Boeing 787 flight testing on hold

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serfty

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Boeing 787 flight testing, originally planned to begin shortly, remains on hold as the clock continues to tick on the company's ambitious commitment to certificate the widebody twinjet in May 2008.

The window to complete flight testing on time is narrowing from the original record-setting goal of nine months to perhaps as little as seven months. ...
Hmmm, this may hurt JQi / Qantas big time.
 
serfty said:
ArticleHmmm, this may hurt JQi / Qantas big time.
I very much doubt it. JQ and QF are not among the first deliveries of the new type. I would expect any delay introduced at the certification stage will be caught up pretty quickly when full rate production is achieved.
 
I would exect that QF/JQ have some degree of contingency in their plans (although maybe not the two years they needed for the A380 :) )
 
oz_mark said:
I would exect that QF/JQ have some degree of contingency in their plans (although maybe not the two years they needed for the A380 :) )
I think it involves retaining the 767 fleet longer than planned.
 
NM said:
I think it involves retaining the 767 fleet longer than planned.
Speaking of the 767, there were issues with its deliveries in the early days also.

These revolved more around the 3 crew vs 2 crew configurations than other things but they were delays non the less.
 
straitman said:
Speaking of the 767, there were issues with its deliveries in the early days also.

These revolved more around the 3 crew vs 2 crew configurations than other things but they were delays non the less.
I thought Ansett was about the only operator to have a 3-crew flight deck on the 767, making their original 767 fleet quite unique. As far as I know, all QF 767s were delivered as 2-crew standard Boeing flight deck configuration.
 
Yep, from my research QF (and the BA leased ones) were all 2 crew at delivery.

Maybe QF can get some extra A330's at short notice if the delay looks too bad. QF will also have some 744's start to be available i would imagine as A380's start to roll into operation.

E
 
Evan said:
Yep, from my research QF (and the BA leased ones) were all 2 crew at delivery.

Maybe QF can get some extra A330's at short notice if the delay looks too bad. QF will also have some 744's start to be available i would imagine as A380's start to roll into operation.

The current A330's that are arriving were as part of the compensation deal with the A380 delay. Would not be too sure that Boeing would throw A330's QF's way if there was a delay
 
Evan said:
Yep, from my research QF (and the BA leased ones) were all 2 crew at delivery.
It is my understanding that the Ansett 3-crew flight decks were unique to 767s and were required due to union agreements that all flight crews should include a Flight Engineer. I am not aware of any other airlines ever operating 3-crew 767s. Later, Ansett has their aircraft modified to the standard 2-crew flight deck following agreement with the unions to remove the Flight Engineer requirement.
 
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NM said:
I thought Ansett was about the only operator to have a 3-crew flight deck on the 767, making their original 767 fleet quite unique. As far as I know, all QF 767s were delivered as 2-crew standard Boeing flight deck configuration.
A few comments and quotes to clear this up a little.

'In August 1981, eleven months before the first scheduled delivery of Boeing's new airplane, the 767, Dean Thornton, the program's vice president-general manager, faced a critical decision. Foe several years Boeing had lobbied the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) for permission to build wide-bodied aircraft with two-, rather than three-person coughpits. Permission had been granted in late July. Unfortunately the 767 had originally been designed with a three-person coughpit, and thirty of those planes were already in various stages of production.

Thornton knew that the planes had to be converted to models with two-person coughpits. Bur what was the best way to proceed? Should the changes be made in-line inserting new coughpits into the thirty planes without removing them from the flow of production, or off-line, building the thirty planes with three-person coughpits as originally planned and then retrofitting them with two-person coughpits in a separate rework area? Either way, Thornton knew that a decision had to be made quickly. Promised delivery dates were sacred at Boeing, and the changes in coughpit design might well impose substantial delays.

Further in the article:

Airlines, including those that had already ordered 767's, soon expressed an interest in having their planes delivered with two-person coughpits. Boeing had anticipated such a response and, years earlier, had conducted preliminary studies to determine how best to convert the 767 from its original, three-person coughpit design to a two-person model. Engineers concluded that the thirty-first 767 was still far enough from completion that it, and all subsequent planes could be built with two-person coughpits without modification. Thirty planes, however, were in relatively advanced stages of production. Some were nearly ready to be rolled out and flown; others had complete coughpits but were not yet tested; others had bare coughpits without any electronics installed. But since all thirty were being built according to the plane's original, three coughpit design, all would require some modification.

Customers were notified of the additional cost and delivery delay they could expect on these thirty planes. The impact was not large: a small percentage increase in costs and on average delay of one month from promised delivery dates. All but one airline chose to have their planes built with two-person coughpits.

Copyright 1988 by the President and Fellows of Harvard College. Harvard Business School case 688-040.
 
Thanks Bill. Great info.

straitman said:
All but one airline chose to have their planes built with two-person coughpits.
Guess which airline that was?

So that would confirm that Ansett was the only airline to operate the 3-person crew version of the 767. They did later convert them to 2-person flight deck.
 
NM said:
Thanks Bill. Great info.


They did later convert them to 2-person flight deck.

Conversions were completed in April 1998, a long time after they were introduced!
 
Maybe they are delaying the first flight so the 787 can be the first aircraft with 1000 orders before it has flown :rolleyes: .

I really can't see them meeting their current delivery schedule if it does not fly until December.
 
More on this in today's The Australian.

BOEING remains confident it can deliver the first of its new 787 Dreamliners on time next May, despite a two-month delay in the aircraft's first flight.

The aerospace giant confirmed this week that production problems, partly stemming from a worldwide shortage of titanium fasteners, would delay the first flight to between mid-November and mid-December....
 
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