We have a story about Jim Wurth, who runs Start Pac, a maker of batteries and battery powered engine jumper boxes. Mr. Wurth says you have to go to lithium iron phosphate batteries to prevent fires. Wurth worries that additional restrictions on shipping lithium ion batteries by air will wreck his jumper box business, since the boxes run on lithium batteries. He also opined that Boeing needs to provide fireproof battery boxes to contain the fires and vent smoke and flames overboard.
Moving on to the 787, we hear that Boeing isn't talking about replacing the lithium batteries with something less flammable. Boeing is hoping for a small and easy change to the battery itself will solve the problem. Boeing spent some time explaining to customers that one of the batteries didn't really catch fire, it just got very hot. The customers revealed that better than 100 lithium batteries have been replaced, on a fleet of less than 100 aircraft.
There is an article dated lined Washington concerning FAA and NTSB reactions. NTSB does allow that batteries should not burst into flames. Well Duh!. FAA is muttering about redoing certification testing, something that could drag out for months.
There is yet another story about how both Gulfstream and Cessna had considered using lithium batteries and decided not to.
And finally is a story about putting lithium batteries into the International Space Station in 2017. Boeing has a $208.8 million contract to supply a mere 27 batteries. That's about $10 million per battery. SpaceX will sell you a whole rocket booster rated for 10 tons cargo to orbit for $10 million.
Finally we have some opining by Elon Musk. He claims that Boeing's batteries is all wrong, and he has a replacement from his Tesla electric hot rod that will solve the 787 problems.
All this in today's Aviation Week. The Journal has a story on page B1, front page of the Marketplace section. The Journal merely says that the "root cause" hasn't been found yet. Sounds like pressure for a fix is growing.
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