Monday, May 10, 2010

Boeing moves 787s around, final assembly activities temporarily stopped

Boeing has temporarily stopped final assembly activities on 3 787 in order that 3 other 787s that have completed the side of body modifications are finished.

In doing so, Boeing has towed ZA151 (LN19) to a spot on the Boeing flightline and took ZA175 (LN 20) and ZA 176 (LN 21) went into temporary storage at the ATS Hangar. In their place Boeing put ZA100 (LN 7) in building 40-26 position 4, ZA101 (LN 8) in position 3 and ZA102 (LN 9) in position 2. These planes all have undergone the side of body modifications. It is anticipated that these airplanes will be in 40-26 for a little bit more than a month. When Boeing is ready to resume production ZA100 will be moved to 40-24 (767 final assembly line) and the line will pulsed so that ZA177 (LN 23) can start final assembly. The two of the three booted airplanes will return to the assembly hall once the reassembly activities are completed on the three early build production airplanes. ZA151 will go to the paint hangar soon and ZA175 and ZA176 will return to 40-26 once the reassembly activities are completed.

In other news, ZA005 may finally light the GEnx-1B engines today. I'll post if that happens.

6 comments:

johnv777 said...

Uresh,

Thanks for the new info. GREAT UPDATE. It looks like Boeing is doing a lot of shuffling and repositioning, trying to get work completed on multiple airplanes. I am assuming that LN19 was ready to come out of 40-26 irregardless, since it is not scheduled to go back to position 4, but rather into the paint hanger.

Anonymous said...

Love the site, the information and the photos. One minor thing I would love the see changed in labels is to see Delta listed as Delta Air Lines rather than Delta Airlines. Nit Picky, yes, but the name like the air line is distinctive.

Bob P. Washington state

Unknown said...

Thanks for the info Uresh.

LN12 mustn't be too far from coming out of the tent either. Each round of SOB mods appears to be quicker than the previous though it looks like the aircraft are spending less time being reassembled in either the ATS hangar or the tent and more time in 40-24 or the flightline.

Do we assume LN11 will be next to enter the tent? Or LN13? This assumes there is more urgency in completing the ANA birds over LAN's LN10.

Uresh said...

John, I think you asume correctly. 19 won't be going back inside the final assembly building but will go to paint and then back outside to the flightline.

Bob P. Thanks for the complement. I'll try and fix the tags....it'll take some time!

Dan, I think your right but my sources don't know the order for the next airplane to be modified. Nonetheless, ther eare only 5 more airplanes left for the mods to be done on and I anticipate that it should all be completed by the end of the third quarter at the earliest.

johnv777 said...

Great comments. Another thought - since the ATS hanger is being used for storage, there seems to only be one spot (tent) for SoBs going forward for at least a month. This may slow the SoB mod process to a single ship at a time for now. Is Boeing able to do the SoBs at another hanger?

Uresh said...

Boeing has only 5 left to modify and the ATS hangar will only be used for storage for about a month so there shouldn't be an impact.