Boeing 787 Dreamliner - Mark Wagner [47]
The site was built to integrate, align, drill, and join together the bulk of the fuselage, including the aft Sections 47/48 from the adjacent Vought site, as well as the Kawasaki-built Sections 43 and Fuji-built Section 11/45 fuselage parts from Japan, the Alenia-built Sections 44/46, and the Boeing Winnipeg-built wing-to-body fairings from Canada.
All were to be put together in the new 106,000-square-foot assembly and integration building, which involved the pouring of more than 1.21 million cubic feet of concrete and the use of 5,380 tons of steel.
Including workers in Dallas, Seattle, and Texas, the Global Aeronautica workforce was expected to reach about four hundred “as we reach rate,” said Newton. Initial preproduction units, using simulated dummy sections, were test-fitted together in the fourth quarter of 2006, with the first of the real fuselages due to start passing through in the second quarter of 2007
“The biggest concern is that we’re able to orchestrate the ‘dance’ of all the parts arriving for the first aircraft, and not letting them get out of sequence. Traditionally, it has taken us several aircraft to get it right, but we need to get it right pretty early,” said Newton, who was cautioning in mid-2006 that delays and hiccups were possible. “We’re all victims of human nature and sometimes you have got to expect delays.” Newton’s words were to prove prophetic in the year to come.
Vought installed Cincinnati Machine automatic fiber placement devices such as this to robotically apply layers of graphite epoxy to contoured surfaces on Sections 47 and 48. Reinforcing fibers are oriented in specific directions in the resin prepreg to deliver maximum strength only in the direction needed. Mark Wagner
A few yards away, the new Vought site also was gearing up to begin assembling the all-composite, and reasonably complex, aft fuselage sections in its new 108,000-square-foot building. Some 21,300 square feet of the site were dedicated to a composites manufacturing clean room, while the California-based ASC Process Systems autoclave was one of the world’s largest by volume, measuring 76 feet by 30 feet in diameter. The site also included Cincinnati Machine automatic tape layers, PAR Systems trim and drill machines, and Brotje-supplied automatic riveters. As with the other main 787 composite structure suppliers, a MTorres-built numerically controlled ultrasonic NDI machine checked for voids, porosity, and delaminations.
Production of the first articles began in the summer of 2006, with the first set of fuselage sections completed in the first quarter of 2007. To ease the transition, the first seven shipsets were joined in the Vought site (rather than the adjacent Global Aeronautica site) to reduce to duplicate training.
The scene was set, therefore, for one of the most remarkable industrial collaborative ventures in the history of aerospace. As the reels of composite tape began to unwind, and autoclaves were heated up around the world, the biggest question of all was whether these parts could really come together in Everett ready for final assembly in time, in the right configuration, and in the right order.
Chapter 5
SYSTEMS ADVANTAGE
NEW JETLINERS, PARTICULARLY GAME-CHANGING DESIGNS, always take advantage of the very latest systems technology to further their competitive edge. The 747 introduced new navigation sensors and unprecedented levels of systems redundancy, while the A320 ushered in fly-by-wire flight controls for commercial airliners. The 777 meanwhile introduced an unparalleled suite of integrated avionics.
The 787 was to introduce more new systems technology in one go than any Boeing since the 747, not simply because the time was right, but also because every part had to play its part in the battle for efficiency. From Sonic Cruiser days onward, what went on inside the new design was just as important as the shape of the design or the operation of the engines.
Systems work transcended the shift from Sonic Cruiser to Super Efficient and 7E7 like no other aspect of the project.