The International Association of Machinists and Aerospace Workers (IAM) announced today that its members voted to ratify a new 4-year contract with the Boeing Company by 74 percent.

The new agreement covers 27,000 IAM members at Boeing facilities in Washington, Oregon, Kansas and California, and ends a strike that began on September 6, 2008.

Machinists will begin returning to work as early as November 2 (for third shift employees) and November 3 for first and second shift employees. Per the Settlement Agreement, members have until the beginning of their shift on Monday, November 10 to return to work.

“Our Union has delivered what few Americans have - economic certainty and quality benefits for the next four years. Each of you stood up and did your part to win this battle,” said District 751 President Tom Wroblewski. “Your solidarity brought Boeing back to the table and made this Company address your issues. After 57 days of striking, we have gained important and substantial improvements over the Company’s offer that was rejected on September 3. I am proud to be a member of the Machinists Union and want to thank our members for their solidarity and commitment.”

“This contract gives the workers at Boeing an opportunity to share in the extraordinary success this Company has achieved over the past several years,” said Aerospace Coordinator Mark Blondin. “It also recognizes the need to act with foresight to protect the next generation of aerospace jobs. These members helped make Boeing the company it is today, and they have every right to be a part of its future.”

Among the many job security gains, the Union reasserted its jurisdiction over the scope of work of bargaining unit represented jobs that was lost in the 2002 contract. The Union members’ share of medical costs will remain unchanged from 2002 through 2012. In addition to the many monetary gains achieved in the new contract, the takeaway language that was riddled throughout the Company’s 9/3/08 proposal was withdrawn - retiree medical is preserved, survivor benefits are returned, reinstatement of seniority lost due to layoff is returned, promotional rights restored and the list goes on.

Component rig tests on a one-fifth sub-scaled system using two rows of counterrotating fan blades will test a wide range of simulated flight conditions from February through mid-2009.

Open rotor designs are a candidate technology for reducing fuel consumption on the next generation of engines for narrowbodies, such as GE’s LEAP-X advanced turbofan. But noise generated by the counterroating, high-speed fan blades must be overcome through new aerodynamic design techniques.

“Engine noise is a prime challenge in operating open-rotor engine systems in a commercial aviation environment,” GE’s statement acknowledges.

For the wind tunnel tests, NASA is refurbishing testing rig equipment used in the 1980s when the agency and GE jointly tested the GE36 unducted fan, which was later mounted on the aft fuselage and flown on a Boeing 727 and an MD-80.

“GE and NASA will evaluate open-rotor concepts in the wind tunnel with far greater technology capability,” said David Joyce, president of GE Aviation.

Open rotor fans should consume less fuel by dramatically increasing engine bypass ratios compared to nacelle-enclosed turbofans.

GE has estimated the technology could be ready to enter operational service after 2017, depending on whether noise, aircraft configuration and regulatory issues can be overcome.

A sample of an open rotor concept was developed by Boeing a year ago.

The assembly completion of Dreamliner One slipped to October 6th prior to the strike.  The schedule, published by UBS  states that assembly was set to be completed on September 10 and September 25 for Dreamliners Two and Three, respectively. Strauss identifies the strike, along with a five week slip in assembly completion on Dreamliner One, as the primary catalyst for his bearish analysis.

Although The Boeing Co. has a record backlog of orders and has been raising production rates to get more planes to customers, the world financial crisis and credit crunch will result in many of those orders being canceled or deferred, a Wall Street analyst said Friday.

And another analyst predicted that because of the on-going Machinists strike, and other factors, the first 787s won’t be delivered to airlines until early 2010, rather than in the third quarter of next year.

Boeing can be expected to update the status of its 787, and provide analysts with a better understanding of the impact of the credit crunch on its customers and its delivery schedule, when it reports on third-quarter earnings on Oct. 22.

“We believe that the inability to obtain financing will cause customers to defer or cancel orders,” Goldman Sachs analyst Richard Safran wrote in a note to clients. “As a result, we believe (Boeing) will lower production rates.”

Boeing will have to drastically cut deliveries in 2010, he predicted.

Safran lowered his estimate of how many planes Boeing will deliver in 2009 to 462, down from 489. But in 2010, he said, Boeing will deliver only 392 planes. That’s well off Safran’s previous estimate of 524.

In July, when Boeing announced earnings for the second quarter, the company said it planned to deliver between 475 and 480 planes this year. But that was before the Machinists strike, which delayed the delivery of about 30 planes in September. Boeing had said back in July that it expected to deliver between 500 and 505 planes in 2009. And deliveries would be even higher in 2010 as the 787 program ramped up, Boeing said at the time.

Responding to comments by a Northwest Airlines executive concerning the carrier’s requirement that its 787s be delivered with the range and specifications promised, a Boeing spokesman in a telephone interview today said the airframer will have “more specific airplane performance data following flight testing. That’s scheduled to happen first quarter 2009.”

A second static test was completed this week successfully.

Japan’s two biggest airlines – Japan Airlines Corp (JAL) and All Nippon Airways (ANA) – have already announced expected delays in receiving the 787 jets in the face of a machinists’ strike that came on top of an 18-month delay in the shipment of the planes.

Japan’s second-largest carrier ANA is also the launch customer for the 787 Dreamliner, a mid-sized long-haul twin-jet designed to save fuel, and will be the first to fly one. The CEO of ANA got a five-minute standing ovation from 15,000 Boeing employees when the 787 was rolled out in Seattle last July.

But because of the production delay, ANA is now expecting to receive its first 787 in August 2009 – 15 months later than originally planned.

To cover its capacity needs until the 787 delivery, ANA has decided to introduce nine Boeing 767-300ER aircraft in the 2010 and 2011 business years.

JAL, one of Boeing’s most loyal customers, also said last week that it agreed with Boeing to postpone the first 787 delivery for 14 months until October 2009 and introduce a total of 11 Boeing 777 and 767 aircraft to meet its capacity needs.

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Capable of carrying more than 400 passengers, the first 747 was two and a half times bigger than the largest jets then in service: the Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8.

Chief 747 engineer Joe Sutter, in his book “747″ that recounted the story of the airplane’s development, recalled that the plane was not quite ready for rollout that day.

“Fortunately … we came up with four presentable engines to hang on it so that it looked complete from the outside,” Sutter wrote.

The 747 was designed and built in record time.

Pan American World Airways placed the first $525 million launch order for 25 Boeing 747s in April 1966. To build a jet so much bigger than any before, Boeing had to build a new factory, which would become the largest building by volume in the world. Construction of the Everett plant began in June 1966, and the walls of the building went up as the assembly lines were laid down.

The 747 flew for the first time just four months after rollout, on Feb. 9, 1969.

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After an abortive evaluation two years ago of an in-house design and one developed by Winglet Technology of the USA, Airbus revealed in May that it intended to re-examine the concept in conjunction with Boeing’s long-established supplier API. These tests were originally due to start in July, but will now get under way imminently, says the airframer.

Derek Davies, Airbus’ investor marketing director, told the US Valuation Conference hosted by ATI affiliate Commercial Aviation Online that the modification will increase maximum takeoff weight (MTOW) for the passenger airliner by 5t. The top rating will increase from 233t to 238t.

Airbus expects the higher takeoff weight limit will improve the A330-200’s comparison with the 787.

Davies’s presentation included a chart showing how the 238t version of the A330-200 compares against the “initial deliveries” of the 787. Afterward, Davies defined the term “initial deliveries” as the first 20 787s that complete final assembly.

The 238t version of the A330-200 would have a range of 6,840nm, Davies said.

By contrast, Davies added, the range for the 219.5t 787-8 would be limited to 6,720nm.

That number sharply contrasts with Boeing’s publicly listed notional range for the 787-8, which spreads from 7,650nm to 8,000nm.

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