Friday, July 27, 2012

First 787 B-1 flight in almost 3 weeks scheduled to be conducted today

The first 787 B-1 flight to be conducted in almost three weeks is scheduled to take place today at about 10AM PT (1PM ET) today.  ZA100 (LN 7, JA803A) will fly its first flight.  This aircraft is the first production airplane to be assembled though it is also the aircraft that needed the most modifications. It has been in Everett for over three years since it started final assembly. If goes according to plan, this aircraft should deliver to ANA by middle to late August depending on any issues that would need to be corrected.  The flight is on Flightaware.

According to a posting on the airliners.net forum, Boeing is planning to deliver some where around 7 '87s in August as follows:

ZA100 (LN 7, JA803A) to ANA - 2nd to 3rd week of August
ZA461 (LN 58, A7-BCB) to Qatar - 4th week of August
ZA262 (LN 49, ET-AOQ) to Ethiopian - 4th week of August
ZA118 (LN 67, JA813A) to ANA - last week of August
ZA536 (LN 68, CC-BBA) to LAN - last week of August
ZA119 (LN 69, JA814A) to ANA - last week of August
ZA182 (LN 70, JA828J) to JAL - last week of August

Notable is the absence of ZA135 (LN 66, JA815A) which was the first 787 that did not need to go to the EMC.  This airplane probably needs a little bit more time to finish off the 300 some assembly tasks that remained after being pulled out of the assembly line.  This list has the potential of adding 3 maybe 4 more 787s if the Indian Government finally approves the compensation deal between Air India and Boeing.  That is the potential of 10 to 11 deliveries next month and would take Boeing to almost to the 2/3 point of the total 787 deliveries that they have projected for 2012 (35 to 42 with 12 currently delivered).





6 comments:

johnv777 said...

Hello Uresh - Thanks for the update.
I am cautiously optimistic for August, but in reviewing your post, I see that 6 of the potential deliveries are scheduled for the final 2 weeks of August, meaning there is little or no room for slips. Further, none of the 4 scheduled for the last week of August have even had B1 flights yet, and we know it takes a minimum of at least 3 weeks after a B1 to deliver, if there are no issues. So all 4 would need to have their B1 by the end of the first week of August. Also, 3 of those 4 might have to wait for gear box replacements. Given that, the schedule is very optimistic. Hope Boeing can pull it off, it would be very positive news for the program.

HK Expat said...

Hi Uresh - there was word that ETH-71 rolled off the assembly line on July 25th. Were you able to confirm that?
Cheers
A

graeme77 said...

It would appear unusual that LN 49 (Ethiopian) that flew for the first time on July 9 will be delivered in the same week as other aircraft that have not yet flown.

Anonymous said...

Any word on the issues the LN7 had? Something must have turned up as the B1 was cut short and no RAT was used etc.
I think we will see a B2 on this frame.

Ethiopian and Qatar seem to have the most mature frames IMO, most likely to get delivered in August. The LN7 will be the most problematic frame they will deliver for a while I guess. I hope they wont devote all resources to this frame but get the working ones out instead.

graeme77 said...

Air India aside, I'll bet on Ethiopian and Qatar delivered in August, with an outside chance for one ANA bird (LN7). All the rest will come later. Hopefully that's too pessimistic.

Anonymous said...

The last AI bird in Charleston had an engine issue yesterday, closed the runway and set fire to the grass..

I hope it was nothing serious, maybe some loose parts that was not secured properly?