1 And *sigh* I've just spent the last two days ruining that paint job (on the left side) and had to trash a $1040 part all in the pursuit of a single bad Nutplate, and it ain't over yet.

And next weekend, looks like Saturday AND Sunday are mandatory.

2 Ouch.  I feel for you.  I worked IT around the Bell Helicopter guys for eight years.  The scale may be smaller, but it still hurt when a big part was messed up because of a small plate or attachment not fitting properly.

3 Yeah, I've been digging into the side of this plane for a couple days now, and just got the panel off today (And this is the side of the fin DESIGNED to be maintained, the other side is worse) I fixed the nutplate (which was stripped) and wisely decided to install the fastener that goes into it before we started to button it all up. Good move, because the specified fastener wasn't right. Now we know how it got stripped. But I might have found a few more issues in the process....

I'm looking at blowing an entire week of my time on one screw. This is not typical, mind you, but I do seem to get a lot of troubleshooting jobs.

And being the first of a new model, with a lot more changes than just the extra 20 feet of fuselage, it's a target rich environment. As my Dad says, "The first pancakes are to clean the griddle."

It's funny, the newer planes are going almost directly from the factory to the customers, but back in the EMC (Everett Modification Center), where I had to do a little work during a slack time (Outside, in the cold and rain, scraping out aeroseal for a week and a half), I saw they still had the first airplane I'd ever laid hands on two and a half years earlier.

4 Meanwhile, here's a propaganda video from Russia for you.

5 How much for a ticket to Mt. Salak?

Actually, to me the scariest thing was seeing "In partnership with Alenia Aeromacci" They built the H-Stab for the -8, and we had to beat them up a LOT to finally get decent work out of them.  The -9 H-stab is completely different and IIRC from a different vendor.

Let's just say that when you get parts from a company in a culture that has two hour lunch breaks including alcohol, your QA inspectors need to bring their A-Game.

6 I would take a ride at SSJ over 787 any day, considering that no fault of the airplane was involved into Mt. Salak. A modest amount of piloting discipline is all that required there, while no amount of discipline or skill is going to save you when a fire breaks out onboard due to misdesigned electrical system.

7 The new battery box is pretty much bomb-proof. (I've seen pictures of one they simulated an explosion in) but the other modifications will make that impossible anyway.  As for the test aircraft, that was fixed too (That's what test aircraft are for, of course, it's hard to plan for what misplaced drill shavings will do.)

There's stuff I've seen and can't really talk about, but the 787 includes some really amazing technology.  Some is just for comfort, like automatic gust compensation, but there's safety stuff in there that would make all the difference. (Lose an engine, the system compensates for the change in handling.) There's the usual stuff like redundant hydraulic systems that I can say are NOT routed through the same points like in some aircraft.  But none of this stuff overrides the pilot's authority.

There are even bolts with computer chips in them that can monitor how tight they are.

Anyway, I'd gladly fly in a 787, even knowing how the sausages are made, especially since the nearest opportunity runs Seattle to Tokyo....

8 Just got done watching 'Legends of Flight: IMAX' and found it really interesting.  The HUD in the cockpit was the biggest feature (aside from the wing design) that I found the most interesting about the 787. 

I did find it interesting that the video made it sound like using carbon fiber was something brand new in aviation.  After being at a major helicopter company in the IT division for many years, I saw them using layered carbon fiber in multiple helicopters.  (Yes, I'm being a little vague, because I don't know, even after nine years, how much I'm allowed to discuss.)

9 I know they've been using Carbon Fiber to make V-22 Ospreys for 20+ years now.  But it is the first airliner to go with a complete tube.

Airbus' approach to CFRP is to make panels out of it and still attach them with regular fasteners.  Bad because you lose the weight and cost savings of deleting all those fasteners, and you lose the strength that comes from not having seams.

Word going around about that Ethiopian jet that got burned by the Honeywell ELT is that it's actually going to be scrapped.  Just too expensive to repair. That would make it the first casualty in the line. *frown*  Hell, if they could get it here, we could stick a whole new 47/48 section on it, but that's not in the cards.