Boeing is preparing to assemble the 2nd 787-9 flight test aircraft in Everett late this week. Already fuselage sections are arriving and being delivered to building 40-24. The second aircraft, ZB002 (LN 133, N789FT) should load into the first position around July 12th. So far the assembly of the 1st flight test aircraft seems to proceeding without a hitch and currently occupies the 3rd position in 40-24. This aircraft will have to go to 40-26 for some systems testing as well as to have its aqueous wash (washing out the fuel tanks) and may be put back into 40-24 for further systems testing as well as any final flight test equipment installation. I still expect it to make an appearance out on the flightline by the end of this month or very early in August after painting and I wouldn't discount the possibility of first flight by the end of August.
Meanwhile in 40-26, Boeing has resumed assembly of production 787-8s. Production was temporarily stopped in June so that Boeing can reconfigure the final assembly space and remove un-necessary like the MOATT. Boeing resumed 787 production on June 26 with loading of ZA563 (LN 127, N965AM) for Aeromexico (via ILFC).
Boeing has thus far delivered 2 787s to Chinese carriers this month and they have the potential to deliver up to 12 more 787s this month:
Air India - ZA242 and ZA243
ANA - ZA514
China Southern - ZA381
Ethiopian - ZA260
Hainan Airlines - ZA433, ZA434
Japan Airlines - ZA186
LOT Polish Airlines - ZA274
Qatar Airways - ZA466, ZA468
Thomson - ZA320
It is possible that ZA577 (for ILFC/Norwegian) may be able to deliver this month but it would still need some paint on the tail. Many of these airplanes would really need to conduct customer flights at this point though at least 5 still need to fly their B-1 flights.
Lastly, Brendan Kearney of the Charleston's Post and Courier had an interview with Willy Geary who is the director of operations at Boeing Charleston. He says that the Charleston assembly is still only putting out 1.5 airframes per month and they will not achieve 3/month until first quarter of 2014. If true then Everett is currently producing at 5.5/month (or one airplane loading every 5.5 days) and utilizing only one line (40-26) since 40-24 is exclusively for the 787-9 flight test airframe final assembly until at least early fall. Later on both the temporary surge line in 40-24 and the main assembly line on 40-26 will have to split the 8.5/month rate (when 787 production rate break to 10/month occur) until Charleston is ready to break rate and go to 3/month. It is not clear why Charleston is not at 2/month and why the delay to 3/month but this is clearly not a supplier issue. It now remains to be seen if the issues in Charleston will derail Boeing's efforts to hit 10/month by the end of this year.
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Showing posts with label MOATT. Show all posts
Showing posts with label MOATT. Show all posts
Tuesday, July 9, 2013
Friday, May 24, 2013
Fuselage sections starting to arrive into Everett for 1st 787-9
Boeing is starting to receive the fuselage sections for ZB001, the first 787-9 to be built. Boeing received the first section 41 (forward fuselage) from Spirit AeroSystems from their Wichita plant. This section is not too different from the forward fuselage for the 787-8 thus integrating it into the production system shouldn't present any challenges. Boeing may have received another fuselage section (either the rear or center section) very early this morning a 747-400 Dreamlifter did arrive into Everett from Charleston where these sections are built up. All the fuselage sections should be in Everett in the next few days if they're not all there already.
Boeing will load the first 787-9 into position 1 in 40-24 on May 30. Sources revealed to me that this aircraft should transfer to position 2 around June 9...10 days after first being loaded into position 1 which is quite surprising since it takes about 11 to 12 days for each production 787-8 to progress down each line position. Extrapolated this could mean that ZB001 would be assembled in about 40 days if there are no complications during the final assembly process. I do expect it to be a little longer though due to systems integration testing during final assembly which would add about another week at most. Thus ZB001 could take about 7 weeks in final assembly before it is rolled out to the paint hangar and eventually the flightline to begin gauntlet testing. ZB001 could be out of 40-24 by the third to fourth week of July, another week for painting and out on the flightline in early August.
In somewhat related news on the production front, it does appear that Boeing will temporarily be slowing down 787-8 production as there looks to be some sort of construction going on within 40-26. I surmise that Boeing will be getting rid of or modifying some of the original production tooling in position 1. This would include the "MOATT" or "Mother Of All Tool Towers" which was envisioned as a device to quickly and efficiently join the fuselage sections along with the wings and horizontal and vertical stabilizers. Unfortunately the promise of MOATT didn't live up to the reality and Boeing is now using some more traditional tools like overhead cranes to move around some of the larger structures like the wings. These changes will ultimately help Boeing to get to 10/month but in the short term it will slow down production for a couple of weeks. Because of this ZA562 (LN 127) for ILFC/Aeromexico won't be loaded until after June 9th, perhaps the 10th. This shouldn't impact deliveries too much as Boeing is still trying to catch up on delayed deliveries due to the lithium ion battery issue which grounded the 787 and stopped deliveries.
Boeing will load the first 787-9 into position 1 in 40-24 on May 30. Sources revealed to me that this aircraft should transfer to position 2 around June 9...10 days after first being loaded into position 1 which is quite surprising since it takes about 11 to 12 days for each production 787-8 to progress down each line position. Extrapolated this could mean that ZB001 would be assembled in about 40 days if there are no complications during the final assembly process. I do expect it to be a little longer though due to systems integration testing during final assembly which would add about another week at most. Thus ZB001 could take about 7 weeks in final assembly before it is rolled out to the paint hangar and eventually the flightline to begin gauntlet testing. ZB001 could be out of 40-24 by the third to fourth week of July, another week for painting and out on the flightline in early August.
In somewhat related news on the production front, it does appear that Boeing will temporarily be slowing down 787-8 production as there looks to be some sort of construction going on within 40-26. I surmise that Boeing will be getting rid of or modifying some of the original production tooling in position 1. This would include the "MOATT" or "Mother Of All Tool Towers" which was envisioned as a device to quickly and efficiently join the fuselage sections along with the wings and horizontal and vertical stabilizers. Unfortunately the promise of MOATT didn't live up to the reality and Boeing is now using some more traditional tools like overhead cranes to move around some of the larger structures like the wings. These changes will ultimately help Boeing to get to 10/month but in the short term it will slow down production for a couple of weeks. Because of this ZA562 (LN 127) for ILFC/Aeromexico won't be loaded until after June 9th, perhaps the 10th. This shouldn't impact deliveries too much as Boeing is still trying to catch up on delayed deliveries due to the lithium ion battery issue which grounded the 787 and stopped deliveries.
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