Why is this true (i.e., what is different technically that this is possible)? Why is it better for the airlines? I thought better fuel economy when you went higher?
Cabin altitude (as I understand it) is the air pressure in the cabin. The lower the number = more normal environment for the passengers. The standard is to pressurize the cabin to 8,000 ft, and if they can maintain a 6,000 ft pressure in the cabin on a newer plane I will certainly notice the difference.
ohhhh. Thanks. I thought they meant they were actually flying lower.
You would be amazed (or maybe not) at how often after Mom and the kids have left the cockpit and are out of earshot one old pilot asks another about gladiator movies or Turkish prisons.
The younger pilots (i.e. under about age 40) have no idea what we’re guffawing about. Kids these days!
As @Telemark said, I meant that the 787 flies just as high as any other airliner, but they put more PSI of air pressure inside the cabin which has the effect that the interior pressure is higher which expressed as an equivalent altitude is lower.
As to how they pull this off, aluminum airplanes stretch & shrink each time your pump them full of air as you climb then let it back out as you descend. Over time this stretching & shrinking wears out (“fatigues”) the aluminum structure. So there is a tradeoff between how heavy / stout they build it, how many flights it will last, and how hard they pressurize it.
The 787 fuselage is made of carbon fiber composite. Essentially fancy plastic / fiberglass. That material does not have nearly the problem of stretch / shrink fatigue taht aluminum has. It’s also inherently lighter than aluminum so they can either make a lighter plane (which is a great benefit in all sorts of engineering tradeoffs), or they can make the fuselage a bit stouter, and they can pressurize it harder on each flight without the same fatigue issues.
In the 787 they chose to pressurize it harder.
Thanks for that input! I have no doubt that the FAs and pilots are neither defensive nor paranoid.
You know who sometimes is, though? TSA officers. The last time I was in an airport, a TSA officer separated my young son from me not out of malice but because the officer wasn’t paying attention (I watched it happen).
When I tried to get his attention and explain that we were together, I got an out-of-nowhere, 'Sir! You need to calm down right now!" Once the guy figured out that I wasn’t a threat, he relaxed somewhat, but still admonished me to keep better track of my kids. The guy was a lot.
I think I’m feeling a bit gunshy after that interaction. But I’m glad to know that, when appropriate, plane-geekery transcends TSA-style silliness. To be clear, my design role was tiny; my desire to see the controls is partly born of pride but mostly “gee-whiz, this is cool!”
Thanks again for the advice.
I worked on a piece of software that runs* on a piece of equipment inside a pod mounted under the EA-18G Growler’s wing. Think I can get into the cockpit of one of those?
*Or it will. I don’t think it’s actually been fielded yet.
Better hurry up and book your flight.
It’s not like all the 787s are going to go away soon, though. Boeing is still building new ones, after all. It sounds like these two particular 787s were parked when the airline went bankrupt, and proper maintenance wasn’t done on them while they were stored, so they can’t be sold. Not to mention these are 787-8s, the smallest and least popular version of the 787.
I was joking; 787s will be with us for decades.
It is remarkable how many rather new examples of current production aircraft are parted out then the carcass scrapped these days. Relatively new 737s and A320-series get the chop every day.
This was going on big-time before COVID, took a pause during COVID, and has ramped back up along with new jet production and passenger demand. In periods of low interest rates with lots of capital chasing jets, the first time a jet needs a major overhaul (ballpark 5-6 years of age), it’s cheaper net, net to buy a new one at new-jet pricing and financing, then part out the old one, than it is to do the overhaul on the old one alone. The fact that spare jet parts are even more stupid expensive than fancy car replacement parts makes disassembling a nearly new jet a money-making venture.
Sounds nutty but that’s how the business had been shaping up.
Oh, and I meant to ask earlier – recycling aluminum and other metals is pretty straightforward, but how does that work with carbon-fiber? The article says they aim to recycle 95% of the airplane, but how exactly do they recycle scrap carbon-fiber?
I had meant to post a question about this an hour or two ago – that’d been my impression, that airliners (models as a whole, as well as specific aircraft) are seeing shorter service lifetimes than they used to. It sounds like, based on your experience, that this is, in fact, the case.
@kenobi_65: Not my experience exactly, but reading the trade press as I do this is a big topic in the maintenance, overhaul, and disassembly end of the industry.
In a sense, Boeing & Airbus and the engine manufacturers have all gone with a razor & blades model where they sell the airplanes cheap & the replacement parts dear. So in an era of low interest rates the smart players buy the cheap airplanes financed cheaply, run them a few years, then part them out to sell the used parts for nearly what they paid for the airplane, then chop the residual carcass up for beer cans. Lather Rinse Repeat.
Unfortunately, all the periodical stuff I read is paywalled and this isn’t really a wiki-able topic. Otherwise I would provide cites for all this.
@WildaBeast: they are still working on ways to recycle carbon fiber into something useful. It’s definitely be downcycling, but there’s no inherent reason you can’t make car fenders or golf clubs from reprocessed aerospace-grade carbon fiber. AFAIK it’s still low-rate pilot production stuff, but they don’t think they’ll be landfilling these things.
Yeah, I think that lack of window control is bullshit. I will get airsick if I cannot look out of a window. I don’t do night travel for the same reason. Why is the right of someone to “not have glare” more important than my right to not get airsick. You want to sit next to me with your Ipad while I vomit non-stop? Knock yourself out.
Personally, I’m disappointed the USAF didn’t go with KC-787 tankers and E-787 AWACS, nor the Navy P-787 sub hunters.
The windows are individually controllable. But with a master override that is used by the flight attendants for various purposes at various times. What is/was done on any given flight may have been smart or stupid
At their darkest, the outside is still visible.
That, and they get ridiculously hot in direct sunlight. The 787 is a fine airplane overall, but these shades are terrible.