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 --

Recap needed

Of late, I have been in a warp that I never thought that I would see with business as run sanely. To see the particulars, see the lone post in June and July of this year in this blog. Yes, indeed. Caught in a vicious cycle of phone passing back and forth.

At times, it seemed to be strategic which was depressing. How did the business sense stoop so low? Well, consumerism might be a factor. So many people, so complicated trying to handle so much flow of stuff, and then the inevitable issues related to bad quality.

Except that I had not experienced inferior quality from the company, at least, not in the few transactions that I had taken. Rather, it was a choice of not wanting something. Could not tell until I had the thing in hand.

However, these was one quality concern, albeit not of significance because the things was cheap. So, you get what you pay for.

Cheap? Yes, less than $500. Now, that little bit, compared to the billions of those at top, is like a wart. But, to real folks, that does represent something. Too, though, one ought to get some type of response to a query.

But, then, too, talking to oodles of people per day can get tiring and tedious, I would suppose. Too, those who are answering the phone may not have the full picture. So, they have to assume.

That was why I was told many times that I was the problem. Yes. As I mentioned in the June post, someone told me to listen up, and they would explain. But, it was simple algebra being mangled. Oh well. That was rectified, but it was by going to Uncle Sam.

This time I went, on advice, to the Better Business Bureau. Ah, I feel for those folks. This one firm had 5K complaints in the last 3 years. BBB is not set up for that. Other firms, of the same nature, had 1000s of complaints. What? These companies owe BBB some money and respect.

Well, perhaps there may be acceptance, as the issue was resolved within a week. In fact, I heard back the next day. But, and I can give details, the guy that called was a jerk. Saying, listen up. Again. So, I let him ramble. They had a poor excuse. One wonders how often that has been used.

Well, BBB does have data. It might be worth studying if it were not too damned depressing. 1000s of complaints. Kudos to you, BBB.

In some sense, the problem came from a complicated system getting people confused. Well, we might expect that. And, according to some foreseers, that type of thing will become even worse. But, some of this just might be to only let those who persist get their proper completion. Otherwise, the expectation may be to have people give up.

How is this type of thing accounted for? Does the reward stay with the contractor who is doing the deed for the business?

As the young folks say, just saying. It's not my world.

Remarks: Modified: 08/11/2016

08/11/2016 --