Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Norris and Mecham Update on the 787

Boeing Photos


Aviation Week's Mike Mecham and Guy Norris each posted an update on the 787.
Guy Norris reports that ZA001 will return to the skies tomorrow after a planned lay up following completion of the initial airworthiness tests. Boeing will fly the aircraft with test pilots and test engineers abroad the plane. ZA002, which completed a 4 hour and 11 minute flight today, has been flying with test engineers aboard since January 27th.

Tomorrow's flight of ZA001 will be an extended check out flight with some of the new test equipment aboard along with the engineers to operate them and to examine real time data feeds.

The next set of tests is to explore flutter effects at higher speeds and altitudes as well as expansion of the flight envelope beyond 0.65 Mach and 30,0000ft altitude. Once these next set of tests are complete, Boeing expects to receive the TIA (type inspection authorization) by the end of this month which would allow FAA inspectors aboard to observe the certification testing that would follow TIA testing. Thsu far, ZA001 has 59 hours and 15 minutes of flight time with 15 flights and ZA002 has 15 hours and 51 minutes of flight time spread across 5 flights. The test fleet has accumulated 75 hours and 6 minutes of flight time across 20 sorties.

Guy Norris: 787 update - ZA001 set to return tomorrow

Mike Mecham reported from the Singapore Air Show that both ZA004and ZA003 are following their paths to first flight. ZA004 should fly around middle of February while ZA003 should fly at the end of February.

Mike Mecham: ZA004 and ZA003 in the wings

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