Boeing received the most prestigious award in aerospace this week winning the 2011 Collier Trophy for the 787 Dreamliner. The trophy is given out every year by the National Aeronautic Association and awarded to an air or space vehicle that represents the greatest aeronautic achievement in America based on service during the previous year.
Boeing's delivery of the 787 to All Nippon Airways last fall marked the entry to service that made the airplane eligible for the Collier Trophy. The award was first given to Glenn Curtiss in 1911 for his development of the "hydro airplane." Other past winners of the award include Orville Wright, Chuck Yeager, Burt Rutan and the SpaceShipOne team and last year the Sikorsky X-2 team. Boeing has won in the past for both military and civilian aircraft including the B-52 bomber and the 747.
The 787 is the first airliner to be largely built from composite materials. The main fuselage of the Dreamliner is basically a large composite barrel compared to the aluminum skin and frame traditionally used for all airliners built by Boeing and other aircraft makers. Fifty percent of the 787 is composite by weight.
The award is a bright spot in what has been a bumpy development process for the new airplane. The use of composites has resulted in a learning curve with many setbacks over the past several years, most recently problems with the fit between the composite fuselage and the structures inside the airplane. More than 870 Boeing 787s have been ordered by airlines around the world, but so far only five have been delivered and are in service carrying passengers.
The delayed delivery schedule continues to cause headaches for Boeing. Earlier this week Aviation Week reported that Air India reached an agreement with Boeing for compensation "to an amount of up to $500 million" for the delivery delays of the 27 airplanes the airline has on order. Air India was suppose to receive their first Dreamliner in 2008, but Jim Albaugh, Boeing's president of commercial aircraft, said the deal was news to him. At a JPMorgan Chase & Co. aviation conference in New York he disputed the claim that Boeing was writing a check to Air India, “I think if we settled for $500 million, somebody would have told me.”
Compensating airlines for delivery delays is normal in the industry, though it usually doesn't include a large lump sum. Air India expects to receive its first 787 in May. Boeing says production of the composite airliners is on schedule and the company expects to ramp up production to 10 a month by the end of next year.
