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/05/boeing-777x-will-build-on-787.html

http://nextbigfuture.com/2015/05/ge9x-engine-for-777x-will-be-10-more.html
 
The story is that at the moment there are not enough technological advancements they could implement into a completely new aircraft which is worth the money and will give a profitable development. If you look to the Boeing 787 and A350 their composites are actually almost used as if the aircraft were aluminum aircraft. Furthermore at this moment an aluminum aircraft is cheaper and actually possibly lighter (thus more efficient) than a composite adversary. And such a big aircraft as the A380 will not be built soon since the market is not ready for it yet. And furthermore the A380 is a very heavy design because of it's oval shaped fuselage and its low aspect ratio wing -> the materials, manufacturing and geometry technologies are simply not advanced enough for such a big aircraft.
And I think the possibility for a new really big aircraft will not be that big, because of the airport restructuring costs (since there is no space at the current airports and a new place would place them too far away from the city centers, or we will need maglev trains or other high speed shuttles, since it otherwise would be interesting to use other means of transportation). I think more smaller aircraft flying at higher speeds in direct routes is a bigger possibility. Furthermore I am very interested when the technology would be so far that we can build an aircraft such as a BWB of which the aerodynamic improvements will be so big that the structural weight penalty is smaller. (This actually seems almost impossible)
 
http://aviationweek.com/commercial-aviation/boeing-ditches-drag-reduction-system-777x

Why do I think that this is going to prove to be yet another major blunder on Boeing's part?
 
Grey Havoc said:
http://aviationweek.com/commercial-aviation/boeing-ditches-drag-reduction-system-777x

Why do I think that this is going to prove to be yet another major blunder on Boeing's part?

Could also be that GE and RR are beating their fuel burn targets on the forthcoming PIPs for the 787 engines by a margin that would allow Boeing to delete the feature or make in an option; both engine OEMs missed the fuel burn targets for the 787-8 and 787-9.

I'm hearing that the GE9X might actually beat its fuel burn target at EIS.
 
Latest 777X video detailing the wing design. The fold mechanism seems to be fairly straightforward. Intentionally flexible wings. I don't think wing flex affects aspect ratio. I would guess you could actually make a high aspect "ring wing" just by keeping the chord to perimeter ratio correct.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rzJA6iS39i8
 
Looks like Boeing is "in-sourcing" production of the wings. This part of the original 777 was also built by Boeing so no change but there was a time when ideas of being an integrator only with all major parts outsourced was in vogue. Maybe they had second thoughts post 787.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H2kUosgZmxU
 
It seems so. One of the supposed reasons Alan Mulally was passed over for CEO because he was anti-outsourcing. Bet that's a decision they'd love a do-over on.
 
Moose said:
It seems so. One of the supposed reasons Alan Mulally was passed over for CEO because he was anti-outsourcing. Bet that's a decision they'd love a do-over on.

Probably a safe bet there.
 
Jim NcNerney said as much a few years ago. People remember his "moonshot" comment, but not the associated comment that they outsourced too much of the 787 and needed to keep key capital and technical investments (e.g, full-length composite wings) in house.
 
http://www.gereports.com/the-art-of-engineering-the-worlds-largest-jet-engine-shows-off-composite-curves/

777X engine
 
ADVANCEDBOY said:
I just hope Boeing would have learnt from experience with Ducommun Inc, when resorting to outsourcing everything.

The danger that has to be watched for is that Boeing used to be an aircraft company based in Seattle. Now it is a financial conglomerate based in Chicago, one of whose revenue streams happens to be aircraft.

From an article I linked over in the Boeing 737 MAX family thread:
“Boeing was doing all kinds of things, everything you can imagine, to reduce cost, including moving work from Puget Sound, because we’d become very expensive here,” said Rick Ludtke, a former Boeing flight controls engineer laid off in 2017. “All that’s very understandable if you think of it from a business perspective. Slowly over time it appears that’s eroded the ability for Puget Sound designers to design.”

Rabin, the former software engineer, recalled one manager saying at an all-hands meeting that Boeing didn’t need senior engineers because its products were mature. “I was shocked that in a room full of a couple hundred mostly senior engineers we were being told that we weren’t needed,” said Rabin, who was laid off in 2015.

The typical jetliner has millions of parts -- and millions of lines of code -- and Boeing has long turned over large portions of the work to suppliers who follow its detailed design blueprints.
Starting with the 787 Dreamliner, launched in 2004, it sought to increase profits by instead providing high-level specifications and then asking suppliers to design more parts themselves. The thinking was “they’re the experts, you see, and they will take care of all of this stuff for us,” said Frank McCormick, a former Boeing flight-controls software engineer who later worked as a consultant to regulators and manufacturers. “This was just nonsense.”

Back on topic:
 
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Mind that any company facing such trouble will see a long list of former employee disagreeing with executive management. There is a lot in there to draw any conclusion and only the saying of some, whatever their value is, can't be taken solely as a valid assesment.
It's a pitfull word to use but impartiality should be seek at all time here.
 
Mind that any company facing such trouble will see a long list of former employee disagreeing with executive management. There is a lot in there to draw any conclusion and only the saying of some, whatever their value is, can't be taken solely as a valid assesment.
It's a pitfull word to use but impartiality should be seek at all time here.
Senior Engineers represent this thing called institutional knowledge, and they're worth their weight in gold. Only an MBA would think that they can design complex machinery without one and not face problems.
 
Mind that any company facing such trouble will see a long list of former employee disagreeing with executive management. There is a lot in there to draw any conclusion and only the saying of some, whatever their value is, can't be taken solely as a valid assesment.
It's a pitfull word to use but impartiality should be seek at all time here.
Senior Engineers represent this thing called institutional knowledge, and they're worth their weight in gold. Only an MBA would think that they can design complex machinery without one and not face problems.

So true - I've long held the belief that any MBA should have to pass basic math and physics classes to get their degree.
 
So true - I've long held the belief that any MBA should have to pass basic math and physics classes to get their degree.
I disagree. Saddling management with mandatory physics and math classes is no cure for their arrogance. I think management should be held more personally accountable for their decisions in a court of law. As it is now, once you've risen to certain level in a company's hierarchy, the only way to fall is up.
 
So true - I've long held the belief that any MBA should have to pass basic math and physics classes to get their degree.
I disagree. Saddling management with mandatory physics and math classes is no cure for their arrogance. I think management should be held more personally accountable for their decisions in a court of law. As it is now, once you've risen to certain level in a company's hierarchy, the only way to fall is up.

I'm sorry (well, not really) but a concern of "saddling management" with education sounds really like utterly misplaced empathy(?) to me. Since when is learning about the principles of the universe "saddling" anyone? The point is not to try to cure potential MBAs of their arrogance, but to ensure that would be managers have at least a basic grasp of what is and is not fundamentally possible in the physical world and do not fall for any cockamamie scheme peddled to them that violates basic constraints, so the primary objective would not just be to educate, but also to actively weed out irredeemable idiots and ignorants. But even for the rest, I think occasionally flunking a hard reality based course might be a healthily humbling experience for some would be managers, and even if their arrogance persisted, it would hopefully at least inject more realism into their thinking. But I'm certainly all in for your idea as well - it's not either or, but, to borrow an improv motto, it's yes, and...
 
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When i used the word 'saddling', empathising with management wasn't on my mind.
No single person has all the knowledge needed for decisions in big business. There is simply too much too know, so management has to rely on other people's knowledge - experts. If management ignores expert opinion, this is mostly down to
1) ignorance of the existence of an area of expertise, so no experts were ever asked for their opinion
2) awareness of the existence of an area of expertise, but ignoring expert opinion - hubris/arrogance/groupthink
Outright stupidity would be another, but is rare in big business. I hope.
1) can be remedied with classes in non-MBA subjects. 2) is often due to managers' personalities, which can only be remedied with demotion (rare)/dismissal (even rarer)/criminal prosecution (no example comes to mind)/hitting them over the head with a brick.

With a brick in your hand, all the world looks like management. So yes, everything considered, sometimes classes ARE appropriate.
 

Note that this video was posted (June 22nd) before the latest troubles to hit the MAX program.
 
(Like anybody would trust management anywhere near their project.)

Ironic to see this in a 777 thread seeing as Phil Condit was 777 General Manager before going on to run Boeing, while Alan Mullaly was 777 director of engineering and went on to run Boeing Commercial Airplanes and then Ford. And both trained as aero engineers.
 
(Like anybody would trust management anywhere near their project.)

Ironic to see this in a 777 thread seeing as Phil Condit was 777 General Manager before going on to run Boeing, while Alan Mullaly was 777 director of engineering and went on to run Boeing Commercial Airplanes and then Ford. And both trained as aero engineers.


Not all managers are created equal.
 
And this apply to every environment in fact.
How many time do we see enterprises or states going into trouble because the guys under the "boss" blindly say yes to any decisions . Not only for fear of being fired or punished, but for hope of a promotion.
That is how you see ignorants taking management places because the "boss" likes the obedient, then themselves appoint the most obedient.
It works until the system is hit by a big problem (mostly caused by accumulations of "yes" to stupid decisions made by ignorants) , and the system falls. Best example was Soviet Union.
 

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