What are Boeing's plans?

On Sat, 18 Sep 2004 at 10:07:50 in message
, Peter Stickney
wrote:

Without a doubt, for revenue service. An inflight emergency on the
San Fran-Hawaii leg would have meant a lost airplane due to fuel
exhaustion, in most cases. Plus, even the shorter legs are still
damned long - Even if you duplicated the route of the Pan Am flying
boats - San Francisco-Honolulu-Midway-Wake-Manila-Hong Kong -
it's still unworkable wrt safety, and the stops would have added
tremendously to the travel time, annoyed the passengers, and shortened
the life of the airframes.

I am pretty sure that a Concorde flying from London to New York could
be forced to descend halfway across to subsonic cruise and still make
the destination. As I recall it was postulated that it might
occasionally be necessary due to a sudden upsurge of Solar radiation.
Radiation levels were monitored on the aircraft. A loss of one engine
could also be dealt with in the same way.

Just dug out a Concorde brochure, written when they still optimistically
hoped to sell many and fly them all around the world.

Pacific routes are included as follows

West Coast of USA; Anchorage, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San
Diego and Acapulco were all shown as legs to Honolulu. Onward links from
Honolulu were to Tokyo and to Auckland and Sydney via a stop at Nandi.

West Coast USA to Australia in 2 stops - that's all.

Other routes include London to Vancouver and Los Angeles via Churchill
in Canada and flown subsonic over the USA to Los Angeles.

I am not convinced that the subsonic range of Concorde was
significantly different from the supersonic range.

--
David CL Francis

"David CL Francis" wrote in message
...
Just dug out a Concorde brochure, written when they still optimistically
hoped to sell many and fly them all around the world.

Pacific routes are included as follows

West Coast of USA; Anchorage, Seattle, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San
Diego and Acapulco were all shown as legs to Honolulu. Onward links from
Honolulu were to Tokyo and to Auckland and Sydney via a stop at Nandi.

West Coast USA to Australia in 2 stops - that's all.

If any more Concordes had been made, they would have been the
"B" model. These would have had leading edge devices and other
high lift tricks to lower take-off and lading speed. They also had
more efficient engines. They apparently would have used 30% less
fuel, giving the plane a longer range (I'm not sure I have this absolutely
right, I'm quoting from my memory of reading Brian Trubshaw's
autobiography).

Regarding paying back of the design costs, it may well have happened
if the airlines had taken up the 70+ options they initially specified.

Of course, as has been mentioned, the venture as a whole continues
to pay in the guise of Airbus.

Paul

Smutny wrote:

The bottom line is that Boeing as we've known it for 88 years is no
more. As a Seattle resident, it pains me to see the plants being torn
down, to see engineering and sales buildings turned into parking lots
where the circus sets up a couple times a year.

BAe has done this to Hatfield ( formerly owned by Hawker Siddeley and de
Havilland ) , the home of the jet airliner, just to name one significant
product made there.

Oh, sure, the management said they would *never* close Hatfield.

The real estate was worth too much as a business park and BAe wanted to
concentrate on defence contracts instead of commercial.

Sounds kinds similar.


Graham

well I hope boeing comes out of this and stays alive, from a pilot
perspective I'm not a fan of joysticks on the side for flight controls and
i've worked around them.. they're pretty aircraft, I just wouldn't want to
fly in that cockpit.

Matthew

"Matthew Chidester" wrote in message news:pXs3d.13921$wV.2523@attbi_s54...
well I hope boeing comes out of this and stays alive, from a pilot
perspective I'm not a fan of joysticks on the side for flight controls and
i've worked around them.. they're pretty aircraft, I just wouldn't want to
fly in that cockpit.


I think allowing FBW on transports was stupid in the first place.

Allowing Boeing to buy McDonnell-Douglas was a bad idea, however.
Even though McDD management were idiots, having only one major
aircraft company just isn't smart.

Ted Azito wrote:

Allowing Boeing to buy McDonnell-Douglas was a bad idea, however.

bad idea if all what you are goin gto do with the newly acquyired
company is to DESTROY it.

--
Fritz

Matthew Chidester wrote:

737 next generation a mistake? they just got a huge order from the navy to
replace the p-3...

I agree, it seems like Canadair and Embraer will take over the small stuff
and most start up airlines are sticking with Airbus (lower maintenance
costs?)

Don't forget, the A320 series includes the A318 now ( 108 seats IIRC ). I was
quite surprised that the A318 was developed as a result of customer demand (
Lufthansa ? ) but when you consider that the A320 series encompasses a greater
than 2:1 pax capacity with unified sytems - it kinds makes sense.

I wish someone would post the prices and performance of the aircraft
so we could compare and see why airlines pick the planes they do.

I wish ! Of course that would also depend on your ( the airlines ) accounting
methods too.


Graham

Thomas Borchert wrote:

Jarg,

Because we like American companies to be successful as it translates into
more jobs and more money for Americans!

And who would be "we"? This is the Internet, not the USAnet.

Mercuns tend to forget they're not the planet's only technically competent
inhabitants.


More to the point: A large portion of the A380 (40 percent, IIRC) will be
built in the US.

It will ?

Where did you hear that ? News to me.


You ever heard of this new-fangled thing called globalizaton? It's here,
man.

It also involves many 'first world' nation jobs being outsourced to mainly
asian countries. I see trouble looming as the asian countries get the expertise
and no longer require *us* !

I speak from some experience of the situation.


Graham

Pooh,


Hmm, I looked for the article I read that number in, but can't find it.
Will try to call Airbus later today to verify. But if you consider the
amount of avionics and standard aviation equipment going in, it makes
sense.

I see trouble looming as the asian countries get the expertise
and no longer require *us* !


Oh, I agree. Fully.

--
Thomas Borchert (EDDH)

Smutny wrote:

As I mentioned, it is in the long run. I didn't say that the 737 in
all its variations was a mistake. That would be ignoring the
historical sales figures.

And they go back a long, long way !


What I was pointing to was that Boeing should have continued the
product line commonality idea started with the 757/767, bringing to
market a whole new airframe to replace the narrowbody fleet. That
design would have been reaching full production about now. Instead,
they opted to re-hash, for a third time, a 1960's design.

So..... Airbus's idea of making multiple capacity variants of the ( 737
competitor ) A320 ( A318, A319, A320, A321 ) was more sensible I guess ? Same
cockpit - same operating procedures - same handling ( fbw ) .

Then they made bigger twin aisle versions ( A330, A340 ) with the same flight
controls and similar handling - making conversion very easy.

Was that what you reckoned Boeing should have done after 757/767 ?


Boeing has put itself in the precarious position now of developing a
new design as the worlds major airlines are struggling.

A380 is a pretty new concept too ! Mind you, I saw a documentary where Airbus's
Chief Exec simply jokingly described it as an A330 stuck on top of an A340 !

Similar cockpit ( but somewhat larger ), controls and handling to other fbw
airbuses are promised. Ease of conversion once again.


Graham