Boeing Aims For 787 Milestones Prior To First Flight
At the J.P. Morgan Aviation and Transportation Conference, Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and CEO Scott Carson reaffirmed the company target of aiming to get the first 787 airborne by the end of the second quarter of the year.
In addition, Boeing tells FleetBuzz Editorial.com that the gauntlet tests for the 787 will be “less schedule driven and more milestone driven”.
Boeing also states that gauntlet testing will include power and systems tests as well as engine testing with each milestone being achieved before moving along to the next phase of tests (listed above) - all of which need to be completed prior to the long awaited inaugural flight.
“We have now cleared all the equipment on the airplane for first flight and are continuing to work through the integrated software and hardware testing,” said Carson. Much of this was evident on my recent visit to the Everett factory where the first flight test 787 (ZA001) sat in the 767 bay in good shape visually, with only the wing root fairings exposed to aid the replacement of non-conforming fasteners.
Boeing 787 VP Development Mark Jenks had already detailed the progress on system software in preparation for first flight when he talked to this site recently.
(Part One can be found here, Part Two can be found here and Part Three here.)
“We basically got the software for the power system required for flight in its final testing and so we’ve got the basic software developed now through the majority of this testing at Hamilton Sunstrand and also in our labs here,” he stated.
Launch customer All Nippon Airways said last month that it expects to take delivery of its first 787-8 in February next year.
31 comments March 11th, 2009
