Newsgroups: sci.aeronautics.airliners Path: news From: Tony Heatwole Subject: Re: Boeing 767 Cockpit Size X-Submission-Date: Wed, 30 Dec 1992 13:21 EST References: Message-ID: Approved: kls@ohare.Chicago.COM Sender: kls@ohare.Chicago.COM X-Submission-Message-Id: Date: 30 Dec 92 12:55:24 PST I have a reprint of the Harvard Business School case study on the Boeing 767 (#9-688-040, Rev. 2/89). It's a fascinating look at technology, manufacturing, and the culture of the Boeing Corporation. With regard to the 767 crew size: "In August 1981, eleven months before the first scheduled delivery of Boeing's new airplane, the 767, Dean Thornton, program's vice president - general manager, faced a critical decision. For several years, Boeing had lobbied the FAA for permission to build wide-bodied aircraft with two-, rather than three person cockpits. Permission had been granted late in July. Unfortunately, the 767 had originally been designed with a three-person cockpit, and 30 of those planes were already in various stages of production. " . . . Engineers concluded that the thirty-first 767 was still far enough from completion that it, and all subsequent planes, could be built with two-person cockpits without modification. Thirty planes, however, were in relatively advanced stages of production. Some were nearly ready to to be rolled out and flown; others had complete cockpits but were not yet tested; others had bare cockpits without any electronics installed. But since all thirty were being built according to the plane's original, three-person cockpit design, all would require some modification. " . . . Customers were notified of the additional cost and delivery delay they could expect on these thirty planes. The impact was not large: a small percentage increase in costs and an average delay of one month from promised delivery dates. All but one airline chose to have their planes built with two-person cockpits." So, the interesting question is, what was the *one* airline, and what has become of their 3-person cockpit 767s? Were these planes later converted to 2-person cockpits? I don't know the answers, but I'm curious. Interestingly, Boeing decided to complete the first 30 767s as originally designed, for 3-person cockpits. Then, they converted the 30 (less the set to be delivered as 3-person cockpit) to 2-person operation as a batch. This avoided the safety and manufacturing problems of trying to convert a number of planes in different stages of manufacture. Tony Heatwole Gaithersburg, MD heatwole@hns.com