Boeing has postponed the long awaited first flight of the all new, all plastic, 787 Dreamliner. This is a tremendous disappointment to Boeing and Boeing customers.
Apparently something (no photos so it could be anything) showed up during static wing bending tests on the ground. According to Aviation Week the problem was "delamination and deformation on body (presumably wing-to-body) join points during a routine stress test". The wings are attached to the body with titanium bolts. There was discussion of a fix, stiffeners. "The parts needed are small, only an inch or two." Eighteen (one for each bolt?) will be applied to the top side of the join.
More discussion followed about the Computer Aided Design (CAD) procedures. The author clearly feels that this problem should have showed up in computer simulations long ago, and he faults Boeing's CAD work.
For Boeing's sake lets hope the one inch stiffeners are readily available and solve the problem.
Thursday, July 2, 2009
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
Billions for paperwork, not one one cent for tribute
Japan wants to buy the F22 from us. F22 is the hottest fighter in the air with the best electronics. It's also very expensive, so expensive that even rich Uncle Sam has decided to stop buying them after the 187th aircraft. At least the Pentagon thinks 187 fighters is enough, the Air Force wants more.
Congress is wrapped around the axle on the F22. The Members from Lockheed don't want to shut the production line down, but they don't want to sell the F22 overseas lest the "secrets" of the aircraft leak out to US adversaries.
In actual fact we should sell the Japanese as many F22's as they want to pay for. Japan is a loyal US ally, with some bad neighbors close by, giving them a solid reason for wanting advanced fighter planes. Japan is the second largest economy in the world, fully capable of building their own fighter planes (and airliners) from the ground up if they care to. Right now they don't compete with us in the aerospace business, but they could if they wanted to. Refusing to sell essential military equipment might be enough to make them want to.
Plus, the US could use the money. These things go for $142.5 million EACH to USAF. Ten aircraft is $1.4 billion. A billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you are talking about real money. Plus we can sell them spare parts. Spare parts over a 30 year service life can add up.
And then we can sell paperwork. The Japanese are prepared to pay $2.3 billion up front for "non recurring engineering and manufacturing costs". This sounds like pure gravy for Lockheed in that the F22 is in full production and should not need any more engineering. Presumably the $2.3 billion will buy a couple of truck loads of paperwork.
All we need is for Congress to OK overseas sales of the aircraft. The customers have their check books out.
Congress is wrapped around the axle on the F22. The Members from Lockheed don't want to shut the production line down, but they don't want to sell the F22 overseas lest the "secrets" of the aircraft leak out to US adversaries.
In actual fact we should sell the Japanese as many F22's as they want to pay for. Japan is a loyal US ally, with some bad neighbors close by, giving them a solid reason for wanting advanced fighter planes. Japan is the second largest economy in the world, fully capable of building their own fighter planes (and airliners) from the ground up if they care to. Right now they don't compete with us in the aerospace business, but they could if they wanted to. Refusing to sell essential military equipment might be enough to make them want to.
Plus, the US could use the money. These things go for $142.5 million EACH to USAF. Ten aircraft is $1.4 billion. A billion here and a billion there and pretty soon you are talking about real money. Plus we can sell them spare parts. Spare parts over a 30 year service life can add up.
And then we can sell paperwork. The Japanese are prepared to pay $2.3 billion up front for "non recurring engineering and manufacturing costs". This sounds like pure gravy for Lockheed in that the F22 is in full production and should not need any more engineering. Presumably the $2.3 billion will buy a couple of truck loads of paperwork.
All we need is for Congress to OK overseas sales of the aircraft. The customers have their check books out.
Tuesday, June 30, 2009
Write your Senator
I am snail mailing this to my senator. Even though she is a hopeless greenie democrat, I will invest a 44 cent stamp. If enough of us write our senators maybe we can stop this catastrophe in the Senate.
US Senator Jeanne Shaheen,
520 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Senator,
Please vote against the Cap & Tax energy bill that just passed the house.
First of all, you haven’t read it and your staff hasn’t read it. The bill is 1200 pages of legal gobbledygook, and no one has a clue as to how bad it will be. Or what bad things lurk in the darker corners of a document written with an eye to obfustication.
Second, raising the cost and reducing the availability of energy is a jobs killer. Industry creates jobs, and industry uses energy. It needs process heat, electro chemistry power, transportation fuels, electricity for machinery, lights, ventilation, and furnaces. Make energy scarce and expensive and industries go out of business, scale back operations or move over seas, throwing people out of work.
Third, raising the price of heating oil, gasoline, electricity and firewood hurts people like me, and especially people living on fixed incomes.
Fourth, global warming ended in 1999. World temperatures have been falling since then. Carbon dioxide is not the main greenhouse gas, water vapor is. The atmosphere holds between 10000 and 40000 parts per million of water vapor, where as carbon dioxide is 360 parts per million, too small to make a difference. Of that 360 parts per million, only 60 parts per million comes from burning fossil fuels. Even reducing man made carbon dioxide emissions to zero will have no effect on global warming.
Fifth, the cap & tax bill will subject us to oceans of expensive government mandated paperwork and create an army of government bureaucrats with power to forbid new construction, forbid purchase of vehicles, forbid repair of heating plants, forbid road construction and repair, forbid logging, forbid farming, and who knows what else. Economic activity will be slowed or stopped by bureaucrats armed with 1200 pages of vaguely written federal law.
Please vote against this disastrous bill because it will throw people out of work, raise prices, slow economic growth, and will not do a thing about global warming. Let’s not kneecap the economy for no reason.
Sincerely,
US Senator Jeanne Shaheen,
520 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
Dear Senator,
Please vote against the Cap & Tax energy bill that just passed the house.
First of all, you haven’t read it and your staff hasn’t read it. The bill is 1200 pages of legal gobbledygook, and no one has a clue as to how bad it will be. Or what bad things lurk in the darker corners of a document written with an eye to obfustication.
Second, raising the cost and reducing the availability of energy is a jobs killer. Industry creates jobs, and industry uses energy. It needs process heat, electro chemistry power, transportation fuels, electricity for machinery, lights, ventilation, and furnaces. Make energy scarce and expensive and industries go out of business, scale back operations or move over seas, throwing people out of work.
Third, raising the price of heating oil, gasoline, electricity and firewood hurts people like me, and especially people living on fixed incomes.
Fourth, global warming ended in 1999. World temperatures have been falling since then. Carbon dioxide is not the main greenhouse gas, water vapor is. The atmosphere holds between 10000 and 40000 parts per million of water vapor, where as carbon dioxide is 360 parts per million, too small to make a difference. Of that 360 parts per million, only 60 parts per million comes from burning fossil fuels. Even reducing man made carbon dioxide emissions to zero will have no effect on global warming.
Fifth, the cap & tax bill will subject us to oceans of expensive government mandated paperwork and create an army of government bureaucrats with power to forbid new construction, forbid purchase of vehicles, forbid repair of heating plants, forbid road construction and repair, forbid logging, forbid farming, and who knows what else. Economic activity will be slowed or stopped by bureaucrats armed with 1200 pages of vaguely written federal law.
Please vote against this disastrous bill because it will throw people out of work, raise prices, slow economic growth, and will not do a thing about global warming. Let’s not kneecap the economy for no reason.
Sincerely,
Monday, June 29, 2009
New Hampshire spends porkulus money
Drove down I93 to Manchester and back. They are resurfacing I93 again. Big signs around Ashland explaining how all this goodness is brought to us by the American R-something and R-something-else Act, otherwise known as the $787 billion porkulus bill. I didn't slow down enough to read all the fine print on the signs.
Of course this stretch of I93 was resurfaced only three summers ago and is in pretty good shape. But if Uncle Sam offers free money you might as well spend it.
Of course this stretch of I93 was resurfaced only three summers ago and is in pretty good shape. But if Uncle Sam offers free money you might as well spend it.
Cap & Tax will create green jobs. Right
David Axelrod was on the Sunday pundit shows explaining that the Cap & Tax bill, that just squeaked thru the house was going to create "green jobs". Sure it will. Alternate energy supplies about 1 percent of US energy consumption. Grow it by a factor of 10 and it's still only 10 percent. Is that going to equal the jobs lost from the one hundred times larger conventional energy industries, plus the job losses that will occur when the price of all kinds of energy goes up? Industry needs energy, for process heat, to run the machines, to heat and light the factories, to synthesize and refine materials, to fuel the transportation, just about everywhere. Raise the price of energy and the industry will leave for overseas, cut back, or go out of business.
Industry is what supplies the jobs. Hurt industry and you get unemployment.
No way will the jobs making windmills and installing solar collectors come anywhere near to the jobs lost thruout the rest of the economy.
Industry is what supplies the jobs. Hurt industry and you get unemployment.
No way will the jobs making windmills and installing solar collectors come anywhere near to the jobs lost thruout the rest of the economy.
Saturday, June 27, 2009
Waxman Markey is to Smoot Hawley as ?
Yesterday the House passed the Waxman Markey cap & tax bill by a mere 7 votes. Eight RINO's voted for this disastrous bill. They are:
The eight Republicans registering 'yes' votes are likely to draw heat from their party's leadership. Those members are Reps. Mary Bono Mack (CA), Mike Castle (DE), Steven Kirk (IL), John McHugh (NY), Leonard Lance (NJ), Frank LoBiondo (NJ), Dave Reichert (WA), and Chris Smith (NJ).
Voters in CA,DE,IL,NY,NJ, and WA should remember in November.
The eight Republicans registering 'yes' votes are likely to draw heat from their party's leadership. Those members are Reps. Mary Bono Mack (CA), Mike Castle (DE), Steven Kirk (IL), John McHugh (NY), Leonard Lance (NJ), Frank LoBiondo (NJ), Dave Reichert (WA), and Chris Smith (NJ).
Voters in CA,DE,IL,NY,NJ, and WA should remember in November.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
Words of the Weasel Part 9
"Budget Cut". Used by politicians to distract attention from the fact that they will spend more this year than last year. Has no objective definition. The more they spend the more "budget cuts" they announce.
"Passed away" or more crudely "Passed". Used by people too squeamish to say "died". Farrah Fawcett "passed" today. The TV newsies never say die.
"Passed away" or more crudely "Passed". Used by people too squeamish to say "died". Farrah Fawcett "passed" today. The TV newsies never say die.
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