Forum Home
PC World Chat
Thread ID: 111238	2010-07-19 07:58:00	Boeing 787	kenj (9738)	PC World Chat

Post ID	Timestamp	Content	User
1120340	2010-07-20 02:57:00	What's wrong with an A380 flew with Emirates from London/Dubai/Auckland (4 days in Dubai) Great leg room, entertainment and service, and sooooo quiet. Econ. class as well. Always thought it looked like a Guppy.... en.wikipedia.org Ken	kenj (9738)
1120341	2010-07-20 04:44:00	Thomas , was that the 2707 design? Certainly looked the part. The 2707 was the design I was mainly working on and was the Boeing submission after the swing wing concept was halted. This wasn't a particularly good looking aircraft - in fact I would say it looked like what it was - the result of a failed supersonic swing wing design being hurriedly dropped for something that would work. I still hold one of the assembly drawings of the beast. The NASA concept never got beyond the "layout drawing" stage. As I said it was a delight to the eye, and would have been a good aircraft - if only passengers hadn't been needed.	Thomas01 (317)
1120342	2010-07-20 04:59:00	Thomas, that must have been an amazing experience for you :thumbs:	WalOne (4202)
1120343	2010-07-20 05:28:00	Yes my Dad was an aircraft engineer for BOAC and I remember he had lots of "special tools".	Digby (677)
1120344	2010-07-20 11:25:00	B170= 40,000 solid rivets flying in semi-solid formation. British aircraft; designed by idiots to be worked on by geniuses. American aircraft; designed by geniuses to be worked on by idiots.	Whenu (9358)
1120345	2010-07-20 11:59:00	B170= 40,000 solid rivets flying in semi-solid formation. British aircraft; designed by idiots to be worked on by geniuses. American aircraft; designed by geniuses to be worked on by idiots. You are so on to it squire.	prefect (6291)
1120346	2010-07-20 13:00:00	The English actually designed an aircraft? None of them showed the least trace of design; the best that could be said was that they were often delightful flying pieces of cr.. that consumed enormous subsidies at every step of the process. Fortunately they used appropriate alloys, so no good materials were wasted. PS., they were superlative examples of creative selling.	R2x1 (4628)
1120347	2010-07-20 23:59:00	B170= 40,000 solid rivets flying in semi-solid formation. British aircraft; designed by idiots to be worked on by geniuses. American aircraft; designed by geniuses to be worked on by idiots. Oh dear. I was a designer for both British and American firms so am I a genius or an idiot? But I also worked as a British fitter in my early days. So I guess am more likely to be a genius! Seriously some amazing statements have been made in this thread. I found the British much better at design and more original thinkers than the Americans who were superb in production. Where the various aircraft especially military were doing the same job then things were about even. I well remember the American astonishment when "Lightning" aircraft came down on their VERY HIGH flying spy planes in a mock attack, agreed to by the Americans beforehand of course. I think the situation is shown by the Liberty ships built during the last war. Designed by the British - built in the thousands by the Americans. My personal opinion of American design was that in 1965 they were years behind British Design offices. At BAC we had long switched to vertical drafting machines, and our lofting sheds were the worlds best. At Boeing I found I had to work on a massive heavy horizontal board that took two men to lift the thing so that the front was just a few inches higher. Most of us bought our own drafting machines (still horizontal though) They still worked on paper - BAC used linens long before I had joined them. Ozalids and Sepias were unknown to Boeing and their drafting system was unbelievably clumsy. They did however keep many top people on the board and engineers were expected to do their own drafting. I liked the way you could earn as much pencil pushing on those boards as you could being a manager. Sadly I don't know the situation today - the last time I was in a design office was in 1999 when I wrangled a visit to my old firm BAC and was fascinated by their new CAD stuff. Tom	Thomas01 (317)
1120348	2010-07-21 00:21:00	British aircraft; designed by idiots to be worked on by geniuses. American aircraft; designed by geniuses to be worked on by idiots. The mighty Spitfire .... and P51 Mustang .... Oh wait ... weren't the P51's retrofitted with the RR Merlins to make them faster & more reliable ??	SP8's (9836)
1120349	2010-07-21 00:26:00	Yes the Mustangs first came out with a Allison V12 which was unreliable so they switched to the RR V12. :)	Trev (427)
1 2 3 4 5