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Aviation History
1989
1989 - 0478.PDF
Douglas confident on MD-11 deliveries by John Bailey in Long Beach McDonnell Douglas is confident it can meet the deliv ery commitments undertaken with recent MD-11 and MD-80 orders, despite mounting pres sure on its Long Beach assem bly lines. Including options and reser vations, MDC's Douglas Aircraft division now has 253 MD-1 Is and 865 MD-80s on its orderbook. In addition, it has two major military programmes, the US Navy's T-45 trainer and the US Air Force's C-17 trans port, which will together add up to 510 aircraft—if both pro grammes survive forecast procurement cutbacks. This gives Douglas a potential back log of 1,628 aircraft to build by the middle of the next decade. While not all of these aircraft will be built at Long Beach (T-45 production will be based north of Los Angeles, at Palmdale), the mammoth logjam of orders will clearly pose problems for Douglas, which has already experienced production hold-ups on its MD-80 line. Under control Announcing 50 MD-11 and 100 MD-80 commitments, Ameri can Airlines president Robert Crandall reportedly said he had been "very unhappy" with Douglas' failure to meet MD-80 delivery schedules last year, but added that the problem now appeared to be under control: "They have been delivering planes right on schedule and to a very high quality". The production rate for the MD-80 is now 2-5 aircraft a week, and Douglas has no plans to increase this, although deliv eries will apparently not be fully back on schedule until early next year. The peak production rate for the MD-11 will be one a week by 1992, and Douglas plans to hire another 5,000 workers as the assembly line builds up speed. This will give the company 19,000 employees on the MD-11 by 1992. The new personnel will not necessarily have previous experience in the aerospace industry, even though there is a large skilled employee base in southern California. Douglas is confident, however, that its training procedures are adequate to handle the increased demand. The shortage of space at Long Beach has already prompted Douglas to acquire a disused Rockwell B-1B factory in Columbus, Ohio. The company has hired 2,000 former Rockwell employees to man the 4 million-square-foot plant, which is producing subassemblies for the C-17 programme. Move out denied Douglas denies that any of its established programmes will be moved wholesale out of Long Beach to Columbus, but Bill Messecar, director of marketing for the MD-11, says: "We are looking at a whole lot of places. The business requires that we look at all our activities, and in doing that, we may find the perfect location. Logic would tell you that if we are going to do something in a place that we haven't used before, we would start with something new. It's much harder to move an exist ing facility that has already got a workforce and tooling located." This suggests that future derivatives of existing programmes, such as the proposed MD-90 propfan or the MD-11 stretch, may be based away from Long Beach. There are apparently no plans to increase MD-80 production on the satellite assembly line in Shanghai, where 25 MD-82s are being built under licence for China's national airline. No time wasted One sign of the company's determination to waste no time with MD-11 certification is its decision not to hold a tradi tional roll-out ceremony when the first aircraft leaves the pro duction line. This aircraft, a General Electric CF6-80C2- powered all-cargo version destined for Federal Express, will be the first of four to take part in the year-long certifica tion flight-test programme. Douglas says its first priority is to achieve Ship One's maiden flight to the McDonnell Douglas flight-test centre in Yuma, Arizona, and that it cannot afford time to paint the aircraft in company colours (a week-long undertaking) and schedule a roll-out before departure. Initial production of the MD- 11 is several weeks behind the schedule drawn up when the programme was launched in December 1986, but Douglas says this is due to inevitable teething problems in acquiring components from suppliers and starting fabrication. The final- assembly building is starting to resemble a fully-fledged prod uction line, with the first fuse lage joined and second fuselage join under way. Ship One also has its undercarriage installed, and will roll out of the assembly building for its first pressure checks shortly. The third aircraft, which will be the Pratt & Whitney PW4000-powered certification aircraft, has had the centre E-barrel joined to the wings, and awaits the arrival of the forward and aft fuselage sections, which are now complete in a neighbouring fabrication building. Production will continue during the certification programme, with completed aircraft being held at Long Beach for immediate delivery once certification with both engine types is complete. The Rolls-Royce RB.211-524L turbofan, which was launched with Air Europe's recent order, should be certificated on the MD-11 in 1993. Douglas McDonnell Douglas confirms that it has abandoned discussions with Airbus Indus trie over possible collaboration on a re-winged MD-11 "Super Stretch", and is now searching for potential Far East partners. The proposed collaboration with Airbus, in which a 35ft-stretched version of the MD-11 would have been mated with the A330/A340 wing, was one of several options being considered by Douglas. The on- off discussions with the Euro pean consortium were finally abandoned late last year, however, after the two sides were unable to reach agreement on the so-called AM300. Growth options Douglas is considering two growth configurations for the MD-11, both involving a 35ft fuselage extension. The first, known simply as the MD-11 Stretch, would have the existing wing and powerplants, but would sacrifice range to main tain the same gross weight. The second, Super Stretch, config uration would be a higher- gross-weight aircraft with uprated engines and a new wing to give it greater range. It would have either a modifed version of the existing MD-11 wing or a completely new unit. 24 FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL, 25 February 1989
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