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Boeing… Boeing… Gone!

The Boeing Starliner’s first manned flight, originally scheduled for 2017, has been postponed “indefinitely.” What happened to this former giant of the aerospace sector?

American aerospace giant Boeing introduced their successor to the Apollo capsule — the Starliner — back in 2010. The first manned test flight of the Starliner was scheduled for 2017. But in early June, 2023 –thirteen years after its introduction — the first manned test flight has no been delayed…”indefinitely,” according to company officials. Was it a fault with some untested, bleeding-edge, all-digital flight control system? Actually, no: the ELECTRICAL TAPE they used turned out to be flammable, and replacing it will likely mean disassembly of the entire capsule. Another high tech issue: the PARACHUTES don’t seem to be working. What happened to this one-time giant?

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28 replies on “Boeing… Boeing… Gone!”

It’s silly that we prate about companies making such big mistakes that they should never be allowed to be in the field again when we have Biden as president.

My advice is that Boeing needs to form a Committee immediately to investigate this- we need a 1200 page report to document what happened and why not to do anything about it. of course that will require more contract money to perform the in-depth investigation that will not change any work practices or threaten anyone’s career’s. what about another 4-5 billion?
Boeing stopped being a flight company when they gave their wing to China

Affirmative Action Program. That is what kills a lot of our original phenomenal companies. We sent astronauts to the moon using slide rules for engineering calculations. We did that because only the best and brightest engineers and scientists were hired to work on our space program. Then came the Affirmative Action Program and within a generation, we could not keep the Space Shuttle in earth orbit and return safely using Cray Supercomputers for engineering calculations.
I had that discussion with one of my engineering professors years ago. His contention was that we suck at teaching math and physics, and requiring excellence of our students. He is correct, but the end result of what we teach leads us to Affirmative Action, where those students who would ordinarily fail are given passing grades in order to meet whatever quota is required for the goals set for the AAP. Then, those subpar students/graduates get hired for the same reason – to meet the AAP goal. Then they get promoted for the same reason…and eventually, you can’t wire a space capsule with the correct electrical tape…or you can’t keep your spacecraft safely in space or design a reusable space vehicle. And since our politicians are so incompetent and technolofically stupid, they keep funding programs because…?
Elon Musk’s space program will succeed until he succumbs to the AAP demands.

I’m so sorry. I just can’t stop commenting. Go to Boeing.com, and start clicking through the pages of Starliner. It’s a non stop self congratulatory parade of….I can’t describe it well. So many stories of folks who are presented as being instrumental to the success of the Starliner build.
Pages and Pages of stories, half way through the stack I ran into three stories in a row
“Starliner electrician influenced daughters into aerospace field” 2020
“Starliner’s flight software manager’s traumatic childhood journey to America gave her resilience to face any of life’s challenges” 2020
“Starliner’s parachutes perform under pressure”. 2020

Sure, these have been ongoing stories of Boeing Starliner success since 2013. I did note that many of these embarrassing stories have been scrubbed, but the thumbnails and the story titles still remain on the site.
If it weren’t so maddening, it’d be just so, so sad.

Much of what was said in this episode is probably true, but some perspective is also needed.

A major weapons system, aircraft, spacecraft, etc., has one to many millions of engineering and design requirements that must be discovered, documented, and satisfied for a final successful outcome. Yes, parachutes and electrical insulation requirements should not be missed or unknown to the design and design review teams, and with history from past programs, fewer yet-to-be-discovered requirements should surface. And difficulties are compounded when the “customer” keeps demanding changes!!

But when it came to the consolidation of the aerospace and defense industry into our current set of “a few giant firms”, let’s remember that that was largely a monopsony (single buyer) environment. There is only one purchaser for fighter aircraft, submarines, Peacekeeper intercontinental or anti-aircraft Patriot missiles, Abrams tanks, etc. And we should (probably) prefer that it remain that way, with foreign military sales managed in a similar way via our government’s involvement.

With the collapse of the USSR, the industry leaders knew they faced a reduced market for their military related output and began the process of business consolidation to reduce the costs of duplicative business activities and/or product lines. Martin Marietta (my employer) and Lockheed merged in 1995 to form Lockheed Martin [not Lockheed Boeing], after each firm had already absorbed several of their other competing aerospace operations. The newly merged company had something like 180,000 employees and over the next two years or so began RIF’ing down to around 100,000 (as I recall). I think Boeing bought McDonald Douglas, and some other sort outs give us what we have in our aerospace/ defense marketplace now.

Another cold war with China and maybe we will see divestitures and/or new firms built/ rebuilt to fill the new market demand. But this time we will be starting from a funding base of $31+T in national debt.

[Darn, looks like my left and right keys on my keyboard have crapped out. The up and down keys still work. Buy a whole new ($15 or $20?) keyboard for two keys??]

Bill….? I’ve been using EDM machines, both electrode and wire EDM to make injection molds for…..20 years. I can’t tell if you were being snarky or if you thought EDM was actually new. Which means you hide your snark well.
Regarding the wiring….was it not Boeing who was responsible, according to the NTSB, for the Capton sheathed wiring which became abraded and shorted, taking TWA out of the sky so many years ago? Or, was that “a” story we were told, not “the” story? I really, really wanted to believe that the NTSB was beyond politicization, and of all the federal agencies, the National Transportation Safety Board were the “Jack Webbs” of investigative agencies.
Finally, this all makes sense when you see what’s really important to Boeing, certainly not the embarrassment of blowing billions of taxpayer’s dollars, instead meet the new “Cascade” process at Boeing to insure sustainability. Go ahead Boeing….keep blowing billions of taxpayer dollars and I can assure you, that last thing that’ll be sustainable will be Boeing.

oops, Kapton, not Capton.

If ever, EVER, there was a time we needed a “boaty mc’boatface” moment, now is that time. Boeing deserves a little bit of mocking.

As Elon Musk and Spacex made a video of “how not to land a rocket”, maybe Boeing can make a self effacing video called “how no to launch a rocket”.

Another thought: if Boeing is having multi-year problems with the Starliner (presumably a corporate bragging, flagship program), then why is the Air Force trying to buy latest-generation fighters from them? Why are airlines buying their passenger jets?

The Orteig Prize, originally offered and promoted in 1919, was $25,000 for the first non-stopped flight between New York and Paris. That money may not have been the primary impetus for those who tried to make the flight, but it was certainly a significant consideration which allowed smaller, less capitalized ventures to throw their hats into the ring. That would be like the impromptu coalition of business folks in St. Louis, who chose to back an airmail pilot and build a plane to his single wing, single engine standard at a non-mainstream aircraft manufacturer …. Ryan, essentially some one hundred years ago!

Great comparison!! And one of my favorite movies.
If the fly is flying around the cockpit does it add weight?

They are still using electrical tape? I am not up on my engineering advancements but that just seems so old school given what Bill showed at the beginning of this piece. I remember fixing things with electrical tape. It always felt like a temporary solution.

Yeah, sometimes electrical tape is the best solution, even today. I prefer waterproof shrink tube and other solutions where I can use them but I still use electrical tape too. Strange thing is, even I know to buy the nonflammable or at least flame-retardant kind and I’m not a Boeing aerospace engineer.

So I know this is a source of angst to you, but one of the things that you should know is that Bill has been doing these uploads himself for a while since he had to let one of the employees go. Between all the recordings plus the DW stuff, getting it to the right channel or multiple channels is not the priority. Getting it out is.
Perhaps instead of complaining, you could offer your services or write a script on how to do it your preferred way so that it would take the minimum amount of his time.

Y’all seem to have the wrong impression about me. IDK about you, but I’d like to see their exposure to grow, not stagnate. So when there’s an issue, personally, I think it’s best to inform them. I usually do it here, where it’s semi-private. I don’t want to bother Shelley with smaller things like this.
Anyhow, he might want to consider bumping it up in priority. At least as Rumble is concerned…it’s the difference between 937 followers vs. 9.2K. Important enough to mention here, at least.
I’ve offered help in areas I am suited to speak on. No takes yet. I can help them get back their content from YouTube, so they aren’t under their thumb anymore. It’s not that hard…they just need space.
I take this battle against the tech tyrants seriously…perhaps people here just want to sit around and drink coffee and gab about the state of the world, instead of doing something about it. IDK…maybe it’s not too much trouble to lend a hand…do you think?

I have not even watched this R/A yet, but just saw the title and had to post these two images. One is the splash page from Boeing, today..right now…. and the other one just a comment on companies full of yes folks, or folks just riding out to their pension, regardless of sense or success.

People can get the management credentials to run a big company like Boeing, but have no more engineering sense that a South Pacific Cargo Cult. Bureaucratic management is the death of good engineering.

This is actually very sad. if you think back to the film 2001: A Space Odyssey and the scene getting to the space station, it is a PAN AM livery. y implication, it is a space plane made by Boeing, or McDonnell, or Hughes.
Such were the dreams of the time in which I grew up.
For those not old enough to remember the story of the Apollo fire (first – go watch Bill’s series Apollo: What We Saw. No seriously right now, come back in 5 hours) . ..
OK now that you are back – Boeing making this error is akin to General Dynamics Electric Boat division building a submarine and not making good welds or having battery packs that explode. Re-doing mistakes made by others, decades ago, that killed many people in the US Navy and the Russian Navy.
The US Navy still has a sub safe program for all new technologies
For Boeing to blow it on this one and table the program indefinitely should disqualify them from any further space program involvement. It is one thing to make new errors resulting in dynamic separation or whatever term Space-X uses, and then learning from them. But to not learn the lessons previously hard earned is inexcusable.

I agree with your last paragraph, enthusiastically. Boeing should be blackballed from ever being allowed to bid on a space contract of any sort again. Wrapping a flammable material around a potential ignition source in an oxygen enhanced environment is an amatuer mistake. Somewhere, some engineer isn’t worth his salary. If they made a mistake like that, there’s no telling what other mistakes they’ve made that have yet to be discovered.

I have worked for several companies that were Military Subcontractors: Air Frames to Space to Tanks to Missiles. Nobody was more hard core about following procedure than the Navy Subsea Programs. And there is a very good reason: Scorpion. I think Bill covered this in one of the Cold War: What We Saw episodes. Gives me chills to this day.
(Aside: The Israeli Cavalry, that’s tanks to you and me, were pretty hard core. I recall asking their inspector why the accuracy of the targeting system was so important since a tank was a pretty big target. He said we are not aiming for the tank, we are aiming at the gun. Hit the treads and it can still shoot back. Hit the gun barrel and it doesn’t matter if the the tank can move or the soldiers survived, that tank is dead. Oh and they were aiming from 2 miles away. Perspective is a hell of a thing!)

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