4 ms·

I seriously wonder how long it would take for a team of engineers to produce a competitive commercial airplane, from planning to the first prototype, if they st

by Maken 2y ago

I seriously wonder how long it would take for a team of engineers to produce a competitive commercial airplane, from planning to the first prototype, if they started right now. Also, is it viable to produce something like the A320 in low quantities when airlines need fleets in the hundreds?

badpun 2y ago
I remember reading that one engineer spent 6 years designing „ventilation for seats 40-80” on one of the larger Airbuses. It seems like the amount of design and engineering work required for a prototype of a complete aircraft (assuming you buy the engines) is just immense.
- kevindamm 2y ago
  How much of that time was actual engineering-tradeoff decision-making and how much of that was working in a large corporation with abundant communication overhead?
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - badpun 2y ago
    I'm betting a lot of that is reviews, approval, documentation, testing, re-testing etc - but it may be required for building a safe aircraft, and for getting it licenced to fly.
  - seabird 2y ago
    For a safety critical system, the work documenting, explaining, testing, validating, etc. a decision outstrips the work it took to make the decision. It is that way for a very good reason. The problem with it requiring so much work and time isn't that there's BigCorp bureaucracy that needs disrupting, it's that there isn't a problem with the amount of work and time required.
    - kevindamm 2y ago
      I'm aware of that, but the proportion of overhead varies per company. Six months seems like a long time for a ventilation system, and the point being made in this thread is that the runway available for some spun-off group of former Boeing engineers would need to accommodate the very long schedules of the design stage. I'm just curious how much inflation there is in those schedules because I'm sure it's not zero. But you make a good point that these long runways are because the overarching tradeoff is one that prefers taking as long as it takes.
toomuchtodo 2y ago
Why? Have the government step in, nationalize Boeing, give the union a board seat, and keep shipping. The problem is Boeing management and their board enabling the train wreck; don't build from scratch, refactor.
- charlie0 2y ago
  SpaceX has done such a phenomenal job rebuilding from scratch. How is it not obvious to you rebuilding airlines from scratch is also the best route?
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Lottery tickets are not policy. SpaceX took decades to get to the success they realize today, having been founded in 2002, and it took a lot of luck to build a rocket shop from scratch. We must realize that companies are not built out of Legos, but ecosystems that require care, feeding, and are fragile systems.
    - jonhohle 2y ago
      PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX,… how many times does someone “win the lottery” before it’s not actually chance? Not saying anyone can repeat it, or a random IC could leave and succeed, but that space seems ripe for disruption. (Maybe not passenger planes, but cargo with less liability.)
      - toomuchtodo 2y ago
        If 90% of startups fail, why would you think winning wasn't mostly chance? Regardless of how many people work hard and grind, you can still fail (and most do, that's just life). Some are more lucky than others, and capital begets capital. Once you've "won" enough, it becomes much harder to lose, even if you make terrible forward decisions and run off the inertia of past wins (Twitter). Bezos built Amazon, but also has sunk somewhere between $10B and $20B into Blue Origin and it is still not terribly successful, for example, and demonstrates that even with resources and skill that success is potentially out of reach. So, while I think the startup model is a fine way for investors to get exposure to an asset class that is the equivalent of 0DTE options, for the startup ecosystem to enable participants to play in the fiat that falls from those investment decisions, and perhaps some value to be generated, I would hazard that the model would not scale to meet the needs of the aerospace and defense marketplace at this time. All that is needed is skilled engineers and manufacturing practitioners to be enabled to do their best work, while keeping out of their way. Airbus demonstrates this, imho. They employ almost 150k workers, and successfully deliver products to customers that aren't fraught with manufacturing defects. They also have a book of work into the next decade, demonstrating customer confidence in the product and the org. https://luisazhou.com/blog/startup-failure-statistics/ https://luisazhou.com/blog/startup-failure-statistics/ https://www.forkingpaths.co/p/billionaires-and-the-evolution-of https://www.forkingpaths.co/p/billionaires-and-the-evolution... https://escholarship.org/content/qt6668s4pz/qt6668s4pz.pdf https://escholarship.org/content/qt6668s4pz/qt6668s4pz.pdf
cptcobalt 2y ago
> Also, is it viable to produce something like the A320 in low quantities when airlines need fleets in the hundreds? Bombardier thought so, and did so! They developed and introduced the C-series aircraft to compete with smaller 737s and A320/A319. After introduction, Boeing fucked them over so hard that they sold the aircraft program after introduction to Airbus for a token sum. Airbus now builds and sells the C-series as the A220. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSeries_dumping_petition_by_Boeing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSeries_dumping_petition_by_Bo...
- lainga 2y ago
  And it went right into the little shelf in many Canadians' heads of "Canadian companies destroyed by the USA". Mauldite en soit trestoute la lignye.
  - bornfreddy 2y ago
    Trying to translate your last sentence to English gives "Mauldite in itself very all the ligny". Trying to autocorrect it gives "Maudit soit toute la ligne" which apparently means "Damn the whole line". So... am I close? :D
    - lainga 2y ago
      Very! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Roy_Engloys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Roy_Engloys
SoftTalker 2y ago
> I seriously wonder how long it would take for a team of engineers to produce a competitive commercial airplane. About 20 years for a fully-certified new commercial airliner design. They could have experimental prototypes flying much sooner of course. Even in China, their state-owned effort to develop a new narrow-body airliner took about 15 years and that's very likely with the CCP greasing the skids for them as much as they could. They are still not certified in Europe or North America. And some of the problems we've seen with Boeing have nothing to do with engineering, but problems with subcontractors, materials, and assembly.
wannacboatmovie 2y ago
Designing an airplane and producing a prototype isn't terribly difficult and many thousands of companies have done this. The tricky part is designing the massive manufacturing apparatus around it that can produce them in volume (ask Elon how easy building cars is), satisfying the varying demands of hundreds of different airlines, many from developing nations, helping them set up financing, supporting the design in the field for 30-50 years, AND turning a profit. Each widget produced has an MSRP of hundreds of millions of dollars. Ask yourself why Lockheed permanently exited the commercial aircraft business 40 years ago, despite having what was regarded as the most technologically advanced design of the era, ahead of its time. Douglas went bankrupt and got bought out, Convair and everyone else failed and closed up shop. You can't throw some engineers - they could be the smartest on the planet - into rented office space and become the next airplane company. There's more to it than designing the next WiFi-enabled food processor and slapping it together in Shenzhen.
- Corrado 2y ago
  Actually, thinking about Tesla is appropriate. No one really thought starting a new automotive manufacturer from scratch was possible, but Tesla did it. Yes, it's very hard and you'll probably fail, but if you do things different you might actually have a chance. The reasons all the old aircraft companies failed is probably the same reason Boeing is struggling. Don't copy what they've done in the past, make your own way. Yes, I know that building aircraft is a much higher hill to climb, but I think it might be worth it. They could also join some of the small aircraft startups that are trying to gain a foothold. Maybe a cadre of experienced aircraft engineers would help them raise money and get a product to market faster.
- misiek08 2y ago
  I see this one as the saddest - if you are making good products the company will finally die. VW (with Audi and Porsche) failing to deliver quality products is the top group. Apple crushing iOS release after release and becoming trillion dollar company. Maybe that’s just the way to live and lead the company and market and I just should stop dreaming about quality.

by Maken 2y ago

badpun 2y ago

I remember reading that one engineer spent 6 years designing „ventilation for seats 40-80” on one of the larger Airbuses. It seems like the amount of design and engineering work required for a prototype of a complete aircraft (assuming you buy the engines) is just immense.

kevindamm 2y ago
How much of that time was actual engineering-tradeoff decision-making and how much of that was working in a large corporation with abundant communication overhead?
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- badpun 2y ago
  I'm betting a lot of that is reviews, approval, documentation, testing, re-testing etc - but it may be required for building a safe aircraft, and for getting it licenced to fly.
- seabird 2y ago
  For a safety critical system, the work documenting, explaining, testing, validating, etc. a decision outstrips the work it took to make the decision. It is that way for a very good reason. The problem with it requiring so much work and time isn't that there's BigCorp bureaucracy that needs disrupting, it's that there isn't a problem with the amount of work and time required.
  - kevindamm 2y ago
    I'm aware of that, but the proportion of overhead varies per company. Six months seems like a long time for a ventilation system, and the point being made in this thread is that the runway available for some spun-off group of former Boeing engineers would need to accommodate the very long schedules of the design stage. I'm just curious how much inflation there is in those schedules because I'm sure it's not zero. But you make a good point that these long runways are because the overarching tradeoff is one that prefers taking as long as it takes.

toomuchtodo 2y ago

Why? Have the government step in, nationalize Boeing, give the union a board seat, and keep shipping. The problem is Boeing management and their board enabling the train wreck; don't build from scratch, refactor.

charlie0 2y ago
SpaceX has done such a phenomenal job rebuilding from scratch. How is it not obvious to you rebuilding airlines from scratch is also the best route?
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  Lottery tickets are not policy. SpaceX took decades to get to the success they realize today, having been founded in 2002, and it took a lot of luck to build a rocket shop from scratch. We must realize that companies are not built out of Legos, but ecosystems that require care, feeding, and are fragile systems.
  - jonhohle 2y ago
    PayPal, Tesla, SpaceX,… how many times does someone “win the lottery” before it’s not actually chance? Not saying anyone can repeat it, or a random IC could leave and succeed, but that space seems ripe for disruption. (Maybe not passenger planes, but cargo with less liability.)
    - toomuchtodo 2y ago
      If 90% of startups fail, why would you think winning wasn't mostly chance? Regardless of how many people work hard and grind, you can still fail (and most do, that's just life). Some are more lucky than others, and capital begets capital. Once you've "won" enough, it becomes much harder to lose, even if you make terrible forward decisions and run off the inertia of past wins (Twitter). Bezos built Amazon, but also has sunk somewhere between $10B and $20B into Blue Origin and it is still not terribly successful, for example, and demonstrates that even with resources and skill that success is potentially out of reach. So, while I think the startup model is a fine way for investors to get exposure to an asset class that is the equivalent of 0DTE options, for the startup ecosystem to enable participants to play in the fiat that falls from those investment decisions, and perhaps some value to be generated, I would hazard that the model would not scale to meet the needs of the aerospace and defense marketplace at this time. All that is needed is skilled engineers and manufacturing practitioners to be enabled to do their best work, while keeping out of their way. Airbus demonstrates this, imho. They employ almost 150k workers, and successfully deliver products to customers that aren't fraught with manufacturing defects. They also have a book of work into the next decade, demonstrating customer confidence in the product and the org. https://luisazhou.com/blog/startup-failure-statistics/ https://luisazhou.com/blog/startup-failure-statistics/ https://www.forkingpaths.co/p/billionaires-and-the-evolution-of https://www.forkingpaths.co/p/billionaires-and-the-evolution... https://escholarship.org/content/qt6668s4pz/qt6668s4pz.pdf https://escholarship.org/content/qt6668s4pz/qt6668s4pz.pdf

cptcobalt 2y ago

> Also, is it viable to produce something like the A320 in low quantities when airlines need fleets in the hundreds? Bombardier thought so, and did so! They developed and introduced the C-series aircraft to compete with smaller 737s and A320/A319. After introduction, Boeing fucked them over so hard that they sold the aircraft program after introduction to Airbus for a token sum. Airbus now builds and sells the C-series as the A220. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSeries_dumping_petition_by_Boeing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CSeries_dumping_petition_by_Bo...

lainga 2y ago
And it went right into the little shelf in many Canadians' heads of "Canadian companies destroyed by the USA". Mauldite en soit trestoute la lignye.
- bornfreddy 2y ago
  Trying to translate your last sentence to English gives "Mauldite in itself very all the ligny". Trying to autocorrect it gives "Maudit soit toute la ligne" which apparently means "Damn the whole line". So... am I close? :D
  - lainga 2y ago
    Very! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Roy_Engloys https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Roy_Engloys

SoftTalker 2y ago

> I seriously wonder how long it would take for a team of engineers to produce a competitive commercial airplane. About 20 years for a fully-certified new commercial airliner design. They could have experimental prototypes flying much sooner of course. Even in China, their state-owned effort to develop a new narrow-body airliner took about 15 years and that's very likely with the CCP greasing the skids for them as much as they could. They are still not certified in Europe or North America. And some of the problems we've seen with Boeing have nothing to do with engineering, but problems with subcontractors, materials, and assembly.

wannacboatmovie 2y ago

Designing an airplane and producing a prototype isn't terribly difficult and many thousands of companies have done this. The tricky part is designing the massive manufacturing apparatus around it that can produce them in volume (ask Elon how easy building cars is), satisfying the varying demands of hundreds of different airlines, many from developing nations, helping them set up financing, supporting the design in the field for 30-50 years, AND turning a profit. Each widget produced has an MSRP of hundreds of millions of dollars. Ask yourself why Lockheed permanently exited the commercial aircraft business 40 years ago, despite having what was regarded as the most technologically advanced design of the era, ahead of its time. Douglas went bankrupt and got bought out, Convair and everyone else failed and closed up shop. You can't throw some engineers - they could be the smartest on the planet - into rented office space and become the next airplane company. There's more to it than designing the next WiFi-enabled food processor and slapping it together in Shenzhen.

Corrado 2y ago
Actually, thinking about Tesla is appropriate. No one really thought starting a new automotive manufacturer from scratch was possible, but Tesla did it. Yes, it's very hard and you'll probably fail, but if you do things different you might actually have a chance. The reasons all the old aircraft companies failed is probably the same reason Boeing is struggling. Don't copy what they've done in the past, make your own way. Yes, I know that building aircraft is a much higher hill to climb, but I think it might be worth it. They could also join some of the small aircraft startups that are trying to gain a foothold. Maybe a cadre of experienced aircraft engineers would help them raise money and get a product to market faster.
misiek08 2y ago
I see this one as the saddest - if you are making good products the company will finally die. VW (with Audi and Porsche) failing to deliver quality products is the top group. Apple crushing iOS release after release and becoming trillion dollar company. Maybe that’s just the way to live and lead the company and market and I just should stop dreaming about quality.