Work continued apace at both Everett and Boeing Charleston on the 787s that still need to be delivered. In fact the number of planes that are in pre-flight is steadily increasing at Everett as in the number of airplanes that are entering change incorporation.
Tomorrow United Airlines will unveil it's first 787 as it is being rolled out of Boeing's paint hangar. The rollout can be viewed by clicking here. The roll out of ZA288 (LN 53, N27904) is to start at 8:30AM EST, 5:30AM PST. While United is unveiling it's newest addition this airplane won't actually be delivered for another 6 to 8 weeks. It will join a gaggle of pre-flight 787s that are on the Everett ramp.
Another JAL 787 just finished change incorporation (ZA178, LN 27) is currently in the paint hangar and most likely will be delivered sometime next month. The number of 787s that are in change incorporation have also increased. There are 4 Dreamliners in 40-24 for change incorporation and EMC has a full complement of 5 airplanes with another 4 outside of the hangar that are also being worked on.
Boeing is still maintaining 35 - 42 787s to be delivered this year but it certainly looks like they have the ability to deliver more. The long pole in the tent is issues like what cropped up with both engines (Trent 1000 and GEnx-1B) over the last few days with the GE being the most serious of the issues. However, I do not anticipate that these events are going to be show stoppers in terms of continued delivery and safe operation of the airplanes that are or will be in service.
Most of the noise is due to the media making it out to be more of a bigger deal just because of the history of the 787. Scott Hamilton has put out a post where he believes that the GEnx engine problem on Saturday is a non-issue. The NTSB is investigating and the engine which shed the parts will be torn down to discover what the problem may be. Given that the GEnx engine is flying on both the 787 and 747 and hasn't experienced an issue thus far in revenue service of either of those airplanes. It is too early to say if this issue will delay any 787 deliveries but GEnx powered 787s were flying today with one more flight scrapped before take off at Everett. In my opinion 787s will continued to be delivered this month.
Monday, July 30, 2012
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2 comments:
Wow 15 in final preps, I have a feeling we might get a few more from rework soon, the later frames. Only 22 more to rework ;)
If the slowdown in deliveries continue there might be 20 frames in final preps. New+ EMC.
It might seem distant right now but one day we will see a flood of deliveries of 787s. At least its better to be backed up with deliverable frames than incomplete frames.
Seems like the bottleneck right now is B1 flights.
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