Boeing 787 Dreamliner - Mark Wagner [4]
Another much less well-known influence on the 787 springing from the axing of the 747 derivatives was the 1997 launch of a very small-scale study into a future large aircraft. “I was left to start up another small effort called the LAPD [large aircraft product development], covering the 450- to 550-seat range,” said Jackson. Compared to the starlike status formerly enjoyed by the recently abandoned 747 study, however, the LAPD was treated like a poor orphan and given virtually no funding.
Twins are in the 787 DNA. Product development strategy in the 1990s was strongly influenced by the growing popularity of twin-engined designs on long-range, direct flights and “market fragmentation.” Boeing 767 and Airbus A300 twins blazed new trails that larger-capacity A330s and 777s later developed. Here 777s, dominating this aerial view of London Heathrow’s Terminal 3, replaced older-generation trijets and 747s. Although the average number of seats per aircraft grew by 7 percent between 1980 and 1990, it grew by only 2 percent over the next decade. Mark Wagner
The LAPD also faced funding competition from a new product lineup dominated by a flurry of derivatives. Development was simultaneously under way on the stretched 757-300, 767-400ER, and 777-300, as well as the newly renamed 717-200, the former Douglas MD-95. In the midst of all this, Boeing was completing certification of the next-generation 737 family as well as ramping up production rates from seven 737s a month in 1996 to a planned twenty-four a month by October 1998.
Faced with all these pressures, something had to give, and sure enough, this happened in a big way later in 1997. Certification of the 737-700 and 737-800 was delayed by development issues, and just when nobody thought it could get worse, a parts shortage developed on the 747-400 line. In October, faced with a production crisis, Condit had no choice but to reveal all. Wall Street was stunned by the manufacturing meltdown, which would force the company to write off $2.6 billion, easily the biggest charge in Boeing’s history to that point. In the blink of an eye, shares fell 8 percent, wiping out a staggering $4.3 billion in value, while further losses followed.
The problems required painful surgery to correct, including the laying off of up to twelve thousand employees by the end of 1998. “We all knew if we didn’t fix it, we wouldn’t be around to fix it because we would not survive another business cycle with the system we had,” recalled Boeing Commercial President Ron Woodard, who would lose his own job over the crisis. The “get well” focus drove the urgency of initiatives such as “lean manufacturing” deep into the psyche of Boeing and helped lay some of the bedrock on which the foundations of the 787 would later be built.
Projected development costs of $7 billion and indifferent airline interest doomed the 747-500X/600X launch attempt in 1996. The rewinged 747-500X would have carried 460 passengers more than 8,700 nautical miles. The 747-600X, which stretched almost fifty feet longer than the 747-400, would have carried an additional load of 55 passengers on ranges up to 7,700 nautical miles. Mark Wagner
NOVEL APPROACHES
However, despite the company’s greater financial woes, product development was the future, and studies had to continue. “But the dilemma we had was we didn’t have much priority. How could we achieve our needs without funding?” recollected Jackson. The answer came in part from Stuart Buchan, a systems guru who had risen through the ranks at Boeing Commercial since arriving from the company’s Vertol site in Philadelphia. Buchan, who originally came to Boeing as a “brain drain” engineer from the economically depressed United Kingdom in the 1960s, suggested a novel solution that gave systems suppliers an unprecedented development role.
“Stu understood the overall systems industry, and as it became clear we weren