TBA
IDSA-LA: Boeing 787 Dreamliner
And some other stuff from before the IDSA event, including a disappointing dinner at ZPizza and photos the next day of people protesting Proposition 8 in front of the Mormon temple in west Los Angeles (scroll down for those).
IDSA-LA got Boeing and Teague put together a presentation on the design of the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner, primarily the interior design concerns including passenger comfort and a little bit on assembly methods.
Held at the Flight Path Learning Center Museum near LAX, which was a medium-sized if rather dated museum to the history of aviation, especially around Los Angeles. They had lots of models and posters, even a row of real airline seats.
Ken Dowd, VP at Teague; and Ken Price, Director of Passenger Revenue at Boeing, and someone else did most of the talking. Ken Price's talk was surprisingly good, in part because of his background as an engineer and as a test pilot for Boeing-- he gave numbers and research in to seat width, cabin width, perceived cabin comfort, and all kinds of good stuff that made his presentation very informative. Ken Dowd's part was more on design and the design process, which was probably more up the alley of many of the designers there.
Explainations of interior selection and ergonomics as well as the sales process to airlines were very good, although it was a bit too light on details for me. Not exactly disappointing, but at the same time airline manufacturers always show off all these awesome concepts for their planes in the showroom and in presentations. Then........... you sit in one, and it's the same standard crowded packed rows and rows of seating in the actual airplanes that airlines buy.
Sure that's how the market works, but sheesh, it's still disappointing!
Some of the details-- increasing overhead bin space, crew rest area descriptions, etc. were moderately interesting. The improvement on the plane's integrated systems (power and HVAC distribution, wiring harnesses and control systems, basically) was also interesting, how they changed the design process from discrete teams to a single unified team to help reduce/integrate components and fasteners used-- that stuff was pretty interesting, not only for the actual process, but for perspective on how inefficient previous processes were (you'd think they'd have figured this out long ago?).
For designers I suspect they found it fascinating; for me, it wasn't quite as even an experience, but it was still worthwhile.
Afterwards was a mixer at The Proud Bird, a bar with a parking lot full of WW1 and WW2-era airplanes all on display. How I had never heard of this place before, I do not know! It ws pretty awesome, although having never been to anything similar (such as the 56th Fighter Group restaurant in Long Island), I don't know how good it is/was. Still... right next to LAX, tons of airplanes... who cares that the bar selection was kind of limited and the food (if you were eating-- we just had drinks) didn't look all that great! AIRPLANES!!
Stuff the next day: photos of protestors against Proposition 8 in front of the Mormon Temple in West Los Angeles. The crowd was really tapering off as I took these pictures, the ten minutes it took me to unpack my stuff at home and run over with the camera must have been right as people decided to go home and get on with their lives!
 p1010397.jpg |
 p1010399.jpg |
 p1010400.jpg |
 p1010401.jpg |
 p1010404.jpg |
 p1010407.jpg |
