Sunday, September 16, 2012

Boeing continues to fly GEnx engines on 787 and 747

Boeing, after having performed the necessary ultrasound inspections on the GEnx engines on the airplanes they have in pre-flight, flew three GE engined aircraft today (out of 4 airplanes).  This does give some reassurance that deliveries of these airplanes (a least to specific customers) are moving forward.  Again I don't expect Air India to take any more airplanes until at least the NTSB, GE and Boeing discover the root cause of the crack in the Fan Midshaft and implement corrective actions and/or a re-design.  There would be considerable amount time added as the fan midshaft of the these engines will all have to be replaced once the root cause and a solution is found.  Today ZA263 and ZA264 both for Ethiopian flew test flights.  Both these flights were the B-2 flights though ZA264 still has to be painted and will probably be painted in Ft. Worth.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Could you provide an overview of what happens between leaving the assembly line and delivery? You mention B-2 flights, boeing flights, pre-delivery flight test: what are the normal test flights and by whom? Before flights the planes are at EMC, Paintshop, fueldock, some go to san antonio(?) and may have engines attached or not: What is the normal sequence and what happens at each stop?

if you have a link to this info that would be useful?

Johanny said...

Not sure if this was ZA135 that flew today or just a glitch in the Flightaware matrix:

http://flightaware.com/live/flight/BOE135

TurtleLuv said...

Hey Uresh, check this out:

http://747-8.blogspot.com/

It's my copycat version of your wonderful blog for the 747-8. The commentary isn't much more than event announcements, but the chart is nice and kept up to date.

Anonymous said...

LN27 seemed to have had its C1 flight and I think it will deliver, UAs frame seem to be ready as well. Add 2 ANAs and maybe the painted ET frame that had a B2 yesterday.

I think we can s 4 to 5 frames added to September deliveries, a total of 6 or 7 is not bad and will ease the crowded flightline.

As I understand its ok to fly these GEnx frames if you follow the inspection intervals that were put up. I can see JAL,ET and UA being ok with this but not QR or AI.

Maybe focus will be on the trent engined frames after this month is done or the airlines willing to take its frames despite this issue.

Having both QR and AI as customers must be a pain sometimes :) The QR issue must be more than about the engines though.

Anonymous said...

you're right BOE264 just for Ft. Worth.

Cedarglen said...

Even with some hardware (read: Engine) down those Boeing pilots fly a very busy schedule. I don't know the real numbers, but I'd guess that every hour of engine-on time, those fwllows (and gals) probably have 4-5 hours of (electronic) paperwork to complete. It must be a wonderful job, but they sure earn salary!! Thanks for the regular updates. Boeing, let alone their frustrated customers will be delighted when the re-works are completed and deliveries can be made directly from the line. I cannot imagine what the re-work process has cost them, but it is not trivial.

Dave C said...

Do we know which 787 was identified as having the engine issue on Everett ?