Still Cannot Make Planes

It looks like, Boeing has found yet ANOTHER manufacturing problem with the 787.

It appears that they are screwing up the shims again:

Boeing said Tuesday it has discovered yet another manufacturing quality flaw on the 787 Dreamliner — this time in an attachment fitting on the horizontal tail, referred to as the stabilizer — that will delay deliveries of the jet as mechanics work to fix the defect.

“We are inspecting 787s in our inventory for a nonconforming condition related to a fitting on the horizontal stabilizer,” Boeing said in a statement. “The inspections and required rework will affect timing of near-term 787 deliveries.”

The statement added that the defect in the tail is “not an immediate safety of flight issue and the in-service fleet may continue to operate.”

It’s the latest in a long and very expensive litany of 787 quality woes.

The affected attachment fitting is provided by a supplier and installed on the horizontal tail at Boeing’s manufacturing facility in Salt Lake City.

The defect is a small, paper-thin gap in the attachment, Boeing said. Such gaps are typically plugged using a filler known as a shim. The shims in the attachment were incorrectly sized so that the gap exceeded the five-thousandths of an inch allowable in the specification.

In April, Boeing discovered a flawed fitting inside the vertical tailfin of a different jet, the 737 MAX. In that case, “a nonstandard manufacturing process” affected two out of eight fittings that attached the tailfin to the fuselage.

To be fair, it's not that Boeing CAN'T make planes, it's that it CHOOSES not to, because it would divert money from its stock options.

I give you this anonymous account from Naked Capitalism:

Assembled in SC. My son tells me every damn last one of ’em has to be taken to Everett for rework. Honest to Pete. The stories I’ve heard from my husband’s uncle (89) who did 36 years at Boeing as an Engineer and my son’s recent two-stint experience working at the Fredrickson Plant right here near Tacoma, then training in Everett, then another stint in Renton. Then a couple my husband and I met. A couple in the 5th wheel next to us, the husband retired after 30+ years. Lots of parts coming in bad, the whole financialization. He directly saw, felt knew the impacts. This plane company is a manufacturing sh%$-show. David Calhoun needs a required unpaid two year internship working on the line in Renton.

(%$ mine)

Management does not care.  They get their stock options, and the hell with the rest.