EVERETT — It’s an event years in the making, but the 787’s first flight is also an occasion that Boeing Co. leaders can’t wait to put in the rearview mirror.
“First flight will just be another business day,” said Mike Delaney, 787 chief project engineer, at a media briefing in April.
Between the business of first flight and the celebration of the first delivery lie many potential pitfalls and problems. Namely, Boeing has scheduled an ambitious, aggressive flight test program. As Boeing works its six test planes around the clock, the company simultaneously needs to trim weight from aircraft in the pipeline and slowly ramp up production to meet an eventual goal of building one 787 every three days.
Analysts have long been pessimistic about Boeing’s 787 flight test schedule, in which the company has shaved off about 25 percent of the time it allotted for the 777 flight tests. Boeing plans to achieve flight test certification in eight to nine months.
“We will embark on a flight test program that is as we described it,” Boeing’s Jim McNerney told investors earlier this year
In April, Boeing provided members of the media from around the world with details on just how Boeing intends to pull off its fastest flight test program yet for an all-new jet.
To put the significance of a flight test into perspective, the data gathered from flight testing makes up only 10 percent of the information needed for certification with the Federal Aviation Administration, Delaney said. And Boeing already had handed over more documentation for FAA approval on its 787 than it had on the 777 or any other jet at this point in the process, he said.
But “we still have some big tests to go through” to get the 787 certified, Delaney said.
In the past, Boeing essentially wasted a lot of days in flight testing by not working its planes 24 hours a day. Although Boeing still plans to keep its test planes in the air only about five hours a day, the company will use the down hours to conduct ground testing and maintenance checks, Frank Rasor, Boeing’s director of flight test operations, said in April.
Third shift workers will prep the test planes for the next day’s challenges or to make adjustments based on data gathered during flight, he said.
The company already has daily flight test plans laid out for the first 90 days, Rasor said. However, Boeing may have to abandon those plans if the plane responds drastically different in its first flight than the company predicted.
Rasor estimates that Boeing has about a 15 to 20 percent margin of error factored into its flight test program to deal with unforeseen issues.
“We have to expect that something isn’t going to go the way we expected it to go,” he said.
But Barbara Cosgrove, vice president of Boeing’s flight test operations, said she believes that computer simulations and past experience give the company a good grip on flight tests.
“We have lots and lots of experience in predicting how the aircraft will respond,” Cosgrove said.
Boeing also will have a lot of hands on the 787. After recent restructuring efforts, Boeing has moved workers around to where they’re needed, regardless of which division or program they typically belong to.
As a result, Boeing has a pool of 43 flight test pilots who could be called to keep the 787 test planes in the air. And Boeing’s flight test operation includes 1,000 workers — about 400 mechanics and 600 engineers, Cosgrove said.
Jet makers tend to need less time for flight tests with each successive aircraft. But Boeing’s eight- to nine-month flight test schedule is fast compared even to Airbus’ most recent new jet, the A380, and to its next in design, the A350. For the A350, a mostly composite jet like the 787, Airbus has allotted 15 months for flight testing — nearly twice the time that Boeing is giving itself for flight testing the 787.
Airbus, which introduced the latest totally new widebody aircraft with its A380, took 21/2 years between first flight and first delivery. It received type certification within 20 months. The European jet maker, however, struggled with wiring and other production issues on its superjumbo jet. Its second A380 didn’t join the first in flight tests for nearly six months.
Boeing will put its second 787 into the air within weeks of the first, and each successive 787 also will quickly join the test fleet. Airbus also ran its flight testing just six days a week, putting each aircraft in the air twice daily.
As Boeing’s flight test crews guide the 787 toward certification, the company’s engineers will be working to get its delivery aircraft trimmed down. At last check, the plane was 5,000 pounds or more over its promised weight. Too much weight could reduce the 787’s range and make it less fuel-efficient, making it less attractive to customers.
Boeing already has whittled down some of the weight on the first block of 787s to be delivered to customers, Scott Fancher, chief of the 787 program, told investors in May. Boeing made weight-savings changes to the 787’s wings and then to its wiring.
“We have implemented a series of improvements on the first production aircraft,” Fancher said. “That’s pretty typical on a new aircraft.”
What’s not typical for a new aircraft is the company’s high rate of production. By 2012, Boeing hopes to turn out 10 787s monthly. The feat requires not only a smooth final production process here in Everett but also a ramp-up in production from Boeing’s suppliers.
Boeing already is tracking rate increase progress all the way through the process, Fancher said. And the company is gearing up to bring the next model of the 787, the 787-9, to market. Fancher estimated that more Boeing engineers are working on the 787-9 than those who remain on the 787-8.
“We will deliver on the promise of the 787,” McNerney said.
Talk to us
> Give us your news tips.
> Send us a letter to the editor.
> More Herald contact information.
