Highs And Lows

It has been a bittersweet few weeks for Boeing in Australia as the defence side of the business celebrated the rollout of the RAAF’s first Super Hornet, three weeks early (see p30), while the commercial side reels from the latest 787 program delays (p18) and Qantas’s 787 order cuts and deferrals (p17).

So it’s interesting to reflect how the Super Hornet deliveries running early and the 787 program running late are the two sides to the same coin, nicely illustrating the risks and rewards of buying a high tech aircraft, whether it’s an airliner or a fighter, earlier or later in its developmental cycle.