Even the Wright brothers had their problems with a plane that was not much more than a glider with a small engine. The P51 - considered the world's greatest fighter had its share of problems - at first...
Random teething problems don't recur like this - they are random.
To me it seems like poor integration control of a vendor, likely compounded by ambiguous performance requirements, incorrect operating condition assumptions and schedule pressure.
...and from the BBC, "The US aviation regulator has told US airlines to temporarily ground Boeing's 787 Dreamliner, following a battery fault on one of the aircraft in Japan.
The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) said that airlines must demonstrate that batteries are safe before flights can resume.
United Airlines is currently the only US airline operating the 787."
Some of the people on the Radio today shouldn't be allowed to breed.
Journalist for one of the big UK newspapers who said she was a nervous flyer and wouldn't be flying anymore because she was scared it was going to fall out the sky.
Even the "technical expert" they had on didn't actually tell anyone what has been going on. Just that these new planes rely on lithium-ion batteries like our phones and that they might explode.
yeah, europeans (eg flight international) tend to gloat over 787 problems
mind you Boeing did their share of gloating when A380 had it's troubles.
it'd be interesting to see if the battery over-heat protection had a wow switch inhibiting it ... "who'd charge these things on the ground ?"
mind you, i'd probably wait a few years before flying a '87 (so they get these teething problems out of the way) ...
A380 has matured just about enough to risk ...
Can't remember where I read it, but I did read that the battery containment system was designed so that in the case of a fire, nothing else would be damaged. They knew the risks with these batteries and took precautions. The grounding is a safety precaution.
This is all based off what I have read which was written by journalists with possible agendas, but still.
I hate to say how many mechanical problems have been experienced in older B-707, B-720, B-727, B-737 and B-747 acft: the rate for all early 7*7-100s was huge, but was not well publicized [1950s--1970s]. Now, every incident has thousands of instant observers/videographers and hundreds of unqualified journalists reporting every terrifying detail with gibberish commentary.
In the early 2000s I tangled with an Aero-News reporter on the V-22. He insisted it was dangerous widow maker. I pointed out similar/recent accidents/incidents with CH-47s, HH-53s, UH-60s, etc and got an "oh yeah"... may be it is on par with other new military helos" answer back. Now that the V-22 is maturing in service, it may never be an easy aircraft to maintain and fly... but will be generally safe and reliable for the military mission.
I seem to remember very serious developmental problems for Next-gen 737s [-500's and-on], early B-777s and all AB3xx's.
OH well, as someone once said: "never buy the "A" model of anything... especially if You are easily frightened/discouraged".
I heard another statistic [circa 1985]: 10% of all lear jets built [up to that time] had either been badly damaged or destroyed in accidents.
Regards, Wil Taylor
Trust - But Verify!
We believe to be true what we prefer to be true.
For those who believe, no proof is required; for those who cannot believe, no proof is possible.
People have short memories. There was a couple of years where it seemed as if DC10s were crashing left and right. At least, the battery problems don't appear to be fatal.
The Lithium Ion Batteries are driving electronics replacing hydraulics, or so I've read. They found no overcharging recently, so it's not the charging system.
I'd guess motors with high peak starting current are driven by these batteries. It's difficult to perfectly spec and test conditions of motor peak currents, temp, altitude and win a contract needing where minimum weight for this battery is key. Hence my guess is these batteries pushed out too much spiky current and overheated due to altitude and cold wires (less resistance in wire) and less convection cooling and hence overheating. Just a guess mind you.
Technicians and Engineers who test the hardware at Boeing, Yuasa, etc are probably talking at coffee break saying things like "damn, it's probably that thing we saw....we told the management....they shouldn't have buried it....we got the contract though.....if we tell them we knew, we're screwed".
In my history I've been told to "Shut my damn mouth" about a software problem I mentioned to the customer and then thanked greatly two days later for "discovering that software problem so quickly at the customers ship CG-28 that we had time to fix it before they sailed". We all knew about the problem, we did nothing. Just like this problem I suspect.
No, there have been news reports that there was no over-voltage from the charging system.
Which in reality means that there was no over-voltage detected by the charging system - within whatever limits of resolution and sample speed exist within its self-diagnostic. If in fact it is even measuring the actual output, rather than just reporting what it thinks it's supposed to be providing.
But there are all sorts of ways to screw up a battery charger.
