While the hunt for the root cause of the 787 battery problems continues, at least one aspect of Boeing's urgent recovery strategy is coming into sharper focus. The company remains adamant in its faith in the current lithium-ion technology and sees no fundamental reason to change its view as the pressure builds to return the airliner to service. (www.aviationweek.com) More...
Yes they do! In this day and age of couch potatoes and obesity Boeing have decided to remove all the seats from their 787's and replace them with modified exercise bikes with generators linked into the a/c systems.
Trying to save 100 lbs in battery weight for what - a single $1000 seat or less. Not very smart management, engineering, maintenance and or stock holder decisions when you lose millions of dollars because an aircraft sits on the ground because of what - something NEW. Sorry folks, LITHIUM IS OLD and is not proven under demand. The data sheets are for the FEDS and all involved know they are false. Try not fixing something that works for a change because it really does work. Hey, lithium is great for milliamps! Think heat! Can't do that as I am not on that aircraft.................
Perhaps Ni-Cads are in order. Knowing a change of battery will require extensive testing and recertification of the system...it may get the jet back in the air sooner. Perhaps their is something inherent in the 'incident aircraft' involved. Have batteries been reinstalled in the ANA aircraft and aircraft become operational (test flights) , of course with much monitoring equipment of the battery electrical system. Appears the Boston aircraft by photos needs much work to get it back in configuration. Appears to just sit there on the tarmac at Logan. I think the idea of several smaller capacity batteries may have merit. Hope this issue is resolved soon.
Obama has made such a commitment to the Chinese, that they have to keep using those deadly batteries. It is lithium ion batteries that have caused fires in nearly every car brand they are used in! One man had both of his Fisker "elecrtic" cars burn up and destroy both of his houses!
JW...please do your homework...the company who is the main contractor is in the US. Key word is "whistleblower" + "lithium" + "787" enter that into your search engine then make a judgement. The Japanese companies I know do exactly what you tell them to do. This could well be a flawed plate with a nano scale flaw, but hell JW the main contractor has already had one fire that burned the place to a cinder. They have already had to change out over 200 of these batteries on the extended test flights.
we can not give up so easily on new technology. i think BA has the brain power to make them work. in the long run it will be the right decision, even if it takes more time and effort to move forward with what it is a much better battery than what it is already out there. i'm sure airbus is sticking also to lithium.
FAA employed nine “special conditions” to certify the use of lithium ion batteries on the 787 since such high-powered batteries were “novel” in a commercial aircraft.
