Welcome to CyberAir : Computer and Communications Tools Are Revolutionizing the Way Planes Are Built

Aircraft manufacturers have a love-hate relationship with high technology.

On the one hand, being on the cutting edge just doesn’t pay. “We could build a plane for a 500-mile mission with half the weight, twice the fuel efficiency and could go three times as fast as the MD-95,” McDonnell Douglas Director Jerry Callaghan says in reference to the company’s new 100-seat airplane. “But it will only last for one flight.”

Or, as Robert Hammer, a Boeing vice president responsible for re-engineering the company’s design and manufacturing processes, puts it: “The military is doing stuff like stealth technology, but who needs a stealth commercial airplane?”

At the same time, though, a wide range of new technologies is revolutionizing the way airplanes are built. Computer and communications tools are cutting production costs, raising quality and, perhaps most important, making possible a whole new style of global aircraft manufacturing.

With improved global computer networks, McDonnell Douglas and Boeing can work effectively with partners and suppliers all over the world--not to mention with each other, now that they have agreed to merge.

At the Long Beach-based Douglas Aircraft division of McDonnell Douglas, engineers are working with companies in South Korea, Italy, Germany, Taiwan, Japan and Israel to design and build the MD-95, which is scheduled for delivery in 1999. Grace Robertson, who is in charge of advanced program development for commercial aircraft at Douglas, calls these partners “electronic immigrants.”

Engineers using computer-aided design programs type in commands and click their mouses to build three-dimensional models of airplanes and all their components. The computer can compare designs to check whether two parts will fit together snugly, eliminating the need for building physical models out of plastic or clay. The time and money savings are on the order of 40%.

The CAD software makes it possible for workers in different countries to collaborate on the same engineering assignment. Instead of shipping parts, they can send electronic models back and forth in an instant. In the future, says Ernie Valdiva, Douglas’ general manager of assembly tooling, workers will piece together electronic models of parts using virtual reality displays.

Boeing brought CAD technology to the fore by using a program called CATIA--short for computer-aided, three-dimensional, interactive application--to design its new wide-body 777 plane, which can carry 328 passengers and fly up to 8,320 miles without refueling. Boeing engineers are now using CATIA to design upgrades for the company’s older lines.

McDonnell Douglas favors a similar program called Unigraphics, which is being phased into all airplane development at Douglas Aircraft. Engineers use the program to conduct a stress analysis and check the airflow over a plane before any parts are even built.

A closely linked development is the rise of computer-aided manufacturing, in which pieces of a plane are milled according to the instructions of a computer. The resulting parts--which can be designed anywhere--are more precise and consistent than those made with traditional machine tools.

At Boeing, the fuselage assembly improvement team is using these technologies to produce parts that fit together as easily as Legos. The design software tells the manufacturing software where to drill a small number of reference holes in each part. Assemblers put the parts together by lining up the reference holes and plugging them with rivets.

Paul H. Nisbet, president of JSA Research Inc., an independent aerospace research firm in Newport, R.I., estimates that switching to these manufacturing techniques will shave as much as $15 million off the cost of building a 747.

Researchers at Douglas Aircraft are improving on computer-aided manufacturing technology so they can build very large parts out of super-hot lithium. Bigger parts are stronger, need less assembly and are more precise.

One of the trickiest steps in the manufacturing process is lining up the major sections of the airplane’s fuselage, wings and tail. New alignment systems based on lasers are proving to make the task much easier.

The systems work by shooting laser beams to a series of targets spread out on the pieces of the airplane that are being joined together. When the laser beams bounce back to their source, a computer measures the angle of return and calculates the exact position of the targets. Then the computer compares where the targets are to where they are supposed to be, and assembly workers make the adjustments.

Using laser alignment, the smooth surface of a Boeing plane varies by only 0.023 inch (about the thickness of a playing card) over the length of the plane from tip to tail--a distance of more than 200 feet. With traditional tools, the variation is closer to half an inch.

Boeing has developed a spinning laser that can provide feedback about a number of targets simultaneously, and McDonnell Douglas plans to use one when the company begins assembling MD-95s later this year.

Douglas Aircraft engineers have also devised a system of computer-controlled jacks to measure whether a pair of wings is lined up symmetrically. The jacks measure the pressure--in pounds per square inch--at specific points on each wing. If the pressure matches up at key points on each wing, they are in alignment. If not, the jacks can be raised, lowered or swiveled by a computer until there is a match.

“We can put together the most precise aircraft we’ve ever done,” says Michael Duncan, a Douglas Aircraft structural mechanic who started using the new system in June.

In the cockpit, improvements in off-the-shelf computer processors have reduced the number of gears and switches needed in each new generation of aircraft. In their latest aircraft models, both Boeing and McDonnell Douglas are incorporating liquid crystal displays into their cockpits to replace electromechanical instruments and screens lit up by cathode ray tubes.

For passengers, the high-tech developments have come in the form of personal movie screens and in-flight phones. In coming years, passengers will be able to log on to the Internet mid-flight with the help of satellites that will be launched by companies such as Teledesic Corp., a start-up funded by Bill Gates and Craig McCaw.

In addition to the major technology initiatives, workers in all parts of both companies are making incremental improvements. Ever-lighter composites are being substituted for traditional metals. The magnetic tape used to record a plane’s response to a battery of system tests will be replaced by a CD-ROM so that data can be accessed more quickly. Interior designers employ Silicon Graphics machines to present customers with a three-dimensional virtual tour of how passenger cabins will look with the carpet and upholstery they have chosen.

Altogether, analysts estimate that this wave of high-tech innovation has shaved between 30% and 40% off the cost of airplane production, and more improvements are on the way. Every significant development on the horizon in airplane design, manufacturing and safety will hinge on technological advances, especially more powerful computer processors, says Douglas Aircraft’s Robertson.

“The new concepts are all enabled by new technologies,” she says. “It is the technology that will get us there.”

Times correspondent Karen Kaplan covers technology and telecommunications. She can be reached via e-mail at karen.kaplan@latimes.com

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High Tech Takes Off

Commercial aircraft makers have pushed the technology envelope to develop faster, better and more efficient ways to make planes. Here are some of the key technologies being used by McDonnell Douglas and Boeing:

* Computer networks--both private links and the Internet--allow plane makers to collaborate easily with partners and contractors around the world. For example, McDonnell Douglas engineers in Long Beach developed major components of the company’s new MD-95 plane with companies in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

* Computer-aided design programs allow engineers to create planes by typing in commands and clicking their mouses. The programs can check whether parts will fit together snugly and test how air will flow over the plane.

* With computer-aided manufacturing, pieces of a plane are milled with extreme precision, according to the instructions of a computer.

* Lasers play an important role in making sure that airplane parts are perfectly aligned before they are permanently attached. A Boeing plane is now within 0.023 inch--the thickness of a playing card--of perfect alignment over its entire length.

* At McDonnell Douglas, workers use computerized jacks to measure whether the wings of a plane are symmetrical. The jacks measure the pressure at specific points on each wing and a computer makes comparisons.