In a new twist in the continuing saga that is the 787, Scott Fancher said today that the first delivery of 787 to launch customer ANA may slide into early 2011 though they are still targetting the end of 2010 for first delivery. Scott Fancher said that this is a "cautionary note" as issues that have to be resovled including the horizontal stabilizer issue has eaten away at the schedule margin in the program.
Another issue is changing out the instrumentation in the test airplanes has taken more time than Boeing had thought meaning that the aircraft is spending more time on the ground getting its test instrumentation changed out.
Seattle Times article on potential delivery slip
Flightblogger article on potential delivery slip
Additionally, Boeing said today during the conference call that first flight of ZA006 has slipped into August due to horizontal stabilizer inspections and rework. However, a source has told me that first flight for this airplane is now listed internally as September 7. If true then there may be more involved then just horizontal stabilizer rework though that is speculation on my part.
Boeing is under tremendous pressure to get deliveries going. Many carriers are trying to get early delivery slots just as QANTAS has done (for its Jetstar subsidiary) and now Aeroflot and the Russian government are pressuring Boeing to deliver the 787 before the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi, Russia.
Aubrey Cohen of the Seattle PI has a great article on todays news from Boeing:
Aubrey Cohen's 787 blog post
On a final note, Boeing is getting ZA003 ready for Farnborough and is even giving the airplane a bath today.
Farnborough 2010 Story: 787 Prepares for Farnborough
Thursday, July 15, 2010
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