Software Woes Allegedly Plague New 717

Problems with complex new flight-testing software threaten to add delays and stretch the budget for the Boeing 717 jet program at the company’s Douglas Products Division in Long Beach, according to two engineers who worked on the software until recently.

The new jet, rolled into public view with great fanfare last month, is one of the few remaining bright spots for Boeing employees in Long Beach, where the Seattle-based aerospace giant has announced it will eliminate three major plane programs by early 2000.

A Boeing spokesman on Monday denied there are any problems that will affect the first flight of the 100-seat 717 jet.

“The test system is on track to support first flight in September,” said Warren Lamb, a Boeing spokesman in Long Beach, where 1,500 employees are working on the initial 717s.

The two engineers, Donald Kasper and Leonard Anderson, were senior developers on a new system designed to provide test flight information. Kasper was suspended after a disagreement in early June and Anderson quit at the end of June.

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Kasper and Anderson said the problems center on the system, which collects and quickly analyzes the mounds of data created with each test flight of the 717. The tests measure the performance of every major jet component on takeoff, in emergency situations and in the air, and the results are key to winning certification from federal regulators.

A typical flight test program, observers say, can take from 18 months to two years, depending on the complexity of the jet.

But with the Long Beach Flight Test Data Processing system, vast amounts of information can be checked within 72 hours, allowing a sharply compressed test schedule. Using the new system, Boeing plans to complete the flight tests in 10 months.

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The project, begun before Boeing bought McDonnell Douglas last year, has been behind schedule from the beginning, and the software may never deliver the time and money savings that were promised, the developers said.

Anderson and Kasper said the project has been plagued by inadequate staffing and funding, and the shortcomings have been exacerbated by a steady stream of changes to the software.

The project was originally supposed to be completed by last October, then by April. That deadline was postponed to July 1--which the company also missed, Kasper and Anderson said.

In May, the two men wrote a letter to Boeing outlining the troubles with the software and the danger of future missed deadlines.

“It is our opinion that the recent requests to provide major project enhancements present the very real risk that no system will be delivered at all, as inter-departmental conflicts will apparently push the debate over product features up to [and probably beyond] first flight,” the letter said.

At the end of June, only one of the 10 separate test modules was operating, according to the employees. Boeing is preparing to send about 45 engineers to Long Beach to help finish the work.

“I think it will take the remaining team two or three months to get those 10 applications running,” Anderson said. “They’re going to struggle to make dates, and that will have an impact on the [whole] schedule.”

Lamb acknowledged that the software is not finished yet, but reiterated that it will be ready for flights in September.

“We’re not going to respond to their comments,” Lamb said. “Their work constituted about 10% of the total flight data system.”

Meanwhile, employees and analysts are still waiting for announcements of additional orders for the plane. Boeing has repeatedly touted the 717’s potential for solid sales, but the company has so far announced firm orders for 55 jets and options for 50.

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Kistler Aerospace Corp., one of several companies racing to build a reusable rocket, recently completed a critical test of the massive parachute system designed to safely return weighty rocket sections to the ground.

The company, which has executive offices in L.A. and its research group in Kirkland, Wash., is developing the K-1, a vehicle that could launch satellites into low Earth orbit and return to the ground for reuse in less than 10 days.

Late last month, Kistler tested the elaborate parachute system that will be carried aboard the rocket and then deployed to cushion its fall to the ground.

Kistler said its six-parachute cluster--equal to 2.6 acres of canopy material that stretched out to cover more than 22 miles above Yuma, Ariz.--safely carried a 40,000-pound test object to the ground from a height of 10,000 feet.

The firm has launch orders from Iridium and Globalstar, two major satellite communications projects, and expects to conduct its first test launch in Australia by the end of the year.