Special Delivery - The first delivery of the 787

Today Boeing and ANA completed the contractual delivery of the first 787 which meant that the formal delivery acceptance documents were signed and ANA paid the final installment for ZA101 (LN8). There will be a ceremonial handover on Monday in an elaborate ceremony...no word on if there's a special musical guest for this one but the paperwork was signed today and the aircraft now officially belongs to ANA who will fly it to Haneda on Tuesday. Boeing has also flown ZA103 (LN24), the next 787 to be delivered to ANA, on Sept. 24. It is scheduled for its delivery around mid October.

Currently, delivery of the 747-8F to Cargolux is still on hold though the two Cargolux airplanes have been making test flights in recent days. Despite the cancellation of Atlas Air's three early 747-8F, Cathay Pacific Cargo said that they are satisfied with the 747-8F and intend to go ahead with deliveries starting later this fall.


CNBC is also having a special on the 787 called “Dreamliner: Inside the World’s Most Anticipated Airplane” premiering on Tuesday, September 27th at 9PM ET/PT.

Here are a few links to video of the documentary and web extras:

787 Dreamliner

Inside the Dreamliner

Boeing CEO McNerney and the 787 Dreamliner

And a video of ANA doing a final inspection on ZA101:




Boeing's Official 787 First Delivery Web Site

Here's Boeing's statement on the contractual delivery of the first 787:

Boeing, ANA Complete Contractual Delivery of First 787 Dreamliner

EVERETT, Wash., Sept. 25, 2011 /PRNewswire/ -- Boeing (NYSE: BA) and ANA have signed the formal documents completing the contractual delivery of the first 787 Dreamliner. Celebrations to mark this historic milestone begin tomorrow in Everett with a delivery ceremony followed by flyaway of the airplane on Tuesday. Today's signing comes after a series of flights, inspections and the transfer of funds.

"Now that the airplane is ready to deliver, the entire team is ready to celebrate," said Scott Fancher, vice president and general manager of the 787 program. "We look forward to honoring our launch customer ANA before they fly their first Dreamliner home to Japan."

Celebrations for Boeing employees begin Monday at 6 a.m. (Pacific time) outside the 787 factory in Everett with the static display of ZA002, one of the flight test airplanes painted in ANA's livery. ANA and Boeing executives, employees, partners and government officials will gather at 9 a.m. for the delivery ceremony in the same location. Airplane 24, painted in ANA's special livery, will join the display during the ceremony. Flyaway of the airplane to Tokyo is scheduled Tuesday morning at 6:35 a.m. from Paine Field.

A live webcast of Monday's delivery events and Tuesday's flyaway can be seen at www.newairplane.com. Video highlights of those events also will be posted to the website.

"ANA has been a tremendous partner from day one," said Fancher. "Through the hard work and challenges, the Boeing team never lost focus on the commitments to our valued customer. We know ANA's customers will love this airplane."

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner is an all-new airplane featuring a host of technologies
that provide exceptional value to airlines and unparalleled levels of comfort to passengers. It is the first mid-size airplane capable of flying long-range routes, enabling airlines to open new, non-stop routes preferred by the traveling public.

Composite materials, more-electric systems, advanced aerodynamics and modern engines combine to make the 787 more fuel efficient and provide lower operating costs. Passengers will appreciate the cleaner cabin air, higher humidity and lower cabin altitude that combine to help them feel more refreshed after flying on the 787. Other innovations include larger windows with electrochromic shades, bigger onboard luggage bins and LED lighting.

Testing is continuing on the Trent-100 package b upgrades which will actually be introduced on the next 787 to enter service, LN 24 (ZA103). This aircraft has flown with the package "A" Trent-1000 engines but will be delivered with the package "B" engines next month.

Meanwhile the aviation blogosphere was putting out a ton of reports surrounding the 787 because of this weeks first delivery and I've included a few links below:

Guy Norris:
787 Test Team Shuffle

787-9 Critical Design Review

More Frequent Interior Upgrades on the 787

Upgraded Trent 1000 Undergoing Noise Test on 787

ANA to get 12 787 by April 2012

Scott Hamilton:
Boeing Delivers First 787 to ANA

Soundbites from 787 Delivery

Flightblogger:
All Nippon's First 787 receives Certificate of Airworthiness

Project Gemini Documents look into 787 line selection

The world's First 787 delivered to All Nippon Airways

With second ANA 787, Trent 1000 package "B" takes flight

Dominic Gates:
Boeing celebrates 787 delivery as program costs top $32bn

Aubrey Cohen:
Boeing set to deliver first 787 Dreamliner

David Parker Brown:

Live Blog: Boeing 787 Dreamliner Pre-Delivery Events

More flying and more movements

Boeing continues to fly the 787 test flight fleet aggressively as it attempts to certify the Roll Royce Trent 1000 powered 787 by the end of November for delivery in December to ANA. Thus far the test flight hours are over 1,400 hours with the half way mark (1,550 hours) in sight. I project that Boeing should be at the half way mark by mid August if not earlier. They still need to be very aggressive with the test flights in order to get to the certification goal by late November which is less than four months away. The Rolls Royce powered fleet has amassed over 1,300 flight hours (they are targeting 2,430 hours). The sole GE powered aircraft has also been flying quite a bit in order to get the GEnx-1B powered airplanes into customer hands in early 2011. The majority of 787 customers, thus far, have elected the GEnx-1B engines on the 787. ZA005 has racked up just under 110 flight hours. ZA006 is not expected to join the test flight program until early September. It should be rolled out to the flight line in about 1 week (August 9th is what I'm hearing) where it will undergo preflight ground testing. Sources confirmed that ZA006 is still inside ATS Hangar 3.

Production has slowed a bit though. ZA231 was supposed to have started final assembly in late July is now pushed back to August 9th. Meanwhile ZA103 emerged from the temporary tent hangar on the Boeing flightline and was taken to the ATS Hangar to presumably finish up reassembly tasks. ZA104 has been moved into the spot just vacated ZA103 and is starting it's side of body modifications. ZA115 was taken out of the ATS Hangar and is now on the Boeing flightline with many of the other 787s for ANA. Boeing will be slowing down assembly activities in September to allow the supply chain to catch up and reduce travelled work flowing into Everett.

September should bring some changes though with ZA004 expected to receive improved Trent-1000 (the "package B") with better fuel burn. That would take ZA004 out of flight test for some time while they install and ground test the engines on the aircraft. I would expect that the first production 787s should start getting their engines and interiors around October-November time frame and start flight tests soon after that.

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

Boeing Complete 787 Inital Airworthiness Testing

Ok I've been out for the last couple of days so I'm going to start out with old news. Boeing said, in a press release on Friday, January 15, 2010, that it has completed initial airworthiness tests on the 787. The main thrust of this announcement is two fold:

1. The 787 is safe to fly with more than just the pilot and co-pilot aboard. Now Boeing's flight test engineers can also fly aboard to monitor tests


2. The 787 flight envelope can now be expanded beyond the what has already been tested thus far.

Here's Boeing's Press Release:

News Release Issued: January 15, 2010 5:28 PM EST

Boeing 787 Dreamliner Achieves Initial Airworthiness Milestone

EVERETT, Wash., Jan. 15 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Boeing (NYSE: BA) has completed initial airworthiness testing on the 787 Dreamliner. This milestone will enable more crew members to take part in flights and will allow more airplanes to join the flight test program.

"This is an important step forward," said Scott Fancher, vice president and general manager of the 787 program, Boeing Commercial Airplanes. "We are very pleased with the results we have achieved so far. The airplane has been performing as we expected."

Since the first flight in mid-December, the program has conducted 15 flights, achieving several key accomplishments. Pilots have taken the airplane to an altitude of 30,000 feet (9,144 meters) and a speed of Mach 0.65. Nearly 60 hours of flying have been completed. Initial stall tests and other dynamic maneuvers have been run, as well as an extensive check-out of the airplane's systems. Six different pilots have been behind the controls of the 787.

In the weeks ahead, the team will continue to expand the flight envelope at which the 787 will operate to reach an altitude of more than 40,000 feet (12,192 meters) and a speed of Mach 0.85. Subsequent testing will push the airplane beyond expected operational conditions.

"The pilots have told me the results we are seeing in flight match their expectations and the simulations we've run. That's a real tribute to Boeing's expertise and the international team that helped develop and build the airplane," said Fancher.

Flight testing will continue in the months ahead. First delivery is planned for the fourth quarter of this year.

As always, the other follows of the 787 program weighed in with their postings and here is a rundown of this weekends commentary.

Flightblogger posted a great update reviewing the previous months' flight test progress as well as reviewing the status of the aircraft that have been built thus far. Here's a synopsis of the aircraft status:

ZA001/LN1 : At Boeing Field undergoing flight tests
ZA002/LN2: At Paine Field for aqueous tank wash
ZA003/LN3: At Paine Field undergoing preparations for its first flight in February
ZA004/LN4: At Paine Field fuel dock undergoing preparations for its first flight in February
ZA005/LN5: At Paine Field ATS Hangar undergoing side of body modifications
ZA006/LN6: At Paine Field ATS Hangar undergoing side of body modifications
ZA100/LN7: At Paine Field flightline awaiting side of body modifications
ZA101/LN8: At Paine Field flightline awaiting side of body modifications
ZA102/LN9: At Paine Field inside temporary hangar undergoing side of body modifications
ZA103/LN10: At Paine Field undergoing painting
ZA104/LN11: At Paine Field building 40-24
ZA105/LN12: At Paine Field undergoing final assembly
ZA115/LN13: At Paine Field undergoing final assembly
ZA116/LN14: At Paine Field undergoing final assembly
ZA117/LN15: At Paine Field undergoing final assembly

Parts for airplane 16 are starting to arrive into Everett. This airplane is the first to be assembled that will not require the side of body modifications. Lastly, Flightblogger reports that when parts for airplane 17 arrives it'll be for for Royal Air Maroc powered by GEnx engines.

787 Flight Test Update: Month One

Guy Norris had a nice synopsis of the 787 program on his blog as well. In it he said that ZA001 is going to be taking a breather while it undergoes checks. The airplane has not flown since January 14th.

Guy Norris: 787 completes initial airworthiness testing

Finally, Innovation Analysis Group, had a great Podcast featuring Jon Ostrower (Flightblogger) and Guy Norris.

IAG's 787 Update