Rusia Pikir Amerika Sabotase Sukhoi

TEMPO.CO , Jakarta - Intelijen Rusia berpikir Sukhoi Superjet 100 yang jatuh pada joy flight 9 Mei 2012 di Gunung Salak Bogor, Indonesia, kemungkinan disabotase Amerika Serikat. Hal ini ditulis salah satu media besar di Rusia pada Kamis, 24 Mei 2012.

Pada salah satu artikelnya, tabloid Rusia Komsomolskaya Pravda menulis judul 'Amerika yang Akibatkan Kecelakaan Sukhoi?'. Tabloid itu menyebutkan beberapa petugas yang tidak disebutkan namanya mengatakan pesaing penerbangan Rusia itu ingin melihat penerbangan tersebut gagal.
Pemerintah Rusia dan media di sana punya sejarah mengambinghitamkan negara lain atau orang asing atas kecelakaan maupun musibah yang mengaitkan Rusia.
Seorang petinggi angkatan laut Rusia pernah menyalahkan Angkatan Laut Amerika Serikat atas tragedi Agustus 2000 kala kapal selam nuklir Kursk tenggelam dan menewaskan 118 pelaut. Hal itu karena ada beberapa kapal Amerika Serikat yang sedang berlatih di daerah Laut Barents. Contoh lain terjadi saat petinggi Agen Luar Angkasa Rusia Yury Kotev mengatakan satelit Mars yang tersangkut di orbit Bumi pada Rusia November lalu gagal karena aktivitas radar Amerika Serikat di daerah itu.
Seorang agen intelijen tentara ini mengatakan kepada Komsomolskaya Pravda bahwa kantor mereka, The GRU, sudah lama melacak aktivitas pesawat Amerika Serikat di bandara Jakarta.
"Kita tahu bahwa mereka (Amerika) memiliki banyak teknologi khusus yang juga kita miliki yang bisa mengganggu sinyal dari darat atau menyebabkan pembacaan parameter tidak berfungsi,” ujar pejabat itu.
»Mungkin ini adalah salah satu alasan jatuhnya pesawat," kata pejabat itu. Penyelidik Indonesia sampai saat ini masih menyelidiki mencari penyebab jatuhnya pesawat itu.
Di Washington, juru bicara Pentagon George Little membantah tudingan itu. George Little menganggap tuduhan itu omong kosong.

Airbus targets 30 A350 sales this year

Airbus is aiming to sell another 30 A350s this year, across the family, and is unconcerned by the order book plateau for the -800 and -1000 variants.
Chief operating officer for customers John Leahy, speaking at an event in Toulouse earlier this week, insists that the airframer's main difficulty in attracting orders is slot availability.
He says that, at a recent event, two airline chiefs - one from the USA, the other from Asia - expressed interest in the A350-1000, entry into service for which has been put back to 2017.
But Leahy says that Airbus is already having to manage a backlog of 548 aircraft across the three-member family.
"Our goal is to have about 30 aircraft sold this year," he says. "The biggest constraint is production slots."
He also says Airbus is "pretty comfortable" with the A350-1000's ability to compete with the proposed Boeing 777X, an enhanced version of the US airframer's largest twinjet.
"[Boeing] only started talking about 777X when the A350 came out," he says. "They know the 777-300ER doesn't compete with -1000."

source: flightglobal.com

Boeing targets fourth quarter production increase for 787

Boeing plans to increase production of the 787-8 to five per month in the fourth quarter, says James Albaugh, president and chief executive of Boeing commercial airplanes during the company's annual investor conference.
Albaugh says that production is at 3.5 per month and will increase to five once it has "stabilised" the supply chain for the aircraft.
Boeing is targeting a production rate of 10 787s per month by the end of 2013, with aircraft coming from the manufacturer's factories in Everett, Washington and Charleston, South Carolina. Albaugh says that the manufacturer needs to install an additional drilling machine, improve the mid-body join and reduce the amount of shimming that is required during production to achieve this rate increase.
Boeing's 787 line has had a successful year to date. Japan Airlines received its first 787-8 in March and the manufacturer's Charleston assembly line rolled out its first of the type in April.
Separately, the manufacturer says it is developing the stretched 787-10X and the next generation 777 in tandem with each other. While a decision on these models could occur as early as the fourth quarter, development will not begin until after it has completed the 787-9.
The first flight of the 787-9 is scheduled for 2013 with a first delivery to Air New Zealand in either the first or second quarter of 2014.

source: flightglobal.com

Charleston ready to learn quick-step

Having turned out its first complete Boeing 787, the airframer's South Carolina facility will have to accelerate production by the end of 2013.
Six thousand non-unionised and contract workers build aft sections and assemble fuselage mid-sections for all 787s, but the Charleston-based arm is on the hook to build 10 mid-sections and 10 aft sections per month - up from the current 3.5/month - plus three complete aircraft, compared with fewer than one currently.
The Charleston final assembly line rolled out its first 787-8 (Airplane 46) on 27 April 2012, which is destined to join Air India in late June. The company plans to deliver four aircraft in total this year, all to the Indian airline.

© John Croft/Flightglobal Air India will be the recipient of the first four jets to roll out of the Charleston assembly facilities

From a financial standpoint, a rapid rise in production is necessary for the 787 programme. With a steady production rate of 10/month before 2014, Boeing maintains that there will be an inflection point in 2015 where costs to build a 787 dip below the average sales price, beginning the process of paying back an estimated $20 billion in deferred production costs. As of 27 April, Boeing had delivered 11 787s.
SAVINGS DOUBTS
Some analysts question the viability of Boeing's ability to cut its unit cost that quickly. Investment house UBS says 2015 is overly optimistic, and assumes Boeing will bring 787 manufacturing costs down 50% faster than for the 777.
To bring manufacturing costs down, higher-rate production must go hand-in-hand with decreasing amounts of travelled work - tasks left open for later completion to keep the line moving. Boeing South Carolina manager Jack Jones says the first 787 completed at Charleston left the factory with 96 travellers: "A couple of hundred is not unusual."
A key element in this low figure for Airplane 46 is that the aircraft does not need the typical post-production change incorporations that 787s on the primary line in Everett, Washington, continue to require. Those include engineering change orders to correct for items uncovered during flight testing. The Charleston final assembly line has the advantage of coming on line with those changes incorporated into the production process from the start.
Boeing South Carolina's manager of mid-body assembly, Willy Geary, says the latest mid-body, for Airplane 67, was shipped on 27 April to the final assembly line in Everett with only five open work items.
Part of the speed equation for Geary is converting his three parallel lines - designated A, B and C - to "continuously moving lines" from static operations where workers assemble sections 43, 11 and 45, flown from Nagoya, Japan, and sections 44 and 46 from Italy. The mid-body line also installs environmental and electrical systems into the section and performs testing.
MODELLING EVERETT
Geary says line C will be converted to a continuously moving line later this year, followed by lines A and B, when the 10 mid-bodies/month rate is set to be achieved in late 2013. Geary says he is "studying" production rates above 10/month.
Charleston's aft-body assembly manager, Matt Borland, says a fourth broaching machine being installed will enable the ramp up, in six-month increments, to meet Boeing's overall monthly target of 10 787s by the end of 2013. Composite sections 47 and 48 - the aft fuselage - are wound, baked, framed, joined and built up with floors, windows and other installations in Borland's building. Most are shipped to Everett, but an increasing number will be kept at Charleston for line production.

© John Croft/Flightglobal Monthly mid-section production rates need to rise from 3.5 to 10

Broaching machines automatically drill holes in the fuselage sections and install fasteners for the frames and other items that will be attached to the barrel. Loaded in two of the three operational machines on 27 April were aft fuselages for Airplanes 75 and 76. Three Air India 787s, in various states of assembly, were on the line.
Modelled after the primary line in Everett, the Charleston line will ramp up to produce three 787s per month, complementing the seven built in Everett by late 2013. Boeing South Carolina final assembly and delivery manager Marco Cavazzoni says the final assembly building "has potential for expansion if we need to do that".
"We asked you to build three aircraft per month," Boeing Commercial Airplanes chief executive Jim Albaugh said to the assembled crowd of workers and VIPs at the inaugural Charleston 787 roll-out. "If you can build more, I guarantee we can sell more."

source: flightglobal.com

Boeing hails Charleston 787 first flight

Boeing says its first South Carolina-built 787-8 performed "exactly as we expected" during its 5h initial flight on 23 May, nearly four weeks after the aircraft was rolled out of the new final assembly line in North Charleston on 27 April. Airplane 46 is one of four 787s to be completed at the factory this year, all destined for Air India.

BOEING

Pilots of the GEnx-1B-powered widebody, slated to be delivered to Air India as early as June, performed most of the production flight test along a north-south path over the Atlantic Ocean to the east of Charleston, between North Carolina and Florida. Total distance covered during the flight was 1,764nm (3,267km), according to tracking site FlightAware.com.

FlightAware

"Today's production flight test profile tested the airplane's controls and systems in a series of scenarios designed to verify the airplane operates as designed," says Boeing. "The tests occurred in all stages of flight beginning prior to taxi, through final landing and taxi." Included in the tests were cabin pressurisation checks, avionics, navigation and communications checks and shut-down and restart of each of the two GEnx-1B engines.
As seen on live video coverage of the event, Airplane 46 first performed a high-speed rejected takeoff before lining up for a normal takeoff at 12:01. Tracking data on the FlightAware website shows that the pilots then performed roughly 3h of high altitude air work up to 41,000ft (12,497m), slightly below the 787-8's maximum operating altitude of 43,100ft.
The aircraft then descended to 15,000ft for roughly 1h of testing that appeared to include slow flight and possibly an aerodynamic stall, based on FlightAware tracking data. The pilots then returned to the Charleston International airport for approximately 1h of touch-and-go circuits.
It is unclear whether additional flights will be required before the aircraft is flown to Leading Edge Aviation Services in Fort Worth, Texas for painting in Air India livery.
Once airline acceptance flights are complete, Boeing expects to deliver the Charleston-build aircraft to Air India in June or July. The carrier's first 787, built at Boeing's Everett, Washington facility, will arrive by the end of May. Air India has orders for 27 787-8s.

source: flightglobal.com

Airbus admits no quick-fix for A380 wing-rib crack issue

Airbus is expecting up to 120 A380s to be delivered before the permanent fix for the wing-rib bracket cracking problem on the type is fully in place.
The airframer detailed its proposed solution during a briefing in Toulouse. Its initial retrofit, for aircraft already in service, centres on 23 hybrid ribs mounted in the more lightly-loaded sections of each wing.
Retrofit involves replacing the type-7449 aluminium with a more robust grade, type 7010. This retrofit also involves localised reinforcement and fitting thicker rib brackets. Two ribs in each wing-tip will also be replaced.
But the forward-fit solution will replace these ribs with all-aluminium components, also built from type-7010 material, from the outset. The region around the inspection manholes will be reinforced and the rib feet will be reshaped to make them more forgiving.
Parts will be available to perform the modification on in-service aircraft from the first quarter of 2013 while wing assembly from the end of this year will implement the rib design change. All ribs will be built from type-7010 aluminium, in a similar way to other Airbus programmes. A380s delivered from 2014 onwards will have the new rib design.
Airbus executive vice-president for programmes Tom Williams says the type 7449 aluminium was strong and lightweight but brought a "degree of brittleness". Eliminating this material and switching to the 7010 grade gives greater strength but also around 90kg additional weight.
The flight-test programme for certification has not yet been detailed but Williams says the airframer hopes to fly the demonstrator in the autumn. He stresses that the fix will restore the full life capability of the wing without impacting performance.
Williams estimates that 110-120 aircraft will have to be retrofitted. He says the cause of the cracking is "well established", the result of material choice plus thermal distortion at extremely low temperatures, and stresses generated during assembly.
"When we were designing the wing, we pushed hard for weight reduction," Williams says, adding that the original hybrid design saved 300kg.
But he admits that the airframer, during ground testing of the airframe, made "assumptions" on the use of the type-7449 material because it had been used on other programmes.
He adds that the linear, finite-element modelling used to model some ribs on the aircraft assumed that adjacent ribs would behave the same way. Some non-linear modelling tools, which might have helped the analysis, were not available at the time.
Williams also points out that fatigue testing cannot take into account every variation of temperature and pressure to which the aircraft will be subjected in service.
Intensive testing is under way, he says: "We only want to do this one time. It's very disruptive to customers. If we have to ground [a customer's aircraft] we only want to do it on time.
"It's not a complicated fix by any means, [but] it's about making 110% sure we have the right answer."
But the airframer is "still working its way" through the approach to implementing the fix on in-service aircraft. Williams says a "nose-to-tail" grounding is one option, enabling completion in one session, but some customers might opt to split the fix across C-checks.

source: flightglobal.com