Comments on: Dreamliner: Japan admits ‘easing’ standards to ‘help’ Boeing

By: Ben Sandilands

Ben Sandilands — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 03:51:44 +0000

Even bigger news is now breaking in the US. Will do a new post

By: comet

comet — Wed, 30 Jan 2013 03:41:57 +0000

Interesting to see the head of the electric car manufacturer, Tesla Motors, give Boeing a blast in the Flight Global publication. www.flightglobal.com/news/articles/elon-musk-boeing-787-battery-fundamentally-unsafe-381627 If you take a look at the battery array in Tesla's cars (LINK), you see it as 6,831 tiny little lithium cells, each with an active cooling system between. This contrasts with Boeing's large slabs of lithium, packed together without active cooling. The question the whole world is asking: How was such an obviously flawed design ever given approval?

By: keesje

keesje — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 09:30:29 +0000

I think for Airbus it is not a question of using this battery technology but how to use it. I understand the A350 needs 3 times less energy then the all electric Dreamliner and has spread out the battery power over 4 small instead of 2 big batteries. Then it seems they have better cooling and cell ventilation/ isolation. So the likelyhood a runaway is smaller, it can better be cooled, if a cell burns the fire is smaller and it doesn’t take its brothers with it.

I have a feeling all this 787 battery power packed together in a closed box wasn’t brilliant engineering.

By: Jeff Lewis

Jeff Lewis — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 06:59:31 +0000

I have been doing lots of research lately while developing a new website aimed at helping bring about long-overdue FAA reform. The year these Japan regs were relaxed, ’2008′, is a red-flag year for FAA; the congressional hearings on 4/3/08 when Boutris and Peters spoke up about Southwest AD noncompliance (and FAA management complicity); grounding of the Eclipse 500; the flood of whistleblower filings at OSC; the rapid departure of the Special Counsel shortly after he spoke strongly against FAA and airline failures in September. Some would say this was the timeframe when FAA’s Customer Service Initiative (CSI)crumbled. Anyway, those CSI years, from 2003 into 2009, appear to be an extraordinarily corrupt period at FAA. And, as far as Japan relaxing B787 regs goes, is it not fair to say that historically, FAA has normally been biggest dog in the pack, and the other national regulators thus tend to follow FAA’s lead?

I have found news stories that listed ’40′ reg changes, as well as stories that referred to pressures from JAL and ANA.

Two questions, and hoping Ben or some astute readers can provide some answers, or at least tips to research toward the answers.

1) do we have anything precise, as to what the Japan CAB reg relaxations related to 787 were?, and

2) any news or agency records that reveal if these were duplicating changes already passed by FAA, or confirm the original source of the draft reg changes?

IMHO, aviation regulatory agencies tend toward severe regulatory capture. My guess is Japan’s aviation agency is a tiny fraction of FAA’s $16B annual budget, thus it is extremely unlikely those ’40′ changes were anything but rubberstamps of market-support efforts emanating from Boeing and FAA. In aviation accidents, dead pilots tend to quietly accept the assignment of fault. When the dust settles on all of this, I would sure hate to see primary blame assigned to Japan CAB if the real fault belongs to the invisible dance partner with the big feet.

By: discus

discus — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 05:01:14 +0000

Cost cutting and self regulation is going to kill a lot of people one day. You cannot trust builders and operators to run the industry. Idiot governments and neutered regulators with regulations designed to get flying and maintenance done more cheaply are part of the problem in the race to the bottom. I only hope the USA regulator and investigators,having short-comings exposed, go through them like a dose of salts.Too many in the industry are driven purely by money and are deluded that safety is inherent.

By: comet

comet — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 04:02:09 +0000

The 787 reputation is vying with Olympus for the brand name most associated with scandal.

Every step of the 787′s development has been a scandal. Now we find out that governments “relaxed” safety standards for the 787 certification, to satisfy corporate interests.

With a 12-month+ delay looking ever more likely, the 787 is shaping up to become one of the biggest corporate botch-ups in history.

By: johnb78

johnb78 — Tue, 29 Jan 2013 03:28:10 +0000

The good thing from Airbus’s point of view is that it’s still 18 months before the A350 is scheduled to come into service. If Professor Sadoway at MIT is right about the timings that Boeing is facing on the 787, that gives Airbus plenty of time to come up with an alternative (whether that’s better cooled Li-ion, or going back to NiMH) and get it certified.