777-10

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luke3

Well-Known Member
Back in my engineering days I used to work for mama Boeing and did lots of the airport compatibility analysis for the 777X. The -9 already presented several length related issues, mainly turn capability due to the long wheelbase, and tail overhanging many of the parking stands requiring mitigation measures on the aft service roads. Plus it technically requires ARFF category 10 firefighting capabilities (same as A380) by 1.5m, even though that exceedance was mainly due to the sweep of the horizontal stabilizer and we could often get it waived back down to 9 if you were a good talker. Stretching it even further would exasperate these issues and make it even more restrictive. It does you no good if you have an airplane that can only operate in a small number of airports, like the A380 was. Plus you have the issue of weight. With the gear configuration the 777-9 has the highest ACN of any other aircraft and this would sometimes be an issue. Unless they keep the same MTOW with the stretch, it's going to be even worse, and again, more restrictive. I think the market has clearly spoken that very large aircraft are not the solution going forward, outside of niche cases where slot restrictions are an issue, and the current order books reflect that. The 777-9 takes some regulatory legwork by my former colleagues but it can basically operate anywhere a 777-300ER can go. A potential -10 cannot say the same thing. I don't see it happening. In my opinion, and it is my personal opinion only, Boeing should focus on the NMA and a clean sheet 737 design rather than stretching this thing even further. We already saw with the MAX what happens when you keep stretching things way past their design point, and the funky landing gear design on the 737-10MAX is when I think they jumped the shark.
 
jynxyjoe

jynxyjoe

The Kickin' Chicken!
luke3 said:
. In my opinion, and it is my personal opinion only, Boeing should focus on the NMA and a clean sheet 737 design rather than stretching this thing even further.
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Clean sheet design is going to take a decade to certify at least if everything is working correctly. The only thing the FAA is going to be comfortable with is conformity (design definition conformity).

I hope I'm wrong but I dont see clean sheet anything from anyone until ive got a lot more grey.
 
SlumTodd_Millionaire

SlumTodd_Millionaire

Evil Landlord Capitalist
jynxyjoe said:
Clean sheet design is going to take a decade to certify at least if everything is working correctly. The only thing the FAA is going to be comfortable with is conformity (design definition conformity).

I hope I'm wrong but I dont see clean sheet anything from anyone until ive got a lot more grey.
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Sounds like a market Boeing will love! Dragging the rotting corpse of an archaic airplane from one decade to the next is their bag, baby!
 
jynxyjoe

jynxyjoe

The Kickin' Chicken!
SlumTodd_Millionaire said:
Sounds like a market Boeing will love! Dragging the rotting corpse of an archaic airplane from one decade to the next is their bag, baby!
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Lol.

Ahhhhhh, it was all a plot to cement the 737 into the genetic memory and consciousness into all pilots now and unborn. To drink the blessed waters of Shai Hulud and the start the Butlerian Jihad against Airbus and its semi conscious machines. The MAX is the kwisatz haderach, Muad'Dib!
 
jynxyjoe

jynxyjoe

The Kickin' Chicken!
Autothrust Blue said:
Hey how did that work on the Max?

Snark aside, interesting look.
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That's one of many decision points made in the course of a program. You bend rules or exercise exemptions thousands of times in the program, but like a mechanic making a choice on a fix that requires a drawing to be included in the aircraft and on his own record, those are allowed.

Everyone can look at this Max issue, do all the reading, and come away with their own lessons learned. As a pilot I'm shocked the company decided not to tell anyone how the MCAS worked, SWA pilots got a whole day paid by Boeing to come to SEA and yell at Boeing about it. As a guy who used to certify airplanes for a living I'm shocked and appalled the way Boeing corrupted their own safety process, and the supervillain machinations that shut down two reviews triggered by the engineers. If anyone had listened on either review, the MAX would have had a different outcome, but in both circumstances the engineering bloc was stopped and the second time exec leadership started taking jobs from people in retribution.

An engineering team has to be allowed to work. Boeing probably can't sell a product on a ten year timeline a clean sheet design would require. Every program falls behind, so it's probably a 12 year process start to finish. Until someone engineers some new decision making process it's going to be turtles all the way down for a while.
 
Autothrust Blue

Autothrust Blue

Commander Air Group, BSG-75
jynxyjoe said:
Everyone can look at this Max issue, do all the reading, and come away with their own lessons learned. As a pilot I'm shocked the company decided not to tell anyone how the MCAS worked, SWA pilots got a whole day paid by Boeing to come to SEA and yell at Boeing about it. As a guy who used to certify airplanes for a living I'm shocked and appalled the way Boeing corrupted their own safety process, and the supervillain machinations that shut down two reviews triggered by the engineers. If anyone had listened on either review, the MAX would have had a different outcome, but in both circumstances the engineering bloc was stopped and the second time exec leadership started taking jobs from people in retribution.
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And the guy who “Jedi mind tricked” the regulator got himself a job at the customer.

Salacious.
 
L

luke3

Well-Known Member
Autothrust Blue said:
Hey how did that work on the Max?

Snark aside, interesting look.
Click to expand...
Jokes aside, there is actually an argument to be made. The two parameters that determine an aircraft's RFF index in ICAO standards are the aircraft length and fuselage diameter. That means for example that a 767-200 would be one category higher than a 757-200 of similar length because it is a widebody. It therefore seems like what is actually being taken into consideration is fuselage volume, which makes sense since that is the part you're trying to protect from the fire. The 777-9 fuselage falls within that limit, it's the extra 5ft of horizontal stabilizer that throws it over to the next category. If I remember correctly, in the US the FAA does consider the fuselage length, not the entire aircraft. The regulators in some countries would accept these arguments and grant a waiver to only have it require Cat 9. The ultimate goal was always to change the ICAO regulations to state "fuselage length" instead of "aircraft length", but that's always a lengthy process and you'd have to convince the Airbus people sitting on the panel just like you were, and they obviously would not help you out if it didn't benefit them as well. As far as I know they don't have anything in production or design that would benefit from that change. The good news is often if the airport was equipped to Cat 9, they could upgrade to Cat 10 with a 30 minute PPR, since the only difference is the amount of water available and the foam discharge rate. The annoying part is if they'd just consulted with our group during the design phase they wouldn't have had this annoyance. Stretch it even more to a -10 and the thing becomes so far out of whack you can't even talk yourself out of it since it would be blatantly over.

Now I just fly a corporate jet and it's a much more satisfying and fun job. The moments I catch myself trying to pull my hair out are much less.
 
Autothrust Blue

Autothrust Blue

Commander Air Group, BSG-75
luke3 said:
Jokes aside, there is actually an argument to be made. The two parameters that determine an aircraft's RFF index in ICAO standards are the aircraft length and fuselage diameter. That means for example that a 767-200 would be one category higher than a 757-200 of similar length because it is a widebody. It therefore seems like what is actually being taken into consideration is fuselage volume, which makes sense since that is the part you're trying to protect from the fire. The 777-9 fuselage falls within that limit, it's the extra 5ft of horizontal stabilizer that throws it over to the next category. If I remember correctly, in the US the FAA does consider the fuselage length, not the entire aircraft. The regulators in some countries would accept these arguments and grant a waiver to only have it require Cat 9. The ultimate goal was always to change the ICAO regulations to state "fuselage length" instead of "aircraft length", but that's always a lengthy process and you'd have to convince the Airbus people sitting on the panel just like you were, and they obviously would not help you out if it didn't benefit them as well. As far as I know they don't have anything in production or design that would benefit from that change. The good news is often if the airport was equipped to Cat 9, they could upgrade to Cat 10 with a 30 minute PPR, since the only difference is the amount of water available and the foam discharge rate. The annoying part is if they'd just consulted with our group during the design phase they wouldn't have had this annoyance. Stretch it even more to a -10 and the thing becomes so far out of whack you can't even talk yourself out of it since it would be blatantly over.
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No kidding, very interesting.

Where aviation meets politics (and engineering) is always an interesting interface; I’ll freely admit this is an area of the business I know little or nothing about and when I want to, I ask @MikeD. So thanks for the exposition and explanation.

The primary difference that I see, however, is that your group has legitimate engineering rationale, as opposed to playing human factors grabass like the MAX did.
 
jynxyjoe

jynxyjoe

The Kickin' Chicken!
luke3 said:
Jokes aside, there is actually an argument to be made. The two parameters that determine an aircraft's RFF index in ICAO standards are the aircraft length and fuselage diameter. That means for example that a 767-200 would be one category higher than a 757-200 of similar length because it is a widebody. It therefore seems like what is actually being taken into consideration is fuselage volume, which makes sense since that is the part you're trying to protect from the fire. The 777-9 fuselage falls within that limit, it's the extra 5ft of horizontal stabilizer that throws it over to the next category. If I remember correctly, in the US the FAA does consider the fuselage length, not the entire aircraft. The regulators in some countries would accept these arguments and grant a waiver to only have it require Cat 9. The ultimate goal was always to change the ICAO regulations to state "fuselage length" instead of "aircraft length", but that's always a lengthy process and you'd have to convince the Airbus people sitting on the panel just like you were, and they obviously would not help you out if it didn't benefit them as well. As far as I know they don't have anything in production or design that would benefit from that change. The good news is often if the airport was equipped to Cat 9, they could upgrade to Cat 10 with a 30 minute PPR, since the only difference is the amount of water available and the foam discharge rate. The annoying part is if they'd just consulted with our group during the design phase they wouldn't have had this annoyance. Stretch it even more to a -10 and the thing becomes so far out of whack you can't even talk yourself out of it since it would be blatantly over.

Now I just fly a corporate jet and it's a much more satisfying and fun job. The moments I catch myself trying to pull my hair out are much less.
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Here's a corporate one for you. Picture a Citation I (or 1 or whatever the proper name is) idle on a ramp next to a Citation X. Would it surprise you that Cessna has convinced the FAA that the I and the X are the same plane under conformity so they've never done a full vehicle test for lightning transients since that first I model? It's a long road to get there using the transitive property essentially, but here we are.
 
Autothrust Blue

Autothrust Blue

Commander Air Group, BSG-75
jynxyjoe said:
Here's a corporate one for you. Picture a Citation I (or 1 or whatever the proper name is) idle on a ramp next to a Citation X. Would it surprise you that Cessna has convinced the FAA that the I and the X are the same plane under conformity so they've never done a full vehicle test for lightning transients since that first I model? It's a long road to get there using the transitive property essentially, but here we are.
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Hooray! Obviously, burdensome regulation is the impediment to innovation here. ;)
 
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