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Why wouldn't Boeing make their own? They certainly have the money, the experience and the time to invest in such a technology if it is as critical to their succ

Why wouldn't Boeing make their own? They certainly have the money, the experience and the time to invest in such a technology if it is as critical to their success as you suggest.

Cthulhu_ 10y ago
Probably doesn't scale as well as aluminium; it'd be a lot more expensive to produce, as carbon fiber is very labor intensive. It's the same reason why Apple isn't likely to switch to ceramic phone bodies - the aluminimum milling facilities are already scaled up to extreme levels, with hundreds if not thousands of machines milling aluminium to keep up with demands.
- lumisota 10y ago
  see: http://atomicdelights.com/blog/why-your-next-iphone-wont-be-ceramic http://atomicdelights.com/blog/why-your-next-iphone-wont-be-...
tim333 10y ago
Boeing has a $6bn contract buying carbon fiber from Toray Industries, a Japanese company. I guess it's a tricky specialist process making the stuff. The 787 has 35 tons of fiber per plane and the 737 uses carbon fiber for the horizontal bit of the tail.
phkahler 10y ago
>> Why wouldn't Boeing make their own? As this article points out, the new facility in Australia is state of the art. They claim it may produce better carbon fiber than anywhere else. So imagine Boeing made a massive investment in equipment to make their own, only to have someone come along and do better. They make airplanes and let the industry figure out how to make the fiber, that way they can always buy the best if they want to.
leeter 10y ago
A complicated mix of Trade Secret, Patents, and Domain knowledge are the primary issues. I'm really hoping Boeing/Ford/GM/<big company that manufactures vehicles>/Tesla will buy out a couple of the manufacturers and then open the market up. Sadly because of the aforementioned this is unlikely to happen as it would trigger anti-trust concerns, and AFAIK almost all the best firms are privately held.
edpichler 10y ago
Simple because they don't want to. Even carbon fibers being a promise new business to invest, Boeing can just have a better ROI investing in something else.

Why wouldn't Boeing make their own? They certainly have the money, the experience and the time to invest in such a technology if it is as critical to their success as you suggest.

Cthulhu_ 10y ago

Probably doesn't scale as well as aluminium; it'd be a lot more expensive to produce, as carbon fiber is very labor intensive. It's the same reason why Apple isn't likely to switch to ceramic phone bodies - the aluminimum milling facilities are already scaled up to extreme levels, with hundreds if not thousands of machines milling aluminium to keep up with demands.

lumisota 10y ago
see: http://atomicdelights.com/blog/why-your-next-iphone-wont-be-ceramic http://atomicdelights.com/blog/why-your-next-iphone-wont-be-...

tim333 10y ago

Boeing has a $6bn contract buying carbon fiber from Toray Industries, a Japanese company. I guess it's a tricky specialist process making the stuff. The 787 has 35 tons of fiber per plane and the 737 uses carbon fiber for the horizontal bit of the tail.

phkahler 10y ago

>> Why wouldn't Boeing make their own? As this article points out, the new facility in Australia is state of the art. They claim it may produce better carbon fiber than anywhere else. So imagine Boeing made a massive investment in equipment to make their own, only to have someone come along and do better. They make airplanes and let the industry figure out how to make the fiber, that way they can always buy the best if they want to.

leeter 10y ago

A complicated mix of Trade Secret, Patents, and Domain knowledge are the primary issues. I'm really hoping Boeing/Ford/GM/<big company that manufactures vehicles>/Tesla will buy out a couple of the manufacturers and then open the market up. Sadly because of the aforementioned this is unlikely to happen as it would trigger anti-trust concerns, and AFAIK almost all the best firms are privately held.

edpichler 10y ago

Simple because they don't want to. Even carbon fibers being a promise new business to invest, Boeing can just have a better ROI investing in something else.