Boeing Will Modify 747 Freighter To Haul 7E7 Parts

Boeing engineers have come up with a novel way to get the large fuselage and wing structures of the 7E7 Dreamliner into special 747-400 freighters that will haul the assemblies to Everett from Japan, Europe and the United States for final assembly.

The aft fuselage of the huge jumbo jet will swing open like a gate to allow loading of the 7E7 composite structures. That kind of cargo loading system has not been developed in aviation since the early 1960s, when a plane known as the Guppy, and which was based on a Boeing airframe, was developed for NASA to transport hardware for the space program.

"It's something that will be really unique," Scott Strode, Boeing's vice president of 7E7 manufacturing and quality, told the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. "We don't see any showstoppers," he said of the unusual design, but added that a lot of work needs to be done by Boeing this year to prepare a detailed certification plan.

Strode disclosed a number of new details about the 7E7 air-logistics system. Although Boeing had previously said it expected to have a fleet of at least three 747 transports, Strode said only two will be required initially. A third could be added later. Boeing expects to decide by the end of this year who its partners, if any, will be to modify the 747-400s, Strode said. Firm configuration of the design also should be finished this year. Still to be decided is who -- Boeing or a third party -- will own and operate the one-of-a-kind 747s.

"We have to get engaged with potential operators to know what willingness they have in an ownership stake," Strode said.

The freighters will be needed to deliver the first 7E7 assemblies to Everett in late 2006 or early 2007. That means certification is just two years away, in 2006. The first two or three completed 7E7s will be used in what is expected to be about a yearlong flight-test program, with full-scale production of planes for customers starting in 2008. Expect to see the 747 delivery transports flying in and out of Everett's Paine Field on an almost daily basis.

The upper fuselage of the 747-400 will be expanded significantly in girth to accommodate the wings and fuselage sections of the 7E7. Boeing has not yet released specifications of the modified 747 freighters, but the volume above the main cargo deck will be about 65,000 cubic feet, or more than three times the volume above the main cargo deck of 747-400 freighters in operation today. The cargo area will not be pressurized, only the cockpit. The special freighters will be able to cruise at about the same altitude as the 747-400. But the odd-shaped fuselage will slow the plane's cruising speed slightly to about Mach .80, Strode said. The 747-400 is the world's fastest commercial jetliner, with a cruising speed of Mach .85.

This will be the first time Boeing has used planes as its primary delivery system in jetliner production. But the 7E7 represents a new way of building planes for Boeing. Key suppliers, not Boeing, will build completed wings and fuselage sections of the 7E7, leaving only final assembly of those sections at the Everett plant. Boeing believes a 7E7 can be assembled in only three days using these new methods.

Until Boeing announced last fall that it would use the special 747 freighters, it had been expected that the large 7E7 structures would arrive at the final assembly site by ship. Strode said he and his team had a key meeting about a year ago, and launched a serious evaluation of an air-transport plan.

Japanese manufacturers, led by Mitsubishi, will make the composite wings of the 7E7. The forward fuselage, including the nose and cockpit, will be made by Boeing's division in Wichita (KS). A team of Dallas-based Vought Aircraft Industries and Alenia Aeronautica of Italy will make the center and aft composite fuselage sections, as well as the composite horizontal stabilizer.

A Boeing 7E7 logistics team continues to evaluate the best way to route the freighters to Everett with their cargo. Strode said one of the 747s will be used to carry one set of wings per trip from Japan to Everett. The plan now calls for the 7E7 fuselage to arrive at the Everett plant in three sections, and be connected along with the wings, Strode said. Fuselage sections will come from Italy, Texas and Wichita. The 747s might also ferry the 7E7 engines with attached nacelles, or housings, to the Everett plant, though that has not been decided.

"We are doing a lot of modeling to determine the best logistics," Strode said. Air options other than the 747 were considered for large-parts delivery, Strode said, but were subsequently rejected. "Some planes would have been higher risks in terms of certification," he said.

Boeing's objective with the 747 special freighters, he said, is to keep the design as close as possible to that of the existing 747-400. Given the light weight 7E7 composite structures, the beefed up floor of the 747-400 freighter is not needed. So it is likely that used 747-400 passengers jets will be modified. The wings will not be changed, nor will the front of the 747-400.

The 747-400 freighter is loaded through its lift-up nose section. But that would not work for the big 7E7 structures, Strode said. So Boeing engineers came up with the swing-tail design. "That's the easiest way to access the whole plane," Strode said. Military and civilian cargo and transport planes are loaded through the front or rear.

But in the early 1960s, Aero Spacelines of California modified old Boeing Stratocruisers for NASA with a swing-tail loading system. Known as the Guppy, the plane was used to haul the large sections of NASA launch vehicles and spacecraft from California to Florida.Later, Airbus used the Super Guppy to transport structures of its planes from European manufacturers to its final assembly plant in Toulouse. The nose section of the Super Guppy, rather than the tail, swings open for loading.

In the late 1990s, Airbus replaced the prop-engine Super Guppy with a modified A300-600 jet known as the Beluga to transport airplane sections to Toulouse. The nose of the whale-like Beluga above the cockpit lifts up for loading. For now, Boeing is only calling its plane the Large Cargo Freighter. Expect a catchy name before the plane takes flight with 7E7 structures. There have been a number of colorful name suggestions within Boeing, Strode said.

"As we go forward, we will certainly look for a name since this will be a such a visible product where ever it lands," he said.

FMI: www.boeing.com