The first Boeing (NYSE: BA) 787 Dreamliner to be assembled in South Carolina rolled out of final assembly today to great fanfare from the crowd of nearly 7,000 Boeing employees and invited guests. The festival-like atmosphere, featuring aerial displays, music and entertainment, was a fitting celebration to commemorate assembly completion of the first 787 built at the North Charleston, S.C., facility. (boeing.mediaroom.com) More...
@ ant mira... Better late then never.... really?!?!? when the airbus380 is having wing cracks left and right but then you have the qantas airbus 380 that went out of service almost a year ago with an engine blow out and a wing crack yes better late then never.... maybe when they were building that aircraft they should have thought out there design a little better... or when you had the luthansa flight that the landing gear got stuck on there airbus a380.... ANA has gotten 2 of there 787's but still not a problem.... air india took there 787 not a problem there...
Oh yes, ANA had one somewht scary moment when the LG would not come dow, and another less important glitch. Teethng problmes arfe found even in thee best of families and no airframe manufacturer gest out a new ship performing 100% perfect in the first year or two and the jury is still out as to how well the 787 composite material will withstand the rigours of real word stresses.
Hiya Chalet...agree on the concern on how the composites will perform. I have a feeling that they have been tested beyond the usual 1.5 to 1.6 failure loadings. Loads at cold ambient temps are the issue, but I an guessing this has been tested too.
Hi Roland. Stresses over years are just like bending a paperclip over and back a few times and it is called metal fatigue. I am sure that Boeing tested the hell out of samples of different structural components but sometimes that is not enough, the actual test is in actual flying.
Yes I agree..so far I have noted these...brittleness at high temp, reaction to glycol anti ice fluids, reaction to kerosine fumes. In theory your bending a paper clip should not be a big prob because the composites are so tightly bound down at nonometer level. However we have yet to see how liquids mention above could degrade the material. An ingress of any of these could well lead to stress fracture. Then of course there is the human element who forgets this is made of composites and applies methods and repairs that ere designed for alu skins...in p ractice this means using the wrong fasteners mechanial...and glue..chemical. We shall see...
Everybody remembers what happened to the first Comets, compressing air into the fuselage equivalent to 9,000 ft. altitude wasn't it and exhaling it when landing and square-shaped windows making it even worse.
The Boeing South Carolina plant rolled out its very first 787. Some cool photos on the URL above. This other URL under this paragraph is to another article about it.
