The Dreamliner debacle-Time to tell the truth

One of the most troubling aspects of the Dreamliner nightmare is the failure of the jet’s composite structures to behave as predicted by the computer models used by Boeing.

If the assumptions made in the design diverged so sharply from results when the wing was put under stress, what confidence remains in the overall robustness of the design?

Is the 787 at risk because of uncertainty over the performance of a design that departs radically from other uses of composite materials in airliners?

A concise review of this by Andy Pasztor and Peter Sanders was published in the Wall Street Journal today.

And in other developments Flightblogger, Jon Ostrower, has clarified the timeline of the wing stress test issue, reporting that a major stress test of the static test aircraft was carried out in April but that the issue was first identified by Boeing in another test late in May.

Some serious additional questions about the details and the state of internal communications between the management and the program directors in relation to that timeline arise from Ostrower’s report, but given that he is the best connected authority on the 787 program, he very likely going to be able to uncover the answers as well.

The Dreamliner debacle is about concurrent management as well as design issues, and it is becoming obvious that this management cannot be relied upon to accurately disclose let alone manage the technical issues.

A set of very difficult questions about management and design integrity have thus been dragged into the spotlight literally days before the first of the flight testing and certification Dreamliners was to take off from Everett. On a program that was to be completed in eight months and see the delivery of the first jet to All Nippon Airways on the ninth, next March.

Boeing said at every major Dreamliner briefing since 2003, when it was known as the 7E7, that it was on top of the technology required for a high efficiency and largely composite airliner, and made the point on many occasions that the project could not have gone ahead before then because that technology was insufficiently advanced.

The Dreamliner was not just an ambitious and thrilling concept, but a complete break with the past in terms of management and ownership.

The project was spread across the globe between partners that assumed design responsibilities and financial risk and reward sharing obligations as well as manufacturing roles.

It all looked so damn good too. But it required a leadership and level of design and quality control that appears to have been beyond the comprehension or competency of Boeing management.

There is a deep and disturbing divide between the fantasy of the Dreamliner as enunciated by management, and performance figures that bear no resemblance to the reality of the seriously overweight and flaw prone jet that has been put together on the basis of now questionable assumptions about how carbon fibre reinforced plastics will perform in an airliner.

Boeing has to try something radically new when it reports in several week’s time on the ‘fix’ for the Dreamliner’s problems and a new testing and delivery timetable.

It has to tell the truth.