Thursday, April 16, 2009

Flightblogger: Gauntlet Testing pushed out a week

Jon posted today that gauntlet testing has slipped with the factory gauntlet now scheduled for about a week later than originally planned. The reaon is to realign the shop completion date with the start of gauntlet testing. This will also be the date that the manufacturing team will hand over Dreamliner 1 (ZA001) to the flight test team. When this date is is unclear.

Jon also reported that ZA002 is close to starting ground vibration testing though that date is unclear as well.

Read Jon's report here.

In other 787 news, Gulf Air firmed up the conversion of 8 787 options that it held to a firm order. Gulf Air initial order was for 16 787-8 plus 8 options. With exercising these options, which Gulf Air had stated their intention to do a few months ago, Gulf now has 24 firm 787 on order and Boeing has 886 firm 787s that they have to deliver.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I hope this is not an unexpected delay but some drama buildup to the eventual rollout of this plane by the end of the month.

I also hope that Gulf Air has the monies to pay for these planes! Its one thing to order...its another thing to pay!

By the way, does anyone know the slots they are buying into?

Uresh said...

I suspect it's more scheduling repalted rather than some technical or assembly issue. The delay is amounting to about one week to the start of testing by the flight test team.

As far as Gulf, I don't think that they would move up to the front of the line automatically. If Boeing has freed up early delivery slots, they would probably be offered to those customers who were the most effected by the delays and who wouldn't mind taking those early slots to make up for the delays (ANA, Air India, Air Canada to name a few). The slots that Gulf are exercising were options slots that they had reserved at the signing of the contract and are now making them firm so I doubt that they're getting any early slots.

Anonymous said...

Uresh,
I still hope that the net of the scheduling adjustment results in a flightline announcement and photo by the end of the month.

You are probably correct in your slot possibilities..I do hope these middle eastern oil countries can use all the planes they ordered. Things look differently with oil below $50....and the question, of course, is when will the recovery bring demand and prices back up...