News on the Boeing "beluga"

Some interesting info:

Following In Airbus’ Footsteps

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.