Model Airplanes

The results are in. In October, for the first time in months, Boeing (NYSE:BA) beat Airbus (NASDAQOTH:EADSY) in the race to sell the most planes in a calendar month.

At long last, Boeing beat Airbus in October. Has a new day dawned for the Seattle plane maker? Image source: Boeing.

The horse race
Late last week, we updated you on Boeing’s airplane sales for the first full month of fall. For a change, Boeing didn’t “fall” short. The Seattle planemaker added nearly five dozen new planes to its order book last month, which now stands at 566 gross plane orders, or 489 net of cancellations.

Airbus, in contrast, took in barely half as many October orders as Boeing did — just 35 new planes tacked onto its tally. Airbus entered October with a commanding lead over its rival, however, having outsold Boeing nearly 2 to 1 through September. As a result, despite lagging behind its rival last month, Airbus has won 850 net new orders year to date.

The details
We’ll discuss how Airbus has been thrashing its rival this year in a bit, but first, the obligatory details on Airbus’ month that was. On Friday, Airbus released a report describing firm orders for the month of October. These included:

• One A321 neo ordered by California-based Aviation Capital Group (which is, according to SP Capital IQ, a subsidiary of privately owned Pacific Life Insurance Company).
• four A350-900s going to Singapore

  Article source: http://www.fool.com/investing/general/2015/11/10/post-halloween-trick-boeing-beats-airbus-october.aspx?source=iedfolrf0000001

The new Boeing 737 MAX has hit its first development snag, though it won’t affect the planned entry into service in 2017.

Boeing said Tuesday it’s changing the design of a part around the 737 MAX engine and dropping the original supplier, over concern that the part as designed cannot be produced fast enough in the future.

The part is the inner wall of the thrust reverser, a part at the rear of the engine that on landing shifts position to block the jet exhaust and redirect it forward, slowing the airplane.

This design was chosen in part to allow the 737 MAX engine pod, which has limited ground clearance because of the new larger engine fan, to be slightly smaller in diameter.

Boeing spokeswoman Lauren Penning said the new design still meets the ground-clearance requirement by substituting thinner insulating panels for the composite blankets used on today’s 737.

“The lines of the airplane do not change … and there is no weight change on the new design,” Penning said.

GKN, the supplier of this new technology, has already produced a number of the titanium parts at its facility in Santa Ana, Calif.

The Wall Street Journal reported Tuesday

Article source: http://www.seattletimes.com/business/boeing-aerospace/boeing-drops-737-max-supplier/

SEATTLE (AP) — Using everything from a customized DC-8 jetliner to ground radars to four-inch rain gauges, scientists are fanning out across one of the soggiest places in the United States this month to measure raindrops and snowflakes like never before.

Led by NASA and the University of Washington, the field experiment on the Olympic Peninsula attempts to validate, on the ground, how well global satellites measure precipitation from space, which is crucial for areas of the world that lack rain gauges or other equipment.

The four-month long OLYMPEX project will collect detailed atmospheric data — right down to the size of raindrops — that fall over the ocean, along the coast, in the foothills and the rugged Olympic Mountains. Ground instruments have already started collecting data and NASA’s DC-8, a flying science laboratory, arrives in Washington state this week.

The idea is “to connect the dots between what we’re seeing on the surface and what we’re seeing from space

Article source: http://wbay.com/ap/nasa-partners-track-rain-snow-in-soggy-washington/

JONESTOWN He always had this thing for music and a fascination with things that fly.

When he was 3, he could tell his mother which note she was playing on the family piano — and that was from upstairs in his room.

“For a 3-year-old, I could hear things,” said Warren “Doc” Daugherty, 78, one day last week looking back on his lifelong love of music from the basement of his home in Jonestown. “It’s always in me.”

So it wasn’t much of a surprise after Daugherty graduated Lebanon High School in 1954 that he set out for Penn State, already with experience playing piano, trumpet, saxophone and drums, to pursue a degree in musical education.

The saxophone turned out to be his principal instrument, which he would later use to turn that fascination with aerodynamics into reality.

But a funny thing happened to Daugherty while he was on his way to his bachelor of science degree in musical education.

“I know what my limits are as a player,” he admitted. “There is a certain level of professional talent, and I was not there. I just didn’t have it.”

It was just about that time that his college roommate left a brochure about dentistry lying on a desk in their room.

“I was always good with my hands,” he reasoned as he ruminated about the possibility of a change in his career plans.

After graduating Penn State in 1959, Daugherty headed

Article source: http://www.ldnews.com/story/news/local/2015/11/08/dentistry-music-ears-lebanon-valley-high-flyer/75454274/