It all goes back to that old engineering adage: Cheap, Fast, Good. You can pick any TWO but NEVER have all three NO MATTER WHAT the idiotic upper management tries.

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When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, TURMOIL, FIASCOS, and HAVOC !

I am 100% with you there!

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Bernard Cawley
NAR 89040 L1 - Life Member
SAM 0061
AMA 42160
KG7AIE

Boeing has been having problems with the 787 Dreamliner and now there is talk about eliminating several versions of the 737 MAX. Airlines have been complaining about delays in the delivery of several current models of the 737; is anything going right?


Bill

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It is well past time to Drill, Baby, Drill!

If your June, July, August and September was like this, you might just hate summer too...

Please unload your question before you ask it unless you have a concealed harry permit.

: countdown begin cr dup . 1- ?dup 0= until cr ." Launch!" cr ;

Give a man a rocket and he will fly for a day; teach him to build and he will spend the rest of his days sanding...

BoeZOing.

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When in doubt, WHACK the GAS and DITCH the brake !!!

Yes, there is such a thing as NORMAL, if you have to ask what is "NORMAL" , you probably aren't !
Failure may not be an OPTION, but it is ALWAYS a POSSIBILITY.
ALL systems are GO for MAYHEM, CHAOS, TURMOIL, FIASCOS, and HAVOC !

Seriously? Blaming Boeing's failures on Trump? The guy may be a jerk on Twitter, but he has nothing to do with Boeing's total humiliation in multiple projects going back long before he became president.

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I love sanding.

No, I'm not blaming Trump for the whole mess.

But I also don't doubt that some of his personal preferences figure into the interiors issues that were referred to in the article. VIP airplanes in general are one-offs (or two-off in this case) so many aspects fall in to the "we'll figure out how to do THIS when we get there/have to" including interiors desires. That sort of thing is not conducive to reliable scheduling or pricing.

I am also pretty sure that some of how the contract was done he had direct involvement in.

I was never directly involved in the Boeing Business Jets side of the things but was close enough to several who were to hear some real interesting stories about what some BBJ customers wanted and how practical those things weren't.

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Bernard Cawley
NAR 89040 L1 - Life Member
SAM 0061
AMA 42160
KG7AIE

Like Bernie, I'm a retired Boeing Engineer (just shy of 40 years).
I worked the 747 for most of the last 15 years of my career - including leading up my group's effort on the 747-8.
About a year before I retired, I started getting phone calls asking various questions related to the new AF1 program and the engine control (my area). I went to the 747 Propulsion Chief and asked if I could get a brief on the AF1 program so I could give intelligent replies to the questions I was getting.
I can't go into details as most of the stuff was limited/proprietary, but I was simply dumfounded at the level of 'gold plating' that was going into that aircraft (and not related to Trump as near as I could tell). I'd worked the previous 747 AF1 program back in the late 1980s (which also was a financial bath for Boeing - went something like $500 Million over the fixed price contract - you'd think upper management had learned from that fiasco: ) - and I could see absolutely no rational for some of the (quite expensive) changes they wanted for the new 747-8 based AF1.

I had a theory that the Air Force was financing (hiding) some of the development for a planned military version of the 747 (e.g. airborne laser or command post) in the AF1 program. While that would have explained a lot, if that was the plan it failed since the 747 production has stopped...

I could only hope that the AF is hiding something with the AF-1 money, but I can't see how Boeing would go along with it. It makes them look really bad to the commercial sector instead of being an awesome advertising platform. Add the Starliner issues into the mix and Boeing is becoming the best advertising platform for Airbus and SpaceX that there could possibly be.

I've always loved the Boeing bombers and the Boeing 707 is arguably the most beautiful civilian plane ever to take the skies, with the 747 coming a close 2nd. However, I'm losing faith in them. I blame it on you two for retiring!

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I love sanding.

I would think his preferences would be the easy part. Hot tub time machine? No problem. Wet bar? No problem. Curtains and sofas with gold thread? No problem. However, weaving all the top secret electronics and communication into something that looks presidential, I could see that as an "interior problem".

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I love sanding.

The golden "Kiss My Ring" portal he probably requested may have been a bit more problematic and costly....

Earl

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Earl L. Cagle, Jr.
NAR# 29523
TRA# 962
SAM# 73
Owner/Producer
Point 39 Productions

Rocket-Brained Since 1970