As the 787 and 747 turns...a round up of 787 and 747 news

Boeing Photos

Well a few tid bits from these two programs came out from the usual suspects and the not so usual suspects.

First off, Bloomberg News had a nice article on the 787's battle of the bulge now that the maximum take off weight is 9.25 tons more than when the program first started. Now we do know that airplane 7, which is built, is the first block point aircraft to incorporate some weight saving measures and Boeing plans to have further weight savings starting with airplane 21. Boeing says that it still plans to meet all performance guarantees made to airlines for the 787 but the performance of the airplane won't be truly known until ZA004 with revised Trent 1000s engines is flying. In addition, Boeing plans to fly ZA100 and ZA102 with the revised engines will be flown to see how the production level aircraft will perform vs the test flight aircraft baseline performance.

Bloomberg: Boeing Working on Diet for Overweight 787 Dreamliner

Matt Cawby has been great with providing a visual record of the 787 progress in addition to written reports of what is happening at Everett. Last night he got some great video of LN 10 (ZA 103) coming out of the Boeing paint hangar. This airplane was painted white (a white tail) and was towed to the Boeing flight line to wait it's turn for the side of body modification. In addition Matt Cawby got some video of engine runs on ZA002 post fuel tank cleaning. Boeing is trying to get this airplane back in the air as soon as possible. Matt also broke the news of the start of 747-8 gauntlet testing and has further updates in his blog.

Matt Cawby's 787 Move Blog Post

Matt Cawby's 747-8F Gauntlet Testing Blog Post

Guy Norris posted an update on both the 787 and 747. Currently ZA001 is in a plan lay up at Boeing Field to have more test flight equipment installed, calibrated and tested before continuing flight tests with flight test engineers aboard. ZA002 is continuing to have it's engines runs (see Matt Cawby's video) at Everett before rejoining the test program but I have to assume that all the test equipment testing and re-calibration work is complete and it should be a matter of days until this airplane is flying again for certification and TIA purposes. ZA004 is still getting ready for it's first flight but before then Boeing is conducting test of the emergency escape slides. Guy also has a nice update on the 747-8 confirming the the start of gauntlet testing and saying that taxi tests could occur late next week after safety of flight tests then followed by first flight around January 31st or February 1st.

Guy Norris: 747-8 and 787 update

As I mentioned earlier in this post, Matt Cawby got video of LN 10 (4th production 787) being pulled out of the Boeing paint hangar. This aircraft was painted all white. It was assumed, prior to yesterday that this airplane would be going to ANA and thus it should have been painted in the colors of ANA like the previous three production airplanes. But Flightblogger, Jon Ostrower, broke the news yesterday that this plane and airplane 16 will be delivered to LAN Airlines. Airplane 10 is probably painted as a white tail pending confirmation of the slot swap between ANA and LAN. Flightblogger revealed that the weight savings on airplanes 7 through 20 will come from changes in the wing skin but that after airplane 20 the 787 will have a higher MTOW (maximum take off weight). The increase in MTOW is on the order of about 9.25 tons which is what Bloomberg had reported.

Flightblogger: LAN set to take early 787 slots

July 30 787 Update

Now that we're at the end of July I thought that it would be a good time to look at some articles that have recently come out regarding the 787 since the earnings call last week. Many people were disappointed that Boeing doesn't have any new schedule ready as of now. They said that the new schedule will be ready during the third quarter (of this year I think) so we'll see by September 30th what will happen.

Start things off, Flightblogger reported that because of the need to modify the brake control monitoring software due to overheating of some of the braking elements during a high energy (trying to stop a heavy and fast aircraft), there is a conflict between Boeing and Crane who wrote the code over who should pay for it. Crane claims that they delivered into Boeing the software they needed and that their production costs already exceeded their initial projects without and of the needed redesigns. There are a lot of revealing comments in Flightbloggers posting.

Flightblogger: Boeing and Crane

Next up, Guy Norris reports that despite the wing issues, Boeing is still doing some ground testing on the 787. Guy reported that Boeing is continuously testing upgrades to the 787 software during a Wedge Regression Test (don't ask me what that is).

Guy's July 24th 787 Update

Third, Mike Mecham, Joe Anselmo and Guy Norris talked about Boeing's lack of a schedule for the 787 and the implications (financial and otherwise). they cite skeptical analyst who believe that the schedule will move further to the right as well as the possible implications regarding costs associated with the fix and testing that has to be done.

Aviation Week's 787 Schedule Elusiveness

Batting clean up, is Dominic Gates and the Seattle Times with further analysis of the side of body issue and the seriousness of the problem (which appears to be more severe then initially revealed). In the article, Dominic Gates says that there was damaged done not just to the wing boxes (the main wing structure) but also to the center wing box which is in the fuselage. Damage occurred not at ultimate load (150%) but at a load much lower than that which explains why Boeing decided (for good reason) not to proceed with flight testing. The flight envelope would have been so limiting that it would have been useless to fly any test flights since the data collected would have been minimal. It seems from reading the article that Boeing would have to reinforce not only the wing side but the fuselage side of the side of body.

Seattle Times: 787 Wing flaw extends to inside of plane

Fifth, Boeing had moved ZA001 to the paint hanger for preliminary work before the installing the reinforcement fix. Flightblogger had said that Boeing did plan to move ZA001 into the paint hanger for the fix and that the fix may be installed as early as mid August. Aircraft ZA001 has since been moved back out to the flightline. Parts for ZA102 (third production 787) has already arrived save for the rear fuselage (as far as I know). Final assembly should be getting underway soon. My last note is that the large cargo freighters (LCF) have been making a lot of runs as of late though as I said before, it's hard to know what's, if anything, is being transported unless you have someone there photographing the loading and unloading of the aircraft.

Lastly, Boeing just completed the transfer of Vought's 787 operations today and will now be known as Boeing Charleston.

News Release Issued: July 30, 2009 2:00 PM EDT

Boeing Completes Acquisition of Vought Operations in South Carolina

SEATTLE, July 30 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Boeing (NYSE: BA) announced today the completion of the acquisition of the business and operations conducted by Vought Aircraft Industries at its South Carolina facility, where a key structure for the 787 Dreamliner is built. The acquisition agreement was announced originally on July 7.
The newly acquired facility, located in North Charleston, will be called Boeing Charleston. Boeing Charleston will be managed by the 787 program as a wholly owned subsidiary. Boeing Charleston will continue to perform fabrication, assembly and systems installation for 787 aft fuselage sections, which are made primarily of composite materials.

Dreamliner 5 to start final assembly soon?

Jon Ostrower is reporting on his blog that the rear fuselage section for Dreamliner 5 will be arriving this week. That only leaves the forward fuselage and the main fuselage sections to be delivered. I'm still trying to find out when those sections will be delivered.

Also Jon reported that the pieces for the main fuselage section for Dreamliner 9 have been delivered to Global Aeronautica this past weekend to start that section's assembly and systems integration process.

UPDATE (1/12/2009): Jon Ostrower reported on his blog here, that the aft fuselage for LN 5 has arrived in Everett and that it is 95% complete. It has it fasteners repalced. Jon things the remaining two sections should be in Everett by the end of the month to start final assembly.