Thursday, August 11, 2011

Trent powered 787 due to finish certification testing this weekend

Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO, Jim Albaugh speaking at the Jefferies conference said that the 787 just has 24 hour more flight testing left to be done to complete certification testing for the Trent-1000 powered version of the airplane. Boeing expects to receive type certification for the 787 sometime next week and plans to deliver the first 787, ZA101, to ANA next month.

The last bit of F&R testing (which is being undertaken by ZA102) will be completed by this weekend which will allow Boeing to submit the last bit of paperwork to the FAA. The FAA will have a review board meeting with Boeing to go over the the type certification of the 787 which is expected to result in the FAA granting type certification.

Yet to be done is the F&R/ETOPs testing for the GEnx powered version of the 787. There is still isn't any clarification as to when that will be started and when Boeing plans to deliver the first GEnx-1B powered 787 to Japan Airlines. Boeing is still talking to the FAA about that testing regime for the GEnx powered 787 and which aircraft(s) will be used to conduct that testing.

Albaugh also indicated that the long pole in the tent with increasing the 787 production rate is the North Charleston facilities that Boeing had bought (previously owned by Vought and Global Aeronautica). Those facilities are the "pinch point" according to Albaugh.

James Albaugh also said that Boeing is meeting this week with the FAA regarding the type certification of the 747-8F but still plans to deliver the first example to Cargolux next month. Type certification is expected in the next couple of weeks for this airplane.

3 comments:

johnv777 said...

Uresh, This is indeed good news. Do you think that ZA178/LN27 Japan Airlines might be a good candidate? This aircraft has already flown, and has been at Lackland AFB for several months getting re-work applied.
Thanks, and I appreciate all of your insights.
John

Uresh said...

Hi John,
LN 23 or LN 29 are both at Lackland and honestly if the FAA wants a production standard machine then either of these two will do depending on how much work is required to getthem finished. They could have enough comfort with many aspects of the F&R/ETOPs flights that ZA102 had flown that they would be satisfied with ZA005 and/or ZA006 running the F&R/ETOPs for the GEnx engines. That's just my hunch.

Eric said...

Thanks for the update.