 |
Matronics Email Lists
Web Forum Interface to the Matronics Email Lists
|
| View previous topic :: View next topic |
| Author |
Message |
coop85(at)bellsouth.net
Guest
|
 Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 6:51 pm Post subject: A380 Wiring problems |
 |
|
Just for fun, here's an article obtained from the ALPA forum about delays on
Airbus's new giant machine due to wiring snags. Makes my current wiring
issues seem somewhat insignificant compared to 500 km of wire! Of note is
the huge amount of wire being thrown out mentioned at the end of the
article. Perhaps someone could make a run to the factory, I suspect one
wasted bundle would wire all 600 RV-10s that are in the works!
Marcus
40286
finishing the QB wings, then it'll be close to flying
do not archive
Airbus Scrambles to Fix Wiring Problems
Effort Aims to Put
Production, Delivery
Of 380 Back on Track
By DANIEL MICHAELS
June 26, 2006
TOULOUSE, France -- Scrambling to make up for costly and embarrassing delays
in production of the A380 superjumbo jet, several hundred Airbus workers are
laboring around the clock to repair wiring problems on the aircraft.
At the plane's production plant here, the technicians are finishing
installation of some 500 kilometers of electrical cables into each of the
eight A380 jets sitting on the assembly line. Plant managers say the
catch-up effort, which began in April, should get manufacturing and delivery
of the superjumbo jets back on track.
"We think we have the measures in place now to get the job done," said
Andreas Fehring, A380 program vice president.
Airbus shocked airlines and investors June 13 when it announced a second
delay of six months in its plans to build the A380, the world's largest
passenger plane. European Aeronautic Defense & Space Co., which owns 80% of
Airbus, said the holdup would wipe more than ˆ2 billion ($2.5 billion) from
its operating profit over the next four years.
The announcements, which sent EADS shares in Paris and Frankfurt plunging as
much as 34%, unearthed Airbus's worst manufacturing crisis in years. In
addition to delays on the A380, the European plane maker is racing to rework
its proposed A350 midsize wide-body plane to better compete with rival
Boeing Co.'s popular 787 "Dreamliner" model.
The developments have created a major management rift at EADS. They have
also sparked an investigation by French regulators into whether senior EADS
executives who sold company stock this year may have benefited from insider
information about the holdups.
During the weekend in Paris, French Finance Minister Thierry Breton held
talks with EADS shareholders over how to fix the problems at Airbus and at
its Franco-German parent. "The finance minister is determined to find a
rapid solution," a spokesman for Mr. Breton said yesterday.
People familiar with the talks said yesterday that the shareholders are
still considering a change of the company's management. But they said that
keeping the balance of power between French and German executives at the top
of EADS and Airbus makes it difficult to reach a consensus.
The June 13 announcement has baffled many customers and analysts. The first
six-month A380 delay, which was announced in April 2005, had also been
caused by wiring problems, and Airbus officials said at the time that the
problem was being resolved.
Airlines are irked because Airbus pitched the two-deck, 555-seat A380 as
"the eighth wonder of the world," but then misjudged the time needed to
complete the plane.
Airbus did plan "margins to handle unexpected things due to the complexity,"
Mr. Fehring said, but "they did not prove to be sufficient."
So far, none of the 16 airlines and leasing companies that have ordered 159
A380s have backed out because of the delays. Steven Udvar-Hazy, chairman and
chief executive officer of International Lease Finance Corp., said the
scheduling problems on the A380 have slipped to the point that ILFC would be
within its contractual rights to cancel five of the 10 A380s it ordered.
However, Mr. Udvar-Hazy said ILFC and other major customers for the A380 are
likely to stick with Airbus.
"I don't think we want to start a run on the bank and destroy a good company
that has made some adolescent mistakes," he said in an interview. "In the
long term, it's in the best interest of the entire industry to have two
strong players out there making jets."
The latest delays to the A380 program arose in early April. Airbus managers
noticed that there were an increasing number of A380 models sitting on the
assembly line that were fully constructed, but not completely wired and
therefore without electricity, Mr. Fehring said.
The accelerated wiring process that had started in 2005 was losing ground,
but Airbus engineers still thought the backlog was controllable. In
mid-April, Airbus hired management consultant McKinsey & Co. to help analyze
the situation.
Wiring is an increasingly significant part of new aircraft, as electricity
replaces clunky mechanical systems that control older model planes. New
computers and entertainment systems also need wiring. An A380 carries
roughly 500 kilometers of wires that snake deep inside the plane's
structure.
The Airbus wiring problems started around two years ago when Airbus
factories started assembling A380 parts before full wiring plans were
complete. Building airplane parts while designs are being finalized is a
standard practice called "concurrent engineering" and is aimed at saving
time.
But then successive tweaks to the plane's basic design -- coupled with
complex customization requested by airlines -- forced engineers to redraw
blueprints again and again. Each new blueprint required plant workers to
rewire the planes. "The number of small changes we have to apply to the
number of aircraft built has caused the delay," said Mr. Fehring.
Four of the A380s on the assembly line at Toulouse have tails that are
already painted for Singapore Airlines, the aircraft's first customer.
Working furiously inside the guts of the planes are hundreds of Airbus
workers from across Europe.
Near the lower cargo door of one A380, a worker held a cabling blueprint
while another threaded a single white wire above his head. Within a few
meters, a dozen other staff handled other wiring issues. Changing a single
wire can require hours of labor to remove, change and replace. Near a plant
exit sat a cart full of coiled cables awaiting disposal.
--J. Lynn Lunsford in Los Angeles and David Gauthier-Villars in Paris
contributed to this article.
Write to Daniel Michaels at daniel.michaels(at)wsj.com
| | - The Matronics RV10-List Email Forum - | | | Use the List Feature Navigator to browse the many List utilities available such as the Email Subscriptions page, Archive Search & Download, 7-Day Browse, Chat, FAQ, Photoshare, and much more:
http://www.matronics.com/Navigator?RV10-List |
|
|
|
| Back to top |
|
 |
dlm46007(at)cox.net
Guest
|
| Posted: Sun Jun 25, 2006 7:43 pm Post subject: A380 Wiring problems |
|
|
Maybe we ought to avoid flying on the A380 for the next five years. Throwing
hundreds of workers at a wiring problems sounds eerily like the Airbus that
crashed on a fly by in Paris. the computer determined that the aircraft
should not be climbing at that angle of attack so therefore would not allow
the nose to rise even though engine output was adequate. It crashed at the
end of the runway with the loss of 50 lives.
---
| | - The Matronics RV10-List Email Forum - | | | Use the List Feature Navigator to browse the many List utilities available such as the Email Subscriptions page, Archive Search & Download, 7-Day Browse, Chat, FAQ, Photoshare, and much more:
http://www.matronics.com/Navigator?RV10-List |
|
|
|
| Back to top |
|
|
|
|
You cannot post new topics in this forum
You cannot reply to topics in this forum
You cannot edit your posts in this forum
You cannot delete your posts in this forum
You cannot vote in polls in this forum
You cannot attach files in this forum
You can download files in this forum
|
Powered by phpBB © 2001, 2005 phpBB Group
|
Get Email Distribution Too!
FAQ
Search
Memberlist
Usergroups
Register
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
