Friday, June 29, 2012

787 Flying During Farnborough

This morning Boeing announed that the ZA461 (LN 58, A7-BCB) for Qatar Airways will be flying demonstration flight from July 9 to July 11th during the Farnborough Airshow.  This is the first time Boeing will be flying acommercial demonstration at an air show in over 25 years. Rumor has it that Boeing is doing this at the behest of Qatar Airways chairman Akbar Al-Baker (U-Turn Al) but that is not confirmed.  According to Randy's Blog, ZA461 should arrive at Farnborough on Thursday July 5th.  It will fly a validation flight the next day and fly demonstration flights on 4pm each day from July 9th to July 11th.  The demo flight is 7 minutes long and will be flown by Boeing pilots.

The aircraft will have to leave from Boeing Field, according to Matt Cawby, the runway at Everett will be closed from July 4th to July 8th re-opening on July 9th.  This also means no B-1 787 flights or delivery fly aways during this period.  If there are to be any B-1 flights prior to the runway shut down, it would most likely be ZA100 (LN 7, JA803A) as this one seems closest to conducting any B-1 flights.  It is also possible that the two Air India 787s at Everett can be delivered before the runway closure but again this is all dependent on the Indian Government approving the deal between Air India and Boeing.  I have no word on when this may happen.

In the meantime, ZA509 (LN 56, JA812A) was supposed to have been delivered yesterday but appeared to have been taken on another test flight yesterday evening and is know expected to be delivered on July 1st and expected fly away on July 2nd.






4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Prodction seems to have turned its corner but delivery still has a long way to go, might be a shortage of manpower? ANA will soon have 6 frames in pre delivery alone..

Zero in may and just 2 in june, not very impressive so far imo. When will we see the flood gates open?

johnv777 said...

I think we can only speculate about the meaning of the new painted US registrations on the 2 Air India Frames at Everett, that were previously VT-AND and VT-ANH. One possible reason perMatt Cawby - they are being stored in the desert, or maybe additional testing of software while they wait for delivery. Uresh, any knowledge about this? I would love to hear from someone in the know.

Uresh said...

I'm hearing that they actually might be flown to Charleston. That's what the temporary Regs are for. I don't know if that's for delivery or for storage but at least it will alllow Boeing to free up space on the Everett flightline.

Anonymous said...

ive been searching the net for any possible solution with the air india sarga havnt found anything, have you heard anything more? also do you know why the deliveries are backing up a little? I think you have 10 frames in pre delivery at the moment and only two managed to make there way out, are they putting all the manpower in getting Qatar ready or are just a bit short on manpower? Also im surprised LN66 is still sitting there,hasnt done much since the line move, is there more than to what Boeing is telling us? those 300 jobs are huge jobs?

Love ya work, keep it going