Dream of flying without problems - THE DREAMLINER

One of the most talked airplanes in the aviation, since its first commercial flight with 'Nippon Airways' on October 26th, 2011 is the 'Boeing Dreamliner 787'. Though Boeing claims it to be one of the best airplanes in the sky, we regularly audience some or the other defect of the 'Dreamliner'.
The following is the drive of the problems or defects of the 787, till date from its origin.

                                              Picture Credits : World Airline News

Pre-launch and first flight problems.

2007
            September

• Shortage of fasteners and incomplete software caused a three-month delay to the first flight.

            October

• In addition to the three-month delay, there was another delay of 3 months due to the       software issues.So a total of 6 months delay was created in 2007                                                                                                            

2008
            January

• Reasons remained confidential , all of a sudden the company announced another 3 month delay to the first flight

            April

• Extending a delay for an unspecific time, Boeing reschedules its first flight of 787 in late 2008 and  all the initial deliveries were on hold till September,2009

            November

• Workers went on strike which resulted in changes of the first flight dates, and tentatively it was for late 2009

2009          
           June

• In the 'Paris Air show' , Boeing claimed the first flight of 787, within two weeks, but exactly after a week they cancelled it and rescheduled it again for the late 2009

 
          December

• Finally, the first maiden flight happens on 15th December, 2009, after making the high-speed taxi tests, a couple of days earlier.          

2010
            June

• Fleet wide problems on horizontal stabilizers.

            August

•  Rolls Royce Trent1000 engine , suffers a blowout at the facility. Hence the first  delivery to Japan's All Nippon Airway, is delayed until February 2011

           November

• During a test flight above Texas, a 787 experiences an electrical fire and is forced to make an emergency landing. All test flights are suspended until last week of December

2011
           January

• First delivery has been rescheduled again to September , due to electrical and software   problems resulting from the in-flight fire         

           August

• The U.S Federal Aviation Administration and European Air Safety Agency, approves  Boeing to deliver the DreamLiner.        

           September

• FINALLY, All Nippon Airways , receives the first Dreamliner.

         
           October

• The first commercial flight,  gets its destination to Hong Kong from Tokyo-Narita. Though there were so many delays, few tickets soar upto 34000$, for the craze of being in a Dreamliner.

                  ICAO Designation for DreamLiner 787-8 : B788

                                                               Picture credits Wikipedia.

Problems during the journey in Dreamliner

2012

•  United B788 near New Orleans on Dec 4th, electrical problems causing concerns of electrical heat on board.

• Qatar B788 near Doha on Dec 8th , has got a generator failure.

•  All Nippon Airways B788 , near Okayama on Dec 24th, left windshield has cracked

2013

• All Nippon Airways B788, near Matsuyama on Jan 11th, windshield cracked

•  Japanese Airlines B788, near Tokyo on June 11th, engine anti ice problem.

•  United B788, over Canada on June 20th, engine oil indication

•  United B788, near Seattle on June 18th, engine oil filter indication, engine shutdown in flight.

•  United B788, near Oklahoma City, on June 23rd, brakes indication.

•  Thomson B788, at Cardiff, on June 25th, bird strike·

• Thomson B788, over Atlantic, on July 12th, lavatory woes.

•  Japanese Airlines B788, over Hudson Bay, on July 18th, fuel pump problem.

•  Air India, B788, enroute on July 25th, smoking galley oven.

•  Japanese Airlines B788, over Pacific on August 27th, slat problems.

•  LAN B788 and LAN B788, near Lima on June 11th, near collision

•  United B788, over Bering Sea on September 19th, flaps indication.

•  LOT B788, at Toronto, on September 28th, transponder problem and several other technical issues.

•  Japanese Airlines B788, near Moscow on October 9th, electrical problems cause failed lavatories.

•  Japanese Airlines B788, near San Diego on October 9th, problems with anti ice systems.

•  India B788 at Bangalore, on October12th,  no confirmed incident.

•  Air India B788, near Adelaide, on October 27th, semi emergency (flaperon issue).

•  British Airways B788, enroute on November 16th, hydraulic failure.

•  Nippon Airways B788, near   Takamatsu on Jan 16th, battery problem and burning smell on board.

2014

•   Air India B788,   near Berlin, complete loss of transponders.

• China Southern B788, near Guangzhou on Jan 19th, multiple system messages.

•  Air India B788, near Kaula Lampur on Feb 5th, all flight management computers failed.

•  Japanese Airlines, over Pacific on March 8th, engine shut down in flight.     

Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE)

When the whole world is going gaga over open source software, hardware independence and the likes, how could avionics trail in the race. Future Airborne Capability Environment (FACE) is a new architectural paradigm (just like Integrated Modular Avionics) for achieving greater inter operability and portability of avionics software. The concept was introduced in 2010 and is still under review by US Department Of Defense. The main intent of this approach is to shorten the software development life cycle of avionics products. Currently the concept is being validated and reviewed against military applications alone, but once its credibility is proven, I think it can be extended in to the civil aviation sector as well.
          Along with shortened development life cycle, FACE also promises to provide greater hardware independence than what we have today in open IMA architecture. As per one of the reports, FACE would eliminate the compatibility issues between hardware and software all together, thus enabling hosting of any software application on a given hardware. If that happens, avionics market will see tremendous competition which will drive better and more cost effective solutions, a win-win situation for everyone.

How can a state of the art airliner disappear!!!

Its been four days now since MH 370 has gone off the radar and still no trace of the airliner yet. The airliner involved is a state of the art Boeing 777-200 with an impeccable safety record for almost two decades. This airliner has almost everything that technology has to offer in terms of ergonomics, safety and passenger comfort. Thus, it is very disheartening to see such an aeroplane just vanishing off the sky.
           As per media reports, the plane was on course after take-off from Kaula Lampur till it disappeared near the Vietnamese coast, one hour into the flight. No distress call by the crew, no indication from the on- board systems (like Aircraft Communication Addressing and Reporting System) of any system malfunction. Its just gone!!!

Now, what might have happened to this aircraft is subject of speculation until some concrete evidence is found. However, here I would like to discuss certain scenarios that would not have made the aircraft go off the radar suddenly and lose all communication

Scenario 1: Dual engine failure bringing the plane down- Highly unlikely. This aircraft is equipped with two GE turbo fan engines that are highly reliable and have been in service for 20 long years without any malfunctions. Even if both the engines fail, the airplane can glide providing ample time to the crew for making a MAYDAY call. In such an event the radar controllers would also have been able to see the aircraft losing height on their radar scope.

Scenario 2: Total electrical failure leading to a crash: Boeing 777s are equipped with multiple layers of redundancy when it comes to electrical power. Even if the engine driven generators fail, the aircraft has an Auxiliary Power Unit (APU), batteries and the last resort, a Ram Air Turbine (RAT). Even if it is assumed that the APU and batteries failed, RAT ( a fan which can be exposed into the air stream to generate electricity- very similar to a windmill) can still deliver electrical power to essential systems providing ample opportunity for the pilots to make a MAYDAY call. In this case also the radar controllers would have noticed the plane going down on their radar screens. 

Scenario 3: Even in the case of hijack, the pilots would have alerted the controllers and  any anomaly in the flight path would have been detected at the radar station. 

Some possibilities that can explain the sudden disappearance

Scenario 1:  Collision with another flying object: A similar incident happened few years ago in the skies over Brazil. An Embraer business jet flew into a Boeing 737-800 and severed one of its wings. At that time also the 737 had suddenly disappeared from the radar and it was noticed by the controllers only after the crew failed to contact the next radar station. During that accident, the crew did not get time to issue a distress signal.  Before the crash air traffic controller had problems communicating with the Embraer crew due to disturbance on the communication channel. Even in this case the pilots did not issue a distress signal and another Malaysian Airlines pilot who was  flying in the vicinity has claimed to have established contact with MH 370 (on request of ATC) but could not get a response due to disturbance over the communication channel.

Scenario 2:  A massive decompression or explosion resulting in the total disintegration of the structure in to small pieces which did not have sufficient radar cross section so that they could be detected via radar.