MetaFilter posts tagged with Boeing

More delays with the Boeing 787

crapmatic — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 01:15:00 -0800

Bob Bogash's diatribe spells out the saga of a corporate trainwreck regarding the Boeing 787 widebody project, his readers responding with a slew of theories. Bob, incidentally, was a manager at Boeing's commercial group. The Boeing 787 rollout was celebrated in 2007 right here on MeFi when the prototype was rolled out. Two years later the plane remains grounded with development costs approaching $10 billion, and Boeing announced further setbacks in a conference call yesterday. The hobbyists and pros and the press weigh in on the news. Bob's site not only addresses the 787 program but raises larger questions about oblique technical and management dichotomies in America's Fortune 500 board rooms.

Now, where did I put that plane factory?

hrbrmstr — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 13:28:07 -0800

Hiding in "plane" sight. Images and details of the significant efforts made by the United States to prevent the Japanese from bombing our west coast aircraft factories. I wonder what this effort would take today to "fool" Google Maps/Earth. From the article: "The idea of deceiving the enemy as to what you are doing is not new. Trying to hide individual items from observation is not new, trying to hide whole factories from aerial bombing during The Second World War was new. After December 7, 1941 the Lockheed and Boeing aircraft factories along the West Coast were put under netting to try and hide them from Japanese aircraft attack."

Fly the biofuel skies…

Artw — Thu, 08 Jan 2009 10:21:53 -0800

Today Boeing completed the first test flight of a commercial jet-liner using a mix of conventional jet-fuel and a fuel created from algae and the african weed jatropha. Boeing hopes that biofueled flights will be common in just three years.

Boeing 777 PTQ

backseatpilot — Thu, 01 May 2008 09:12:11 -0800

Boeing 777 assembled in 4:13 (SLYT)

How Life is different from Top Gun

LarryC — Sun, 02 Mar 2008 20:52:21 -0800

After taking possession of a brand spankin' new Boeing 777-300ER airliner, the pilot decided to celebrate by buzzing the airfield, landing gear retracted, at 28 feet above the ground [YouTube]. Killjoy airline executives promptly fired his ass.

Watch Boeing launch the 787 live

salishsea — Fri, 06 Jul 2007 13:46:54 -0800

Boeing launches its new plane, the 787, this weekend: 07/08/07. Check it out now or watch it live on Sunday.

Unmarked planes and Hidden Geographies

tellurian — Fri, 16 Feb 2007 06:31:28 -0800

An interesting project from the latest Vectors Journal. "Legend has it that Paglen, who has been called the Fox Mulder of cultural geography, was personally instrumental in provoking the military to extend the perimeter around Area 51 by several miles in an attempt to thwart one of his counter-surveillance efforts" [via]

Hey Airbus, let's see your A380 do this.

brownpau — Wed, 21 Jun 2006 08:31:25 -0800

Do a Barrel Roll! [emvedded WMV, or view it on YouTube here] Test pilot Tex Johnston shows off the capabilities of Boeing's new 367-80 "Dash 80" prototype -- which would later become the Boeing 707 -- at a 1955 air show. The barrel roll (or aileron roll to others), done twice, was a no-hazard 1G maneuver for the Dash 80, but thoroughly impressed the crowd. Following the roll, it's said that William Allen turned to an elderly attender to ask for heart attack pills. You can still view the Dash-80 today at its final resting place, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum's Udvar-Hazy Center.

Luttig resigns Fourth Circuit post.

monju_bosatsu — Wed, 10 May 2006 09:28:11 -0800

Luttig Resigns. Judge J. Michael Luttig, long considered a front-runner for a Supreme Court nomination, at least until he was passed over by President Bush, has resigned his position on the Fourth circuit. Luttig will take over as general counsel to Boeing. Read Boeing's press release and Luttig's resignation letter [pdf].

The Boeing 737, Nose to Tail

breezeway — Wed, 27 Apr 2005 08:49:37 -0800

All things 737: aircraft systems, pilots' notes, deliveries and fleet movements, production methods, technical photographs, blended winglets, rudder news, illustrated history, accident reports, Q's and A's. Know it all? Take the quiz.

You're Fired! I Quit!

nj_subgenius — Tue, 08 Mar 2005 18:26:51 -0800

Stonecipher Out At Boeing. While it may seem Harry Stonecipher, the Savior of Boeing, quit over an affair, is that all there is to it?

Dream Bloat

Turtle — Sun, 26 Dec 2004 13:29:27 -0800

Everything's bigger in Toulouse. The world's biggest plane has started rolling off assembly lines and is expected to take its first flight in March 2005. The quarter-billion-dollar, twin-deck, four-aisle plane can carry 555 passengers. Thanks to its design's outsized wings, future versions of the economical plane may carry as many as 800 passengers.
With the A380, Airbus hopes to do to Boeing what Boeing did to its competitors over 30 years ago with the 747. Already, Airbus Industrie has outsold and out-delivered Boeing for the last two years. But don't boycott just yet! It turns out the A380 is 51% American-made. Parts are so big they don't fit in this whale-like record-size transporter (though this Russian monster may have a claim); they are transported to Toulouse on a barge. More pics. Let's hope this latest high-tech aerospace gamble does better than the last one.
Europe, of course (troll alert), already makes the world's biggest truck, the fastest trains, the best cars (sorry Japan), and the most successful rocket launchers.
On a darker topic, 10 years ago, French commandos boarded an Airbus and killed Islamic terrorists planning to fly it into the Eiffel Tower.

Flying the Dot-Com Skies

b1tr0t — Fri, 15 Oct 2004 16:33:57 -0800

It has been four years since the dot-coms crashed, sweeping ideas like mylacky.com, pets.com and kozmo.com into the circular file. The remaining survivors have been remarkably successful. Google owns the search space and has redefined web mail. Orbitz and Expedia take most of the pain out of travel planning and reservations. Tenzing has spent close to half a decade pushing for IFE certification for Linux. Once properly certified, they built a system light enough, cheap enough, and reliable enough for installation aboard aircraft. All this effort just so you can read email the next time you travel by air. Aerospace giant Boeing is hard at work on a similar product but their demonstration is far more limited than start-up Tenzing's. (no, not that Tenzing)

Two years ago - a tremendous tragedy.

tcp — Thu, 01 Jul 2004 02:15:38 -0800

On 1 July 2002 at 21:35:32 hrs a collision between a Tupolev TU154M, which was on a flight from Moscow/Russia to Barcelona/ Spain, and a Boeing B757-200, on a flight from Bergamo/Italy to Brussels/ Belgium, occurred north of the city of Ueberlingen (Lake of Constance). Investigation Report as of May 2004, PDF. Very detailed, intelligibly written.

71 people were killed in one of Europe's worst peacetime air accidents. The report comes the the conclusion that human error was the main cause. The TCAS system (PDF) which should have prevented the collision worked, but the Tupolew crew followed the ATC instructions. It turned out that the air traffic controller missed a key warning on his radar screen in one of a chain of errors. ATCs from nearby airports realized what was going on but weren't able to contact the responsible Skyguide controller because the telephone network did not work: the main telephone line was switched off because of work being done on the telephone network, and the collision warning system was temporarily shut down for maintenance.
The ATC in charge was stabbed to death in February 2004 by a Russian man who lost his wife, son and daughter in the plane crash.

Jet Boy

jontyjago — Fri, 07 Nov 2003 01:23:49 -0800

Get the plane out of the garage for me would you dear? Not only is John Travolta a qualified pilot (to commercial level) he has his own Boeing 707. And what does any self respecting jetliner owner do? Buy a house with a 1.4 mile runway attached and taxi on up to the door of course...

Oh, and if you hear "Bring your Daughter to the Slaughter" blaring out from the cockpit next time you fly, don't worry it's probably just Iron Maiden singer Bruce Dickinson at the controls.

JollyWanker — Mon, 27 Oct 2003 12:26:31 -0800

I'm not a conspiracy theorist. I don't even play one on TV. But every once in a while, I run across the website of one of these individuals that, in its own way, at least appears to make sense. Using photos from the US Army, the DOD and the US Marine Corps., this English translation of a French site asks, "Can you find the Boeing 757 that 'crashed' into the Pentagon on 9/11/01?" [Linked page scrolls to the right, not down as one might expect...]

Boeing 307 Stratoliner

SealWyf — Thu, 07 Aug 2003 06:26:37 -0800

Flying Cloud flies for the last time On Wednesday, August 6, the last Boeing 307 Stratoliner landed at Dulles [WaPo; may require registration]. [more] [more] [more] This was the plane that ditched off Seattle in March, 2002 after being fully restored. Now, re-restored, it has arrived at its final destination, the Smithsonian's new Hazy Center. Dry eyes were a rare commodity.

If we let anyone fly planes, the terrorists have won...

Irontom — Mon, 23 Dec 2002 07:59:36 -0800

Buy a Flight Manual, Get a Grand Jury Subpoena? A guy qualified to fly and instruct on the Boeing 737 buys a CD on Ebay that contains the ground course for the same plane. Then the FBI gets involved, and, courtesy of section 501 (d) of the "USA Patriot Act", he can no longer even discuss the issue. [more inside]

Irontom — Wed, 23 Oct 2002 08:50:28 -0800

"Bird of Prey" unveiled. Boeing revealed the formerly supersecret stealth prototype last Friday in St. Louis. More information at: a New Scientist story, a Popular Science report, Jane's Defense Weekly (subscription required), Boeing's press release and a couple of movies (13 Mb mov or 50 Mb mpg). More...

titboy — Mon, 16 Sep 2002 19:40:16 -0800

Looks like Boeing finally decided to exploit the wing-in-ground effect. Did they get inspired by the most famous ekranoplan ever, the Caspian Sea Monster?

knutmo — Mon, 01 Jul 2002 16:08:51 -0800

Tupulev and Boeing crash in Germany A tupulev and a boeing crashed in southern germany. Number of victims yet unknown.

password — Fri, 03 May 2002 09:50:30 -0800

Boeing creates "flying machine" called a "Blimp." They say it will be used for homeland defense. Ha. I doubt they can get it off the ground. Blimp - what hogwash, indeed.

fpatrick — Thu, 11 Apr 2002 06:02:25 -0800

"Heck with the tiger. What about the plane in the driveway." Maybe this plane was piloted by an invisible network of terrorists aiming to disrupt LA traffic.

skyscraper — Thu, 28 Mar 2002 13:45:59 -0800

Boeing 307 Stratoliner lands in Puget Sound If you're in downtown Seattle, take a look across the Sound towards Alki - somebody's restored Boeing Stratoliner is semi-submerged near shore. Hope everybody's okay. Anybody know who's plane this is?

dabitch — Mon, 18 Mar 2002 06:52:48 -0800

Remember the missing boeing? Well, the man behind that revelation has now come out with a book that will blow all previous conspiracy theories out of the water. (and by conspiracy theories i don't mean 9/11 - but also who shot JFK, etc). Interesting way to get rich.