Thursday, July 1, 2010

787 Flight Tests on temporary hiatus?

Ok I'm still trying to find out more information but we all know that ZA001, ZA004 and ZA004 are in planned layups. ZA003 probably has to have rework done on its horizontal stabilizer not to say that the other 3 aircraft don't need it, they may but if they do need rework it can be done while they're in layup.

This brings us to ZA002 since it seems like the only 787 that is not in a pre-planned layup and doesn't have the horizontal stabilizer issue. The thing is that this airplane hasn't flown in a couple of days. Well I found out that this airplane is getting additional instrumentation for hot weather testing and that this testing will go remote (not flown out of Boeing Field but maybe Arizona, New Mexico or California). ZA002 should return to flight around July 9.

Lastly, Boeing is still planning to send ZA003 to Farnborough but with the current rework needed to be done on this 787, it might be a little tight in terms of schedule. Boeing plans to send the aircraft there on July 17th and leave around July 20th. Boeing has not definitively decided to send ZA003 to England and all depends on the progress of the rework and the results of the post rework inspections that would need to confirm that the rework has solved the problem and the aircraft is safe to fly.

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