Boeing to review Rolls’ 787 engine plans this week
Published 3:10 pm Tuesday, September 28, 2010
I’m playing catch-up from being out on assignment for the last week.
Bloomberg reports that Boeing will begin combing through Rolls-Royce’s recovery plan for its Trent 1000 engines used on Boeing’s new 787.
Boeing and Rolls have seen a few problems with the 787’s engines. A 787 test airplane encountered trouble earlier this month with one of the Trent 1000 engines. In August, Boeing delayed first delivery of its 787 until mid-February due to availability of Rolls’ engines. Earlier that month, Rolls ackowledge an uncontained failure of a 787 in its test facility.
Jim Albaugh, president of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, told Bloomberg that he’ll take a hard look at Rolls’ potential fixes.
Boeing is roughly three years behind schedule in delivering its 787 Dreamliner.
General Electric also supplies engines for Boeing’s 787. Although one 787 is in test flight already with GE’s GEnX engine, the second — which is the sixth 787 flight test aircraft — has not taken flight yet. The sliding date for the sixth plane’s first flight has been a source of bewilderment in the industry (See FlightBlogger’s post on this).
