DailyTech - First Fully Assembled Boeing 787 Dreamliner Rolls Out

Submit News

Science First Fully Assembled Boeing 787 Dreamliner Rolls Out
Brandon Hill (Blog) - June 28, 2007 3:12 PM

69 comment(s) - last by honeg.. on Jul 6 at 2:44 PM

(Source: Charles Conklin)

An eager photographer catches the 787 Dreamliner in the buff

It has been a long time coming, but the first Boeing 787 Dreamliner has rolled off the assembly line. Charles Conklin -- an avid aviation enthusiast -- managed to snap some pictures of a fully assembled Dreamliner sans paint.

According to Flightblogger, the official roll-out ceremony for the Dreamliner is on July 8 with the first delivered scheduled to take place in May of next year. The production run of aircraft is completely booked until 2013 at the earliest.

The Dreamliner is the next generation of airliners for Boeing and makes use of composite materials in 50 percent of its body and wings. The use of composite materials has helped Boeing keep the weight down which allows the Dreamliner to be 20 percent more fuel efficient than its closest rivals. Top speed for the aircraft is Mach 0.85.

Business travelers will appreciate the integrated networking capabilities on the Dreamliner. Boeing had initially planned to equip its Dreamliner with wireless networking, but instead decided on a wired networking to save 150 pounds per plane.

As of April, 44 customers have ordered 544 Dreamliners at a cost of $75 billion USD.

Comments

Threshold

Username
Password
remember me

This article is over a month old, voting and posting comments is disabled

RE: Wired = less weight than Wireless?

By PrimarchLion on 6/28/2007 4:39:15 PM , Rating: 1

I doubt that the entire structure needs to be able to survive 9g loading. Do you have a source for your information? I just can't imagine this aircraft having a flight envelope any larger that 2.5g, and factor of safety in aircraft design is usually not larger than about 1.2 due to weight constraints.

Parent

RE: Wired = less weight than Wireless?

By HotFoot on 6/28/2007 5:02:49 PM , Rating: 1

The max design load is nowhere near 9G. That 9G figure is for fighter jets. I believe the typical airliner is designed with a max load factor of 4-ish. Add to this the structure must handle 1.5x this load factor without failure (but with permanent deformation).

Parent

RE: Wired = less weight than Wireless?

By Keeir on 6/28/2007 5:08:35 PM , Rating: 5

Federal Aviation Regulations. In specific FAR Chapter 25 subpart C - 25.591 of which the following is a brief quotation.

"
(3) The occupant experiences the following ultimate inertia forces acting separately relative to the surrounding structure:

(i) Upward, 3.0g

(ii) Forward, 9.0g

(iii) Sideward, 3.0g on the airframe; and 4.0g on the seats and their attachments.

(iv) Downward, 6.0g

(v) Rearward, 1.5g

(c) For equipment, cargo in the passenger compartments and any other large masses, the following apply:

(1) Except as provided in paragraph (c)(2) of this section, these items must be positioned so that if they break loose they will be unlikely to:

(i) Cause direct injury to occupants;

(ii) Penetrate fuel tanks or lines or cause fire or explosion hazard by damage to adjacent systems; or

(iii) Nullify any of the escape facilities provided for use after an emergency landing.
"

I read this as saying any structure which has the possiblity to fall within the passenger cabin and hurt passengers must stay attached at a 9g landing situation and other emergency situation such as a 3g sideways evasive action.

I just assumed that some/all of the wirless equipment fell under this category

Parent

RE: Wired = less weight than Wireless?

By Keeir on 6/28/2007 5:11:27 PM , Rating: 2

Oops missed the whole quotation, even with the preview

"
(2) When such positioning is not practical (e.g. fuselage mounted engines or auxiliary power units) each such item of mass shall be restrained under all loads up to those specified in paragraph (b)(3) of this section. The local attachments for these items should be designed to withstand 1.33 times the specified loads if these items are subject to severe wear and tear through frequent removal (e.g. quick change interior items).
"

note that (b)(3) is where I started the quotation

Parent

RE: Wired = less weight than Wireless?

By PrimarchLion on 6/28/2007 5:21:35 PM , Rating: 2

I was just checking FAR 25 as well =)

I had an aircraft design course this spring, my group designed a military transport aircraft. We didn't take the 9g forward inertia forces into account too much, but it was just a preliminary design course.

Parent

RE: Wired = less weight than Wireless?

By Keeir on 6/28/2007 5:26:39 PM , Rating: 2

Military requirements may be totally different. Due to significantly lower cycles, higher inspection intervals, not caring if a few grunts here or there get smacked on the head...

The FARs are neat and show that in many cases the Margin of Safety for civilian aircraft is significantly larger than 1.2 due to survivability requirements (check out the ditching condition. I have a hard time believing the A380 or B747 are good for those...)

Parent