1958: Two DeHavilland Comets depart London and New York, each bound for the other city. Flying for the British Overseas Airways Corporation, the two aircraft complete the first trans-Atlantic jet passenger service, dramatically reducing the travel time between the United States and Europe.
Jet airliners had been around since the Comet first carried passengers from London [...]
Posts Tagged ‘Boeing’
Oct. 4, 1958: ‘Comets’ Debut Trans-Atlantic Jet Age
October 4th, 2010 |
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Airbus v Boeing: Plane poker
September 30th, 2010 |
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Airbus plays the new-engine card
THE big aircraft get the big headlines as both Airbus and Boeing grapple with costly delays to their giant widebody jets, the A380 and the 787 Dreamliner. But the real poker game involves the humbler single-aisle Boeing 737 and Airbus A320 jets. With 120-180 seats, these aeroplanes are the workhorses of the sky, accounting for about four out of every five jets that the two manufacturers sell. This week Airbus raised the stakes when its executives agreed on an A320 upgrade.
The official launch still awaits approval by the board of EADS, the parent company of Airbus. But John Leahy, the head of sales at Airbus, says he is looking forward to selling the A320 NEO (which stands for “new engine option”) from the middle of this month. Tom Enders, Airbus’s CEO, says that the last remaining niggle was whether the company could spare enough senior engineers for the project without hurting other new planes in the works. …
Aircraft-makers: Another nose in the trough
September 16th, 2010 |
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Boeing gets huge illegal subsidies, the WTO rules
AIRBUS, Europe’s aircraft-making champion, has long had its nose in the subsidy trough. This week the World Trade Organisation (WTO) ruled that Boeing, its American rival, is also a guzzler of illegal handouts. More precisely, the WTO gave an interim verdict on a claim by the European Union and Airbus that Boeing received subsidies, mainly channelled through the Department of Defence and NASA, that violate global trading rules.
Not long ago, it was Airbus that was strapped to a seat in cattle class and being pelted with airline food. On June 30th the WTO ruled on an American complaint that Airbus received billions of euros in illegal subsidies that allowed it to snatch half the market for big passenger jets. It found that some government support to Airbus, in the form of repayable “launch aid”, was illegal. Boeing’s chairman, Jim McNerney, hailed “a landmark decision and a sweeping legal victory”. …
July 15, 1954: Boeing 707 Makes First Flight
July 15th, 2010 |
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1954: The Boeing 367-80 makes its first flight from Renton Field southeast of Seattle. The jet-powered airliner will become the Boeing 707 and usher in the jet age for passenger travel.
Boeing was not the first company to produce a jet-powered airliner. But just as Ford’s Model T popularized the automobile despite being a latecomer [...]
Unmanned X-51 Air Force Jet Sets Speed Record
May 28th, 2010 |
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Using a supersonic combustion ramjet motor, Boeing and the U.S. Air Force successfully tested an unmanned X-51A WaveRider, setting a speed record. It is the world’s first hypersonic scramjet flight using hydrocarbon fuel, Boeing said. – In its first flight attempt, the Boeing X-51A WaveRider successfully
completed the longest supersonic combustion ramjet-powered flight in
history — nearly three and a half minutes at a top speed of Mach 5,
the aerospace giant announced. The Air Force described the X-51 is an
unmanned scramjet d…
Air Force Launches Top Secret X-37 Space Plane
April 24th, 2010 |
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A prototype space vehicle, the Boeing-developed X-37 Orbital Test Vehicle (OTV) was successfully launched in Florida. An Air Force official admitted the top secret, unmanned space plane did not have any planned return date. In all honesty, we dont know when its coming back for sure, said Air Force deputy under secretary for space programs Gary Payton.
– The U.S. Air Force successfully launched the top secret Orbital Test
Vehicle (OTV), also known as the X-37B and commonly described as an
unmanned space plane that can re-enter the earths atmosphere. United
Launch Alliance (ULA), a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and Boeing, announced the OTV-1 w…
March 2, 1949: Around the World Without Landing
March 2nd, 2010 |
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1949: After 94 hours, 1 minute of flying time, a Boeing B-50 named Lucky Lady II lands at Carswell Air Force Base, Texas, completing the first ever nonstop, around-the-world trip by an airplane.
The flight covered 23,452 miles, averaging a ground speed of 249 miles per hour. The modified bomber required air-to-air refueling four times as it [...]
Boeing Announces 1,020 Layoffs
February 21st, 2010 |
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Boeing has issued 60-day pink slips to more than 1,000 employees of its Engineering, Operations and Technology division. Boeing, whose year-over-year revenue was up 42 percent in the fourth quarter of 2009, expects to lay off 2,000 workers in 2010.
– Aerospace and defense contracting company
Boeing gave 60-day layoff notices for 1,020 employees. The bulk of the
layoffs will happen in both its Puget Sound, Wash., and Seal Beach,
Calif., locations, as well as other U.S. offices. Many of the cuts are
information technology workers in
Boeing’s …
Feb. 9, 1969: Behemoth Aloft
February 9th, 2010 |
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1969: Boeing successfully tests its new 747 jumbo jet.
As commercial air travel boomed in the 1960s, the need for a plane capable of handling more passengers than Boeing’s reliable old warhorse, the 707, became obvious. But the technology of jet-engine design was changing rapidly, too, and the feeling was that any new aircraft built using [...]
In for the long haul
January 21st, 2010 |
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The Boeing 747 has spent 40 years circling the earth
FORTY years ago the Boeing 747 first entered service on a Pan Am flight between New York and London. The jumbo jet changed the economics of air travel by slashing costs per seat and lowering ticket prices. The 747′s huge capacity and its long range made it the world’s long-haul workhorse. In recent decades the market has divided between short- and long-haul planes mainly made by two big competitors, Boeing and Airbus. Their latest planes—the mammoth A380 “super-jumbo” and the smaller but technologically advanced 787 Dreamliner—represent different bets on the future. Airbus predicts that huge numbers will travel between big regional hubs; Boeing thinks that passengers will prefer to travel directly between smaller airports.
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Maiden flights for Boeing and Airbus: Upwards and onwards
December 17th, 2009 |
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Airborne at last, the Dreamliner and the A400M still have a lot to prove
ON THE face of it the A400M, a dumpy military transport made by Airbus, and Boeing’s sleek 787 Dreamliner (pictured) have little in common other than that they both flew for the first time in the past few days. But they share a similar history: both planes finally took to the air more than two years late and far over budget. Moreover, both were developed in unnecessarily complicated ways, even though big aviation projects are difficult enough without taking on further risks.
In an effort to reduce the cost of developing an innovative new aircraft, Boeing recruited “risk-sharing” partners who became largely responsible for designing whole sections of the plane, while creating one of the most complex and extended supply chains in industrial history. But Boeing failed to supervise its partners’ work adequately and has probably ended up spending more to put things right than it ever would have saved. With the A400M, European defence ministers jeopardised the project from the outset by setting up a politically conceived consortium to produce the aircraft’s giant turboprop engines rather than allowing Airbus to buy them from America’s Pratt & Whitney. …
ST Aerospace bags $125m A320, Boeing 767 maintenance contract from US airline
December 4th, 2009 |
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ST Engineering says its aerospace arm, ST Aerospace, has secured a contract to provide airframe maintenance services for a major US airline worth about US$90 million ($125 million).
The maintenance contract will include C checks and heavy maintenance visits for a fleet of Airbus A320 family aircraft and Boeing 767 aircraft over three years, with an option to extend for two more years.
“Jat Airways to get new Boeings”
October 15th, 2009 |
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Daily Danas states that Jat Airways is looking to modernize its fleet with new Boeing aircraft. Jat is working on modernization, according to Danas, which states that the company has held meetings with Citibank officials and representatives of American airplane manufacturer Boeing, adding that a Boeing delegation is expected to visit Belgrade in the next ten days.
Boeing and Airbus argue about subsidies: Trading blows
August 13th, 2009 |
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The two big aircraft-makers battle it out at the World Trade Organisation
NOT a lot has gone right for Boeing recently. After declaring to the world at the Paris air show in June that its chronically delayed 787 Dreamliner would take to the air before the month was out, executives were forced to announce an indefinite postponement of the high-tech aircraft’s first flight only days later because of a problem with the wing mounting. The company also seems to have been hit harder by cash-strapped airlines cancelling orders than its main rival, Airbus. But Boeing is anticipating a triumph in the next few weeks when the World Trade Organisation (WTO) comes to a preliminary decision on a complaint made by America nearly five years ago about subsidies given to Airbus by European governments.
In 2004 at the urging of Harry Stonecipher, Boeing’s boss at the time, America terminated a 1992 agreement with the European Union regulating government support for the commercial-aircraft industry and initiated a WTO dispute-settlement procedure. The agreement had capped European launch aid for new airliners at 33% of all development costs on condition that the money was repaid at an interest rate that at least covered the cost of the governments’ own borrowing. For their part, the Americans were allowed to continue with indirect federal and state support for their aircraft industry as long as the payments did not exceed 3% of the industry’s sales. Much of the subsidy received by Boeing comes in the form of research contracts for its military arm, the results of which can then be applied to its civil aircraft without charge. …
July 31, 1971: Astronauts Drive on the Moon
July 31st, 2009 |
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1971: Apollo 15 astronauts David Scott and James Irwin drive the Lunar Roving Vehicle on the surface of the moon. It’s the first off-planet automobile ride.
Forty years after Neil Armstrong made his giant leap for mankind, the Apollo program remains a singular cultural and technological achievement. The application of so much technology to a single [...]
Spy gave shuttle secrets to China
July 16th, 2009 |
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A Chinese-born engineer in the United States has been found guilty of passing space shuttle technology secrets to China, for more than 30 years.
Dongfan "Greg" Chung, 73, is the first person to be found guilty under a federal law, introduced in 1996, to counter economic espionage.
Mr Chung worked for Rockwell International, and then Boeing, until the FBI investigation began in 2006.
He will be sentenced in November, and could spend decades in prison.
A court statement said the judge in California had found Chung guilty of economic espionage, acting as a foreign agent and making false statements to the FBI.
The trial began on 2 June.
Public domain
Chung, a naturalised American citizen, worked at Rockwell International from 1973. Rockwell’s defence and space unit was taken over by Boeing in 1996.
Chung’s defence team admitted that he took Boeing papers home, but said he had wanted the information so he could write a book.
All the information he had given to China, they said, was already in the public domain.
His lawyer Thomas H Bienert told the court: "Mr Chung walked an interesting line, and a risky line, but not a line that was criminal."
The defence team says it will appeal against the verdict.
Chung is to remain in custody until his sentencing on 9 November. He could face up to 90 years in jail.</p
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