> nobody knows yet whether the problem is in the Japanese battery

I saw a preliminary report overnight that said the LiIonbattery was
not root cause ...

Boeing needs to keep the assembly line running and return the existing airframe
to service. I'm betting on a return to NiCADs ... that'll impact a lot of ancillary
charging & monitoring gear.

Then there is the matter of how the one crew smelled the smoke - yet another bad
thing that was not supposed to happen.

I wonder if their engineering dept had a plan B in case the Li-ion decision didn't work out. Seems to me it might have been prudent, but then anybody who suggested this would probably have been demoted to janitor for "negative thinking:.

What you see here is generation change growing pain.
The engineers this generation getting isolated in there projects.
You don't have the ONE brilliant engineering mind behind the project
anymore. We having MBA and LEAN running the show.
Airbus run in the same trap.......wiring to short......

I think you are right, Klaus. We don't have too many people like Ben Rich and Kelly Johnson around anymore that could single-handedly design a revolutionary new airplane, and were given permission from their leadership to do so.

- Martin

Goes beyond a single engineer that some have alluded too. The B787, A380, even a new B737-900 is not longer simple enough that one engineer can oversee it all and have the vision for all aspects. The newer aircraft are significantly more complicated with systems and components designed to be much closer to tolerances and limits. The margin for error in the old aircraft was much higher.

A last point, the newer aircraft are no longer a system. Instead they are a system of systems,

Tim

These use of these damn batteries remind me of this brilliant idea:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Convair_X-6

New designs almost always have problems. The B29 engines had huge supercharger issues. By the time we had built 10,000 B17s, things got a little better, but still some nerds kept changing the design.

This days you design whole system at component level in a 3D computer environment and "assemble" this in sup assembly's up to the top assembly with BOM. Down to a safety wire. On the way you use add-on software systems for for what ever is in the project requirements. Cable routing software, fluid flow, G force ,drop test and so on.
You even make mechanical systems like the landing gear " poping in and out " in the software to check for problems.
With COMSOL simulation you even can check your battery system down to the cell temperature and modify what ever is necessary to be in specification.

I do have the tools to do all this. The tools are not the problem. Give me 5 Years,
the specification and 1.5 million and I revers engineer the 35 Bonanza down to the hardware by my self.

The problem starts who is writing the specification.

There are two extremes.

The researcher........
The customer with an MBA ( Sales ).......

In both cases I will go call my brand new Pilatus "change-order"(-;

In the cooperation world we adding the "let get our branch in ?????? and
our branch in??????? do this subsystems.

Been there done it. You save 75 % on designer manpower $$ (-: add 50%
on home base engineering manpower $$$$ )-: ,never hit the project deadline ))-:,
pay ))))-: $$$$ penalty and send the BOP in an Airplane around the world.
Drop it 6000ft on to the seafloor and find out that the guys in China started the design
in metric and converted to Inch. And your guys in India used imperial gallons.

This is the start of a very bad day.

Just released Feb 7th 06:30 GMT

The NTSB says a short circuit in one of eight cells in the APU battery of a Japan Airlines Boeing 787 led to the fire in the aircraft at Boston Logan Airport Jan. 7. At a news conference on Thursday, NTSB Chairman Debra Hersman said evidence from the flight data recorder and damage to the battery itself indicates the battery and not the aircraft systems were at fault. "That cell showed multiple signs of short circuiting, leading to a thermal runaway condition, which then cascaded to other cells," said an NTSB news release. "Charred battery components indicated that the temperature inside the battery case exceeded 500 degrees Fahrenheit." That was a factor. While the finding shines most of the spotlight on battery manufacturer Yuasa, the NTSB does not leave the FAA and Boeing off the hook.

Hersman said the high level of safety enjoyed by the airline industry has come by building layers of redundant defenses against disaster. "Our task now is to see if enough – and appropriate – layers of defense and adequate checks were built into the design, certification and manufacturing of this battery." But she said Boeing's estimate (accepted by the FAA) that a battery failure leading to the release of smoke into the aircraft would occur once in 10 million flight hours was obviously incorrect since there were two such events (including the in-flight battery fire aboard an ANA 787 two weeks after the JAL incident) in the first 100,000 hours. "The failure rate was higher than predicted as part of the certification process and the possibility that a short circuit in a single cell could propagate to adjacent cells and result in smoke and fire must be reconsidered," she said. The FAA allowed Boeing to ferry a 787 to its manufacturing facility in Everett on Thursday but only after the crew extensively inspected the batteries. It's still not clear when the Dreamliner will be returned to regular service.

More complicated than Saturn V? Don't think so.

It reminds me of Government Motors.....

I do.
Growing up my best friends father was a litteral rocket engineer. It was always interesting to talk to him how rocket engine design has changed and how the margin of design limits and error has changed. One of the most interesting things he talked about was how the USA has forgotten the lessons of early engineers and the Soviet Union that brute force works. Instead, we spend gobs of time and testing to get the absolutely last drop of efficency from everything and as a result no longer have a concept of good enough and that brute force works.

Tim

I've been reading an autobiography of Jimmy Doolittle. He makes an interesting comment on how the design process changed after WW2. During the war, they didn't want to take the time to design the "aircraft system". They designed the airplane but when they added all of the military stuff, too often the airplane became a clunker. After the war, with the luxury of time, the concept of "total system" became part of the process, and in his opinion, produced a superior aircraft.

Unfortunately, there's always the "bleeding edge" of technology, where theory and practice sometimes to not coincide.

The best is always the enemy of the good.

Test flight in progress
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/BOE272

Interesting route - in case of battery fire, land in ocean