Boeing seems to be ready to fly several 787s on their first flights as well as continue flight testing several more in preparation for delivery. As of today Boeing has delivered 29 planes to 7 worldwide customers.
There have been several Flightaware alerts for several 787s that are sitting at Everett and Charleston.
Yesterday there were several Flightaware alerts for several 787 B-1 flights. Those that were slated to fly were ZA460 (LN 57, A7-BCA) for Qatar Airways, ZA270 (LN 61, SP-LRA) for LOT Polish Airlines, ZA290 (LN 77, N26906) for United Airlines. However by the end of the day only ZA270 flew while the other two conducted taxi tests around Everett. Today there were Flightaware alerts for 2 B-1 flights: ZA430 (LN 73. B-2728) for Hainan Airlines and ZA239 (LN 60, VT-ANK) for Air India, the later being the third Charleston built 787 which should deliver sometime around November. As of now these 787s have not flown and have probably ran taxi tests around their respective airfields. I also expect that ZA261 (LN 44, ET-AOP) for Ethiopian should also take flight by sometime next week from Everett. This is an indication that Boeing is trying to aggressively ramp up the delivery process once the airplanes have left the EMC or the assembly line. I would expect that within the next couple of day that all these airplanes will fly as well as continued flight test activity from the airplanes that have already flown in preparation for delivery. The big factor nowadays is the weather around Washington State which is keeping the airplanes grounded (today for instance).
Meanwhile production and re-work continues at a pretty good pace with ZA538 (LN 80, CC-BBC) for LAN and ZA289 (LN 55, N26905) for United Airlines both entering the paint hangars at Everett. Assembly continues to pace at a little over 4/month. New airframes are being loaded in Everett at about 1 every week with the next one slated to load on Oct. 25. There are currently two 787s that are ready for delivery one for LAN (ZA537, LN 74, CC-BBB) and one for Ethiopian (ZA264, LN 75, ET-AOS).
Friday, October 19, 2012
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I´m in Spain and there was a sudden change in weather from last week, we had like 26-28 celsius and sunny day after day. Now its cloudy, misty and rain. It´s autumn, but it will pass, lower temps but less rain again later on.
You cant do much about weather, but its only B1 flights that are sensible to bad weather? Cant they fly the B2s or C1-C2s as long as the weather is bad?
Looking at pics of LN34 its not the pretty livery of LN43, has this frame cleared EMC? Since it seems to have gone through paint as well, ready to pre flight?
The road to 50 deliveries for 2012 looks more and more difficult. My current best case scenario ends the year @ 44 from current 26. Aircrafts are still tracking ~ 30 days of on ground testing post painting and ~ 30 days of flight testing.
2/3 more in Oct (ETH/75, LAN/74, AI/54)
up to 9 in Nov (QAT/64, ANA/63, CSN/43, LOT/61, UAL/77, HAI/73, AI/60, QAT/57, ETH/44)
and 6 in Dec (UAL/50, LOT/78, UAL/55, LAN/80, HAI/79, AI/65)
Interestingly based on airline info, its looking like around 70 frames to be delivered in 2013 to 15 airlines (incl. Thomson, Aeromexico, Norwegian, BA and Jetstar). 70 looks conservative given 5/month current rate increasing to 10 by year-end. I guess we need to also account for 787-9 frames that will be built in 2013 but delivered in 2014 which will increase that 70 figure on a production basis versus delivery basis.
Cheers
A
I beg to differ on the 30 days of flight testing.
LN74 did it's B1 flight on the 13th, B2 on the 16th did C1 on the 17th..thats 4 days and 3 flights to "Ready for Delivery".
Actually you are wrong. LAN/74 did its B1 on Oct 1 and the plane has not yet been delivered. That's 21 days and counting.
ETH/75 is on day 29 today (excluding the time in the Texas paint hangar).
The last 4 delivered aircraft (excl. QAT & AI) have done 32, 22 33 and 21 days from B1 to delivery respectively.
Uresh,
9 B1 flights this month, and we still have 9 days left in October. This is certainly a record for the 787 program. Congratulations to Boeing. I see 3 other potential B1 flights:
UA/LN 50 - Bit of a long shot - still at the EMC
AI/LN65 - good chance
LOT/LN78 - fair chance
JA816A was over Moses lake a few minutes ago and dropped from height to about 4000ft and now has disappeared once and has come back again climbing slowly. I take it this is some kind of test flight on the air frame?
Could be 5 more this month if everything goes well. Ln74 (LAN) & 75 (ET) plus the following:
- JA816A/Ln63 looks like it flew a C1 today.
- A7-BCL/Ln64 flew a similar routing 2 days ago.
- VT-ANJ/Ln54 possibly also a C1 flight out of Charleston today.
To HK Expat,
I stand corrected, I missed read Flightaware for that plane. Thought that flight was a 788 not a 738.
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