Wednesday, August 24, 2016

100 years old

Illustration: Chad Hagen 
This is a little tardy. IEEE Spectrum featured Boeing's anniversary. Remember the date, July 15. Part of the remarks deal with the 787 which was the motivation for this blog.

How is that? Well, the first posts (August 2007) dealt with mission seeds for posts. This Seeds post was updated for a few years with current topics. Too, this was a month after the event (termed Potemkin, another side of the story) in which the company rolled out an empty shell with a lot of hoopla. Marketing had ruled over engineers (Here we go again). That little thing went on for awhile, then, engineers were given their right of driving themselves, and things worked (2011, lookback).

It was about the time that the program was getting its act together that the effects of financial idiocy started to become so public as to be unavoidable. Actually, that took more of my attention as flightblogger (now history) was doing a good job of following developments. The blogger went over to the Wall Street Journal.

But, continuing with the 787. This blog (started in 2008) is still in operation: All things 787. There are other blogs that were reporting their views throughout the process.

A comment on the All things 787 post is interesting. It concerns an early plane that Boeing cannot sell. This is the suggestion.
    For those two 787 frames that are unmarketable, I'd suggest they be donated to the NTSB and FAA for training of emergency crews. Equip one of them to fly unpiloted but controlled from a chase plane and then crash it on a runway that is no longer in use. Firefighters have not yet had to deal with a carbon fiber air frame on fire...with its attendant dangers of toxic fumes and minuscule carbon fibers being released into the air. Key questions would be how to suppress the flames quickly at such a crash site and how to properly outfit the firefighters. Full body hazmat suits? Special masks and air filters? What precautions need to be taken in terms of the spread of toxic fumes and fibrils into the surrounding community? (etc.)

    Such training has not yet been done. Are major airports properly equipped and fire crews adequately trained for this new situation?
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In general, many areas have crept up over the years that are of concern. Of late, Quora has offered a platform to use answering questions as a manner to organize material and thoughts. Activity here will start up, again, sometime in the future. In the meantime, congratulations to Boeing.

Remarks: Modified: 08/24/2016

08/24/2016 --

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