The Gun Counter

While Al Jazeera is normally a source I would be skeptical about, this documentary about the problems with Boeing and the 787 seems to be legitimate, and very concerning. The saying for decades was "If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going." It appears those days are over. In yet another example of an American company abandoning its founding principals in exchange for stock price, beating down the workers that give their heart and soul to the company because they used to believe in it, and sacrificing quality for cost, it appears the legend of Boeing is dead.

Sorry if I'm being melodramatic, but it appears for all intensive purposes that my airline is in a tightening death spiral, for exactly the same reasons, and it pisses me off to know that I've wasted nearly nine years of my life for nothing. I just hope no one I know is on the first 787 that has a major structural failure in flight.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=rvkEpstd9os

Al Jazeera, aside from having a nine-eleveny sounding name, is one of the better news sources you can get.

Holy Christ!

That's the sort of documentary journalism 60 Minutes and Frontline used to do, before their Democrat flag-bearers were so tied with the fate of corporate corruption.

Boeing is in the unlikely position of claiming that all the subcontractors, all the documents, all the engineers, and all the assembly line workers are lying liars, whereas they're just the innocent victims of hundreds of people trying to viciously smear them for no discernible personal gain whatsoever, just because they're meanies.

Sh'yeah, when monkeys fly outta my butt.

I have actually been reasonably impressed by Al Jazeera. Their investigate journalism is what the big names should be doing and their biases, when they come up, are at least obvious. Thanks for the link.

I didn't want to fly on a 787 before watching that.

Seemed to me to be a typical piece that the union pushed. "Those scabs are hammering in screws and if only we had the union looking after quality things would be better."

I'm not saying Boeing is blameless, just that it's easy to find employees bitching and blowing and until something fails in flight, the plane is safe. Modern examples include the DC-10 cargo door, the DeHavilland Comet fuselage windows, and the Boeing 737 rudder control valve.

evan price wrote:I'm not saying Boeing is blameless, just that it's easy to find employees bitching and blowing and until something fails in flight, the plane is safe. Modern examples include the DC-10 cargo door, the DeHavilland Comet fuselage windows, and the Boeing 737 rudder control valve.

Somthing failing in flight like, say, the batteries? From what I have seen Boeings attitude here is becoming quite typical in American companies. The primary, and often only, focus is next quarter profits. Building a company, training workers to do a good job, all of that no longer matters. It's not even an issue of greed, but rather one of short sightedness as these companies would do much better in the long run if the focused on building a company and not on next quarters profits.

Kommander wrote:

evan price wrote:I'm not saying Boeing is blameless, just that it's easy to find employees bitching and blowing and until something fails in flight, the plane is safe. Modern examples include the DC-10 cargo door, the DeHavilland Comet fuselage windows, and the Boeing 737 rudder control valve.

Somthing failing in flight like, say, the batteries? From what I have seen Boeings attitude here is becoming quite typical in American companies. The primary, and often only, focus is next quarter profits. Building a company, training workers to do a good job, all of that no longer matters. It's not even an issue of greed, but rather one of short sightedness as these companies would do much better in the long run if the focused on building a company and not on next quarters profits.

Lithium chemistry batteries fail; we've all seen or heard of laptops catching fire, flashlights catching fire, etc. It's easy to point to Yuasa and say they screwed up in that case. Remember Ford Explorer's stability control issues relating to underinflated Firestone tires? Ford may have been guilty as sin for issuing an underinflated spec for the tires but in the end it all goes to Firestone's doorstep.

I'm talking something that is inherently a Boeing issue, like inadequate wing-root stress risers, or a failure of composite bonding adhesives for the fuselage sections.

Unfortunately, laying this off as mere union sour-grapes bitching doesn't cover the documents about cutting inspection corners, the statements from the engineers, or the batteries catching on fire. And noting that HopeyDopey, Shrillary, Tom Brokaw, and typical FAA flunky have all been "on the payroll" doesn't help Boeing's case, it actually damns them rather conclusively.

Of course, it won't matter until one of the 787s (or several) explodes or breaks up in midair, 2, 5, 10 years from now.
It's mainly arcana for me unless it lands on my head, because I'm not flying anywhere until I can do so without disrobing for a cavity search by the Gestapo.

I used to like airplanes.