My pleasure.

The whole 787 project was put together in a rush only to create competition on economies of scale for the Airbus A380 and to convince the airlines that they can fly at a cheaper cost. Now I am all for innovation but not at the cost of cutting corners and especially not if its an aeroplane.

Airbus took more than a decade to develop that giant whereas Boeing took a fraction of that time to develop their 787. And funny enough they didn't even thought of this idea until they saw that their lobbying against A380 wasn't working as the big bird was racking up new orders without any problems.

You think the 380 is selling well? Erm, no.

I wasn't talking about right now. But when they first introduced it, it didn't do so bad.

That's encouraging. My heated jacket has a Li-ion battery, er, in it.

The planes I find most "comfortable" on are 747s and 767s. I have no idea why.

Actually Boeing don't make many parts... they just put the A/C together in Charleston, which doesn't have the expertise available in Seattle...that's been their problem. They tried to crush the Union in Seattle by moving the B787 manufacturing to S.C. which has anti-union rules.

The batteries are made by Yuasa in Japan.

is this a good thing?

Dreamliner: Where in the world its parts come from - Jan. 18, 2013


"The Dreamliner is assembled at Boeing's two facilities in Everett, Wash., and North Charleston, S.C.

But its parts come from around the world. About 70% are supplied by American companies and 30% are outsourced, said Boeing spokesman Larry Wilson, which is about the same ratio as similar Boeing aircraft. Wilson declined to provide the exact dollar value of parts.

Among its major American suppliers are Iowa-based Rockwell Collins (COL), which makes the Dreamliner's communications and pilot control systems; Kansas-based Spirit AeroSystems Holdings, which provides the fuselage parts; General Electric (GE), which produces the engines; and Honeywell (HON), which supplies the navigation systems and flight control electronics".

Does this mean the battery supplier problems with Boeing have been fixed?

GYLP and The Boeing Company Enter into Long Term Agreement | GSYuasa Lithium Power

Last I heard, there hadn't been any serious battery problems since they modified the design to make it less likely to catch fire. But I'm still not convinced of the case for building lithium batteries into planes. One aircraft loss probably costs more than all the money saved from reducing the weight by a couple of hundred pounds.

From what I remember, the A380 was designed to carry lots and lots of people between hub airports, and came into service around the time people realized that having to fly from your home airport to a hub to another hub to get to your destination airport really sucks.

Why wouldn't it be? All "manufacturers" buy-in their components from people that know how to make them well.

It is perhaps no coincidence that Dowty has a facility close to Mirabel airport, where Bombardier has a plant to build planes.

I'm no battery expert but I believe all those satellites above us use Lithium-ion batteries and I haven't heard of any problems. Most smartphones use them and men keep this 'so-called' danger in their pocket, next to the family jewels...

All new aircraft have teething problems and, fortunately, the B787 battery problem didn't cause any injury. The early Comet's (first commercial jet) square window design caused many deaths.

I'm sure that Yuasa and Boeing are fully aware of their responsibility...no-one purposely designs a battery bank to go on fire. I would be confident that they've re-designed their battery connections to be safe but await any future failures with trepidation.

+1

Fires behave very differently in space. And whatever batteries they use are typically only big enough to keep essential things running during an eclipse, when the solar panels can't see the sun.

If I remember correctly, the problem with the original 787 batteries was not that they caught fire at an unusual rate, but that fires would spread from one cell to the next, rather than burn out one cell and stop.

And consumer electronics batteries catch fire fairly often. And have caused at least one cargo plane crash.

Pedantically speaking, it wasn't so much the windows as the management decision to use rivets to hold them in instead of glue. The window design just increased the stress on the rivets, and accelerated the metal fatigue failure at the rivet holes. Had they been glued in as designed, they'd probably have been OK even though the stress around the window corners was higher than they'd calculated.

Edit: looks like the FAA aren't convinced that lithium batteries on aircraft are safe, either: http://www.wsj.com/article_email/air...MTI2NzUyOTc4Wj

1. Thanks for the info...I appreciate that space is a different environment and battery banks are a back-up source...just as they are on aircraft. I was only adding that there appears no problem with the li-on battery versus other types.
2. Exactly...the batteries for the B787 are of one manufacturer. The A350 uses another manufacturer and different design. I'm not aware they've had similar problems.
3. And yet the FAA & EASA allow them in the cabin...maybe 400+ of them.
4. Thanks for the precise details...I only mentioned the Comet in context of my previous comment regarding teething problems.
5. The FAA and EASA are prudent regulators and hopefully can agree on this.

Slightly off-subject.... but the American and European Aviation Safety Boards have always protected each country's manufacturer's interest that sometimes conflicts with the public's interest. They use any legislative trick to gain advantage without looking at the bigger picture.
I recall that USA cancelled its Supersonic Flight programs as the Concorde was coming into service...they basically cut-off any collaberation between the two countries so that we (Joe Public) have been denied any mutual development of commercial SST... and now fly slower than we did 40 years ago.
i.e. I flew the VC10 and Convair 880 at mach 0.88 on short flights and Mach 0.82 for long range....today's Airbus and Boeings all fly at around Mach 0.78...

OMG this is rapidly turning into the sort of dinner table conversation I get.

As far as developments after Concorde, they're talking about suborbital aircraft now.

I went on Concorde once, still got a leather Concorde luggage tag unopened in the wrapper. That was cool, landing on the east coast of the US before the takeoff time in the UK.

As far as lithium ion batteries go, this is why I don't have any stock in Tesla.

Forget about whether they catch fire, the problem is if other things catch fire around them. If you've got one of these Tesla battery packs in your basement and your house catches fire, that could be interesting.