Odds and Ends: Boeing’s presence in Seattle; 747-8 future; Japan awaits 787 NTSB hearings; Airport delays

Boeing’s presence in Seattle: Bill Virgin, a respected local journalist and observer of aerospace and manufacturing, wrote this column for the Tacoma News-Tribune looking at Boeing’s future presence in the Seattle area.

The points Virgin raise are valid, and in total have been discussed for years here. We raised some of these points as far back as April 2009 in a speech to a local economic development group.

Parochially, of course, we want to see Boeing stay here. Putting on our business hat, we can make a solid argument for Boeing’s diversification. We see Charleston becoming to Everett what Hamburg is to Toulouse: a major, major manufacturing center and aerospace cluster.

We are firmly convinced that when the day comes Boeing designs an all-new airplane to replace the 737, South Carolina will be its assembly home and Renton’s facility will close, to be given over to mixed use development along the lines of what’s called Renton Landing. Boeing’s “move to the lake” has been years in the planning and years in the making. We don’t believe it is over.

What about Everett? We see the future of Everett solid for at least a generation and probably a lot longer, at least until the 787 production begins to wind down. Local politicians fear Boeing will assemble the forthcoming 777X somewhere else. We don’t think so. The 777 tooling is here, the skilled workforce is here and it wouldn’t make sense to build a derivative elsewhere, just as it didn’t make sense to build the 737 MAX anywhere but Renton. Furthermore, we firmly believe the 777X will kill off the nearly morbid 747-8I. This will free up space to build the 777X here.

747-8 Future: The Puget Sound Business Journal last week published a long story about the inter-relationship between the 777X and the 747-8I, an its impact on the struggling program. On the same day the story was published (Friday), Boeing announced a production rate cut in the program from 2/mo to 1.75/mo. We had expected a deeper cut. One consultant we spoke with on Friday suggests Boeing will do what it can to keep the 747-8 alive pending recapitalization of the 747 at the USAF–in other words for Air Force One and the Doomsday aircraft. We’ve been saying the former for quite a while but had not thought about the latter. But there are only four aircraft. Still, the prestige of having the 747 as Air Force One is worth a lot.

The PSBJ article is here: PSBJ 747 041913

Japan Awaits Hearings: Japanese regulators are waiting for the Boeing 787/Japan Air Lines hearings by the National Transportation Safety Board this week before deciding whether to approve a return-to-service by the aircraft, according to this news report.

Airport Delays: You can track airport delays resulting from controller layoffs here.

Working together in Boston

I’m going to exercise my blog-owner prerogative to make a major deviation from the aerospace focus to talk about the Boston Marathon events.

The government response to what happened was superb. There can be no other word for it. There have already been a number of stories about the disaster response planning by Boston and how it provided instantaneous response to the injured. Lives were saved because of the rapid-response.

The ability to identify the suspects—not only in the videos but within hours their names—and then track them down is astounding. Certainly citizen cooperation made this possible. NBC News reported the FBI had about 25,000 hours of video to review provided by security cameras and citizens. How this could have been done in such a short period of time is bewildering. I haven’t seen anything to detail how many hours of video actually was reviewed before the suspects stood out, but according to news reports the key video came from a security camera mounted on the roof of a store.

Video Surveillance

Here is Seattle, there is a debate currently going on about the police erecting video cameras along an area called Alki Beach. Civil libertarians are concerned about invasion of privacy and police misconduct. Given the history of Seattle Police in recent years abusing civil rights, the concerns are particularly on-point here. But the video presence in Boston, contributing to the swift identification of the Marathon Bombers, certainly raises a solid argument for installing these.

There is a national debate over whether law enforcement should be allowed to use drones, or Unmanned Aerial Vehicles. The critics cite the same civil libertarian concerns as they do with the street cameras. While there has been no indication I’ve seen that UAVs were used in Boston, it was clear that helicopters were.

I have a hard time understanding the difference between “plain view” observation by helicopters, cameras or UAVs. UAVs, which are cheaper to buy and cheaper to operate than helicopters, could easily have aided law enforcement as they searched for the Marathon Bombers, vastly increasing their reach. Whether it would have made a difference in faster apprehension (which was pretty fast as it was) will forever be speculative. But “plain view” is “plain view.” UAVs don’t change that.

Government in General

Survivalists and many politicians like to bash government as being Big and Bad. There is plenty to criticize about government, and I’ve been known to do so on more than one occasion. But I served on appointed city boards for eight years and with this experience came both the good and the bad. The good is understanding that, for whatever differences in philosophy that often lead to sometimes bitter debate, those serving in government want to make things better—however “better” is defined by competing interests. The bad comes from the inefficiencies, bureaucracies and sometimes plain incompetence.

Local, State and Federal governments came together in Boston to respond to the initial tragedies. Then they came together to identify the bombers. Then they came together in one of the largest manhunts in American history. Government at its best.

But the very government agencies involved face huge budget cuts because of Sequester and a view by Republicans that all taxes are bad. If nothing demonstrates that taxes are needed to fund government, Boston certainly does.

I’m not a blind-eyed defender of taxes or of irresponsible spending. But will there ever be any event to wake up Washington (DC) that common sense must prevail? Citizens of all stripes and ideologies worked together in Boston. Common sense and common purpose prevailed there. Wouldn’t it be nice if the politicians in Washington acted as well as Boston?

Odds and Ends: How Alabama won Airbus; ANA 787 test flights

How Alabama won Airbus: Bloomberg News has this story detailing how Alabama persuaded Airbus to located an A320 plant in Mobile, after losing the tanker competition.

ANA to conduct 787 test flights: The Japanese airline, which currently has more Boeing 787s than any other carrier, will conduct up to 200 test flights before returning the 787 to service, according to this Reuters report.

Boeing press conference on 787/FAA action

Boeing held a tele-web press conference at 2pm PDT today about the FAA’s approval of the battery fix and authorization to return the 787 to service.

As we prepared to get underway, Boeing clarified some Tweets that referenced 100,000 of engineering work on the battery solutions. At a previous press conference a figure of 200,000 hours was mentioned.

Marc Birtel, a Boeing spokesman, provided this clarification:

The team spent more than 100,000 hours developing test plans, building test rigs, conducting tests and analyzing the results to ensure the proposed solutions met all requirements.

The team spent more than 200,000 engineering hours in all of the work that went into the battery solution.

Mike Sinnett, VP and chief project engineer for the 787 program, provided today’s update. Go below the jump.

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FAA approves 787 fix, return-to-service

Boeing to Begin Modifying 787s as FAA Approves Battery Improvements

– Modifications to existing fleets to begin; deliveries to resume soon

– Boeing to provide customers support for return to service

EVERETT, Wash., April 19, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Today’s approval of battery system improvements for the 787 Dreamliner by the U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) clears the way for Boeing (NYSE: BA) and its customers to install the approved modifications and will lead to a return to service and resumption of new production deliveries.

“FAA approval clears the way for us and the airlines to begin the process of returning the 787 to flight with continued confidence in the safety and reliability of this game-changing new airplane,” said Boeing Chairman, President and CEO Jim McNerney. “The promise of the 787 and the benefits it provides to airlines and their passengers remain fully intact as we take this important step forward with our customers and program partners.”

The FAA’s action will permit the return to service of 787s in the United States upon installation of the improvements. For 787s based and modified outside the United States, local regulatory authorities provide the final approval on return to service.

Approval of the improved 787 battery system was granted by the FAA after the agency conducted an extensive review of certification tests.  The tests were designed to validate that individual components of the battery, as well as its integration with the charging system and a new enclosure, all performed as expected during normal operation and under failure conditions. Testing was conducted under the supervision of the FAA over a month-long period beginning in early March.

“The FAA set a high bar for our team and our solution,” said McNerney. “We appreciate the diligence, expertise and professionalism of the FAA’s technical team and the leadership of FAA Administrator Michael Huerta and Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood throughout this process.  Our shared commitment with global regulators and our customers to safe, efficient and reliable airplanes has helped make air travel the safest form of transportation in the world today.”

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Boeing, SPEEA in-fighting continues

Boeing yesterday said it would be cutting more engineer jobs. Boeing’s engineers’ union, SPEEA, was quick to fire back.

Boeing’s message:

The following message was sent today from Mike Delaney, VP of Engineering for Commercial Airplanes, to all engineering managers.

Employment actions being taken to meet the challenges ahead

My message today provides context and background on actions we are taking regarding the employment level in BCA Engineering.

As we move from a lengthy period of non-recurring development efforts, BCA Engineering will require fewer employees by year-end. Overall, we must reduce our Engineering employment level by 1,500 to 1,700 positions during 2013.

We have already taken action. During the past year, we significantly scaled back external hiring to maximize redeployment opportunities across the function. Since last fall, we also have steadily reduced use of contract employees. Almost 700 contract employees have left the payroll since October 2012, and we will continue that effort where appropriate. Additionally, attrition associated with retirements and other departures has reduced employment. That, too, will continue.

Unfortunately and unavoidably we must take additional actions that will impact some direct employees. Beginning tomorrow and through the rest of 2013 we will issue 60-day layoff notices to as many as 700 employees in our function. On Friday, approximately 100 individuals in the Manufacturing Engineering (ME) skill in the Puget Sound region will receive notices. Those employees are the first to receive layoff notices because they directly support the production system, which has been stabilizing in parts of our major development programs. You may recall that several hundred hourly employees in Manufacturing & Quality also received notices.

This has been a difficult decision. We know layoffs impact individuals and families.

We are taking these actions now for two reasons. First, completion of non-recurring development work on the 747-8, 787-9 and the KC-46 Tanker will result in lower overall Engineering employment requirements. But also, potential development programs for the 787-10X and 777X, which might have provided opportunities to avoid these layoffs, have not been formally approved and launched.

I realize this news may be surprising. Commercial Airplanes has been on an upswing for several years. We continue to ramp up production on our major programs, and the prospect for future development work is very positive. The challenge we are facing is that those yet-to-be-launched programs are too far out for us to maintain present levels of employment.

We hope to mitigate the number of layoffs through the reductions we are making in contract labor, by natural attrition and by not filling many open positions. As we have always done, Boeing will support employees with layoff benefits and career-transition services.

We regret the disruption this situation may cause for some employees and their families but the prudent actions we are taking now will position us to remain competitive and provide future opportunities.

As our management team, please make yourself available for questions and conversations with your team about this situation.

Thanks for all you do for Engineering and Boeing.

Mike

SPEEA’s response:

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Boeing cuts 747-8 production

This is going to be a busy day for Boeing. We’re waiting for word from the FAA to lift the grounding order of the 787 once the Boeing fix is installed and this morning Boeing announced it’s cutting production rates of the 747-8.

EVERETT, Wash., April 19, 2013 /PRNewswire/ — Boeing (BA) announced that it will adjust the production rate for the 747-8 program from two airplanes to 1.75 airplanes per month because of lower market demand for large passenger and freighter airplanes.

Boeing will continue to monitor market conditions and their effect on production rates moving forward. The company expects long-term average growth in the air cargo market to resume in 2014, and forecasts a demand for 790 large airplanes (such as the 747-8 Intercontinental) to be delivered worldwide over the next 20 years.

The 747-8 family provides airlines with double-digit improvements in fuel burn, operating costs and emissions, while being 30 percent quieter and adding more capacity. To date, there are 110 orders for passenger and cargo versions of the 747-8, 46 of which have been delivered.

The first delivery of an airplane at the new production rate is expected in early 2014. The production rate change is not expected to have a significant financial impact.

FAA set to clear 787, Japan may require more: KING 5; production test flights resume

The Federal Aviation Administration appears ready to green-light the Boeing fix to its 787 fleet, but authorities in Japan may not–so reports KING 5 TV (NBC Seattle).

KING 5, The Wall Street Journal and others are reporting the FAA could clear the fix on Friday, April 19.

Meantime, Bloomberg reports Boeing has been authorized to resume test flights of production aircraft.

Odds and Ends: FAA 787 approval could come next week; Ode to an engineer

FAA 787 approval could come next week: Reuters reports that the Federal Aviation Administration could provide a key approval next week that will open the way to the final documentation required to lift the grounding of the Boeing 787. Meantime, and unrelated to the woes of the 787, the FAA has certified the latest performance improvement package for the 787’s GEnx engines.

Ode to a Boeing engineer: Brier Dudley of The Seattle Times has this tribute to a talented Boeing engineer. Then a day later this story of Ken Holtby, another key Boeing engineer, appeared.

Tired of kerosene smell ingested into the cabin on start-up? Hope for this

In the November election, Washington State and Colorado voters approved recreational use of marijuana. As anyone who ever tried MJ knows (except a certain former President, who says he didn’t inhale), MJ has a sweet odor that is very distinctive.

Who has flown an airplane and hasn’t smelled that pungent odor of jet fuel being sucked into the cabin now and then during push-back and start-up (except maybe that former President, if he didn’t inhale then, either)?

Ballard Biofuel in Seattle may have the answer. Let’s all inhale.