737 troubles, the latest news...

[Hazmat]

disregard

[Verbal]

no

[J]

SOUTHWEST AIRLINES BECOMES LAUNCH CUSTOMER FOR THE 737 MAX
On December 13th, Boeing announced that Southwest airlines placed an order for 150 of the 737 MAX and would become the launch customer the new version of the 737.

Source: http://blog.seattlepi.com/airlinereport ... -and-more/

I read elsewhere this will allow retirement of their older 737's and the 717's.

[J]

More trouble:

Boeing signs record $22.4 billion order with Lion Air
Chicago-based Boeing Co. said on Tuesday it signed its largest ever commercial airplane order with Indonesia's Lion Air in a deal worth $22.4 billion.

Boeing said Lion Air, Indonesia's largest carrier by passenger volume, has ordered 230 airplanes, including 201 737 MAXs and 29 next-generation 737-900 ERs.

Lion Air will also acquire purchase rights for an additional 150 airplanes, Boeing said.

* * *
Source: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/ ... 2350.story

[Rabbi O'Genius]

More trouble:

I guess so
http://www.airdisaster.info/forums/view ... f=6&t=4507

[J]

More trouble:

I guess so
http://www.airdisaster.info/forums/view ... f=6&t=4507

I'd forgotten about that.

Dr. Verbal, what Pharmacological and Aeronautical mitigations would you recommend for pilots who choose to smoke Chrystal Meth?

[Verbal]

Dr. Verbal, what Pharmacological and Aeronautical mitigations would you recommend for pilots who choose to smoke Chrystal Meth?

All of them. Hope this helps.

Regards, Dr. Sigmund von Verbal

[J]

Boeing's New No-Drama 737 Jetliner Is Ready for Its Public Debut

Boeing Co.’s latest 737 airliner is gliding through development with little notice, and that may be the plane’s strongest selling point.

Even the customary fanfare accompanying a new plane’s public debut has been muted. While the 737 Max’s rollout is being celebrated Tuesday in private ceremonies outside Seattle, the first plane actually slipped out of a Boeing factory to the paint shop on Nov. 30, meeting to the day a timeline set four years ago.

“It’s saying to the world: ‘We’re back,’ ” said George Hamlin, a former aerospace and airline executive who is now president of Hamlin Transportation Consulting. “It’s a marker to say, ‘We’re back to where we can meet our internal schedule and get development done economically and efficiently.’ ”

Boeing can’t afford delays or drama with the Max, the company’s all-time sales leader and the latest progeny of the jet originally rolled out in 1967. The single-aisle 737 family is Boeing’s largest source of profit, and the planemaker stumbled twice earlier this decade with tardy debuts for its wide-body 787 Dreamliner and 747-8 jumbo jet.

The mandate: “Right at first flight,” Keith Leverkuhn, vice president and general manager of the 737 Max program, told reporters Monday in the Renton, Washington, plant where Boeing builds narrow-body aircraft.

Complicating that task: Boeing must seamlessly slip the new Max into assembly lines already moving at a record flow, and about to speed up even more. The factory churning out 737s is “the closest thing we’ve got to automotive production,” he said.

The Chicago-based planemaker also can’t risk losing any more ground to Airbus Group SE, which grabbed the single-aisle lead by being the first to market an upgraded version with more fuel-efficient engines. Airbus has sold 4,443 of its A320neo models to Boeing’s 2,955 Max sales, according to company websites.

Low-Key Rollout

Boeing’s media session and the employees-only event contrasted with the industry’s usual practice of unveiling new aircraft with flourishes such as live music and dropping curtains. Hamlin said the Max’s low-key exhibitions were “the first major development of a model that I can recall being rolled out privately.”

The Max will slide gradually into public view as pilots start ground tests ahead of the maiden flight due early next year. The plane’s features include new engines, more-aerodynamic wings and winglets, and cockpit displays borrowed from the 787. It’s designed to burn 20 percent less fuel than the previous family of 737s, unveiled in the 1990s, and boast operating costs that are 8 percent less than the A320neo. Southwest Airlines Co. is supposed to get the first delivery, in mid-2017.

Boeing has a practical reason to distance itself from its recent history of snags on the 787, the 747-8 and, this year, a new tanker for the U.S. Air Force. The current 737 lineup is among the industry’s most dependable, boasting a 99.7 percent schedule reliability, according to Boeing’s website.

Before flight tests begin, Boeing is “stress-testing” new technology and systems on the plane “to a much greater degree than ever before,” Leverkuhn said. It is also tailoring the trials, which should last about a year, to mimic how airlines would use the jet.

Single-aisle jetliners are the airline industry’s workhorses, ferrying travelers on flights that last a few hours. Boeing and Airbus are quickening assembly of the aircraft as they work to convert a $1.2 trillion order backlog into cash.

Boeing’s current tempo for the 737 is 42 jets a month, rising to 52 by 2018. To reach that goal, or perhaps push output even higher, the planemaker shoehorned a third assembly line for the Max onto the same factory floors that previously held two 737 lines.
Article: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/ ... blic-debut

Photos including flight deck:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/sli ... 102546.cms

[Verbal]

I went to the rollout ceremony. I got a hat.

[Not_Karl]

I got a hat.

Me too, see my avatar.

[J]

I got a hat.

Me too, see my avatar.

Ditto

[elaw]

If the MD- series had continued as the 737 has, would there be a "mad max"?

[J]

Boeing’s 737 MAX takes off on first flight

Photographs in the article show the first flight as well as Verbal and his co-workers standing forlornly in the rain.

Excerpt:

Its chief distinguishing feature is the pair of much larger engines. These have a fan diameter of 69.4 inches compared to the 61-inch diameter fan on the current 737.

With these latest LEAP engines from CFM International, along with improved aerodynamics — including new split wingtips — Boeing says the MAX design is 14 percent more fuel-efficient than today’s 737.

The first flight begins more than a year of flight tests to achieve certification of the airplane by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and then delivery of the first jet to Southwest Airlines in the third quarter of 2017.
* * *
The MAX also presents a manufacturing challenge, for which Boeing has marshaled impressive resources.

The Renton final-assembly plant where the 737s are built has undergone a dramatic makeover aimed at lowering the cost and quickening the pace of production.

Boeing has automated the fabrication of the 737 wings by installing fastening machines designed by Mukilteo-based engineering firm Electroimpact and has shifted the fuselage installation process to a moving line.

At the same time, it has redesigned fixtures and moved equipment to make room for a third final-assembly line that will be dedicated to production of the MAX.

So even as the early MAXs are built, Boeing will simultaneously raise 737 production from today’s rate of 42 jets per month to 47 per month next year, to 52 per month in 2018, and to 57 per month in 2019.

By then, most of the 737s coming out of Renton should be MAXs.

If Boeing is to maintain the 737 as a reliable cash generator, it must smoothly implement the transition to the MAX at these record-high production levels.

On Thursday, Boeing delivered the 8,888th 737 to Xiamen Airlines of China — where the number 8 is considered lucky because it sounds similar to the Chinese word that means “prosperity.”

Soaring past any target a Boeing sales executive might have dreamed of in 1967, the MAX is set to to take future 737 deliveries well past the 12,000 mark.

http://www.seattletimes.com/business/bo ... st-flight/

[Not_Karl]

Photographs in the article show (...) Verbal and his co-workers standing forlornly in the rain.

Those faces! They look like they need urgent vacations in Skegness...

[Rabbi O'Genius]

Dodgy discs
but
Wacky winglets

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-39879962