Hi, just a quick question. Does anybody know if there's been any news on whether or not Boeing is going to announce the 797 at the Paris Air Show?

Thanks,
boeing247

Yeah, I saw that. So do you think they'll be announcing it?

Maybe all the A380 pilots are Boeing employees out to sabotage Airbus! 

If I smash my Hummer while trying to park it in a too small garage, who's to blame? The car?
But I've already set up a letter to Airbus, suggesting to build slender delta wings and Mach 2+ capabilities again. Those things are much easier to park, think about it.  

More seriously, I think that those incidents are indeed the worst thing to happen for a manufacturer.
But if there was a general "too big", we would see those happenings more often. The A380 is flying and taxing since years.
I'd say that the rather low number just shows the "usual" outcome of precise or not so precise work on e. g. current ground charts and measurements.
Since other planes don't run into buildings (or at least one can't read about it that often) but sometimes into baggage carts, we're seeing a rather normal operation of such a big plane.
If the size only harms a parking CRJ or a Paris building since starting operations, that's a good overall outcome in my eyes.

Maybe they improve the wings with some more sensors and/or cameras then, to allow the pilots to gain some pre-warning time, but I really doubt that the general "airports are too small for the A380" is a valid statement.
If you look into the history of the 80 meter box definition, you will see that the main driver of preparing airports for bigger planes (as the 747) was Boeing, at the time they were planning to compete in size (which they gave up later since you can't easily stretch a plane without large design works).

Now if there was a huge A380 flying around while all other planes are so much smaller, it would indeed be an exception.
But looking at the 747-8 for example (which is longer as the current A380 and just at the limits of the box size) doesn't give me "oh, she's so small" feeling at all.
And Boeing now does what every dev would do when he can't enhance his product any further than the current state. Promoting the downsides as the advantages.
So, when following Boeing marketing, the 747-8 is just right, the A380 is too big and the 747 is oh so much more efficient.
Well, if you just read the brochures (which airlines usually not use as their main source of information about new buys), you may get that picture.
But, wait, Airbus does brochures too.  

The sales of the 747 passenger version aren't that good (that's why it's coming in red now, pleasing the maybe more "open" Asian market), you may guess why. The sales for the 747 freighter are, but since there's no competitor available this shouldn't be too surprising.
They've chosen the right step, to go freighter first since all A380 activities focus on the passenger version and the high sales there will also manifest that movement. Airbus actually can't produce the freighter (although e. g. Fedex had large orders there and was really happy with the plane in concept), their resources don't allow that without dropping on the passenger sales which largely depend on the production rates.
A rather good outcome for both devs, so to speak, and the now real competition focuses on the 787 / A350 sector. That's where a real Boeing against Airbus fight goes on since the planes are in THE main segment of future sales and both are fighting as passenger models.

And, no doubt, the 787 is a great and new plane (from the concept, so no enhanced old school tech) and it also arrives first in the market.
That's a big pro and will be a heavy burden for Airbus to take, although they've already collected quite some orders on the A350.
I think that the duopoly in that sector just continues while the smaller sector gets eaten by the CRJs and Embraers.

Here is a look at the large planes.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/52/Giant_planes_comparison.svg

It is beyond understanding how an Airbus Demo Crew
that knows this airport, runs the wing into a building
during an airshow.  

Lou

LOU wrote on Jun 26^th, 2011 at 3:05pm:

Well, it's also unbelievable that baggage carts get stuck into engines, trained pilots land at wrong airports or forget about deployed groundspoilers when going around, isn't it? Others mix up metric and imperial units and some SW Captain tells the whole frequency about his "personal view on aviation personnel".  
Things happen and as the A380 is in service since some years (and will be for some more, in growing numbers), we can raise an eyebrow on this incident and continue to fly/work/watch because it happened once on how many flights? Thousands.
As long as the investigation doesn't conclude that the plane drove itself into that building I'm pretty ok.

Virgin Atlantic had some nice slogans back in the days as the A340-600 was the longest (and in their understanding biggest) airplane.
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Who knows? Lets form a conspiracy rumour.   I think they are trying to make room for their new biggy.

(that's what Google returned for the 797 by the way)

It's funny that everybody's photoshopping these giant planes for the 797, when it's been suggested that it will be a small, 737 replacement.

Yes, I think they could sell twice the amount of planes if they would stop that "retard!" thingy. Other planes are more polite though, they just write it on the PFD.

Of course you are right, the thing is big, it raised some attention and it's ugly too. Now do a "usual" mishap in a current 737 and nobody will care, do the same in the whale and the world listens.
Does anybody doubt that the PIC at the airshow crawled under a rock after the building said "ouch!"?
Lets stay on the conspiracy side.   I think the pilot was the same as in the A380 against CRJ thing.
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Seems like he was sure.  

Media often enough plays a big role in the perception game. The RR engine trouble at the Qantas A380 is solved and RR paid the bill there, but ain't no big headlines then, only sensational things count.


I remember those rudder incidents, Lou. First it was stuck (but gave you a big one to one side before) and then it actually deflected the rudder in the opposite direction as commanded.
Tricky thing and they only came to a solution after a plane eventually landed safely after this happened, so the pilots could tell exactly what happened. All others before crashed with zero survivors and the CVR just had "what was that? Holy s...!! " on it.
And that rudder deflection gets recorded like a commanded one (which it wasn't).

Nobody is happy about the simple "pilot error" conclusion when the guys are dead. And evil to whom evil thinks when it comes to the best conclusion from the manufactures viewpoint, which is just that, "pilot error".
They went straight to this "pilot error" conclusion on quite some DC-10 incidents too until some relatives took the heavy burden of running year long lawsuits (with the costs involved) where unbiased experts (and there are few) had a chance to state their views on e. g. the design of the plane.

But one has to play fair, you can't design a thing going up to 40.000ft at 0.80 Mach to be invulnerable under all circumstances, you can just try to circumvent known or foreseeable stuff.
Running all three hydraulic systems through one vital joint isn't the best idea though.

They later had a NASA developed system ready for daily use which could fly the plane with thrust settings only and all hydraulics disabled.
That system would come at a cost and they then said that it's too unlikely to happen that all three hydraulic systems fail (for whatever reason), so the cost would be too high in relation to the actual use.
Money business, not safety business. It still is and will always be. (Especially aviation) safety always came at a cost of lives, nobody should forget about that.


I think I've hijacked boeing247's 797 thread.