Sing a song of Boeing – what’s going on here?
Published on Thu, Sep 2, 2010 by Tim RaetzloffRead More News
On Thursday, Aug. 26, 2010, Boeing announced that the delivery of the first 787 Dreamliner would be delayed again – the 6th announced delay since 2007.
Original delivery of the first Dreamliner was scheduled for May 2008; first delivery now will be sometime in 2011, three years late.
The “official” reason for the latest delay is a test failure of a Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engine on a testbed in the UK. The real reason, in my opinion, is that the test program is months behind schedule and has no way of catching up.
Originally the 787 Dreamliner was to consist of four models, 787-3, 787-8, 787-9, and 787-10. Airlines could choose either a Rolls Royce or GE engine to power the airframe.
The 787-3 has since been cancelled; the 787-9 is now more than four years behind schedule; and the 787-10 has faded into the Twilight Zone.
The plane we are talking about is the 787-8, powered by a Rolls Royce engine. The first RR-engined 787 flew on Dec. 15, 2009. At that time Boeing announced that the test program to earn the FAA Type Certificate would consist of 2,400 hours of flight tests and 3,100 hours of ground tests for the RR-engined 787.
Four test planes would make up the test fleet. A separate test program of about half as many hours would be for the GE-engined 787’s two test planes participating in that certification.
The RR-engined test program would be completed in nine months (39 weeks), by Sept. 15, 2010, and first delivery of a RR-engined 787 to All Nippon Airways would take place before Dec. 31.
Some aerospace experts questioned the time allowed for completion of the test program as too short to be successful. Boeing executives countered that they actually had some “slippage” built into the program and nine months would be enough.
By late April it became evident to me and to many others that the test program was months behind schedule.
As of April 25, only 509 test hours had been completed. Aircraft usage was just over 1.5 hours a day. A full 19 weeks, nearly half, of the proposed test schedule were gone and only 21 percent of the required test hours had been completed.
I informed Beacon readers at that time that the test schedule would go on until April 2010, seven months late, if the test schedule did not speed up. At that time I began noting the test hours reported by Boeing on my website at http://www.abarim.com/gsg.htm.
The test schedule did speed up for about a month. In the four weeks before May 22, 300 hours of test flights were completed. If that pace had been maintained, the test program would have finished by about Nov. 1.
But then the pace of flight-testing slowed. In the 14 weeks since May 22, total flight test hours for RR-engined 787s have been 650 hours, just over 40 hours a week. This slowdown in testing began 10 weeks before the failure of the Rolls Royce test engine.
There is little more than a week left to Sept. 15. And 950 flight-test hours are still needed to complete the test program. Or maybe only 650 hours are needed to complete the test program. Boeing management has confused this issue.
One announcement says that several hundred hours may be cut from the test program. Another counters that all the original test hours must be completed.
Let’s assume that 650 hours is the “new” test regimen. If the pace of testing since May 22 is maintained, 650 flight hours will take until Dec. 7. If the test program still needs the full 950 hours, the test program won’t be completed until Jan. 25.
First delivery would then not occur until the end of March in the best case or the end of May in the worst case. And each of those possible dates assumes no additional problems with the program.
The GE-engined 787 test flight program began in June.
That program has completed only 137 hours in more than 10 weeks. The second test plane is not ready to fly and is at least three months late. This appears to signal more delays and confusion like those we’ve seen with the RR-engined test program.
Boeing has announced that the 787 program is delayed again for the sixth time. I don’t believe we have been told the real reason, and we certainly don’t know whether this is the last postponement.
At the same time Boeing fired the head of the 747-8 program which, according to Boeing, is in worse shape than the 787 program. I wonder if the real problem is in Chicago.
• • •
(Tim Raetzloff, who operates Abarim Business Computers at Five Corners in Edmonds, evaluates Puget Sound business activity in his regular column in the Beacon. In the interests of full disclosure he says, “Neither I nor Abarim have any interest in or conflict with any company mentioned in this column.”)
Original delivery of the first Dreamliner was scheduled for May 2008; first delivery now will be sometime in 2011, three years late.
The “official” reason for the latest delay is a test failure of a Rolls Royce Trent 1000 engine on a testbed in the UK. The real reason, in my opinion, is that the test program is months behind schedule and has no way of catching up.
Originally the 787 Dreamliner was to consist of four models, 787-3, 787-8, 787-9, and 787-10. Airlines could choose either a Rolls Royce or GE engine to power the airframe.
The 787-3 has since been cancelled; the 787-9 is now more than four years behind schedule; and the 787-10 has faded into the Twilight Zone.
The plane we are talking about is the 787-8, powered by a Rolls Royce engine. The first RR-engined 787 flew on Dec. 15, 2009. At that time Boeing announced that the test program to earn the FAA Type Certificate would consist of 2,400 hours of flight tests and 3,100 hours of ground tests for the RR-engined 787.
Four test planes would make up the test fleet. A separate test program of about half as many hours would be for the GE-engined 787’s two test planes participating in that certification.
The RR-engined test program would be completed in nine months (39 weeks), by Sept. 15, 2010, and first delivery of a RR-engined 787 to All Nippon Airways would take place before Dec. 31.
Some aerospace experts questioned the time allowed for completion of the test program as too short to be successful. Boeing executives countered that they actually had some “slippage” built into the program and nine months would be enough.
By late April it became evident to me and to many others that the test program was months behind schedule.
As of April 25, only 509 test hours had been completed. Aircraft usage was just over 1.5 hours a day. A full 19 weeks, nearly half, of the proposed test schedule were gone and only 21 percent of the required test hours had been completed.
I informed Beacon readers at that time that the test schedule would go on until April 2010, seven months late, if the test schedule did not speed up. At that time I began noting the test hours reported by Boeing on my website at http://www.abarim.com/gsg.htm.
The test schedule did speed up for about a month. In the four weeks before May 22, 300 hours of test flights were completed. If that pace had been maintained, the test program would have finished by about Nov. 1.
But then the pace of flight-testing slowed. In the 14 weeks since May 22, total flight test hours for RR-engined 787s have been 650 hours, just over 40 hours a week. This slowdown in testing began 10 weeks before the failure of the Rolls Royce test engine.
There is little more than a week left to Sept. 15. And 950 flight-test hours are still needed to complete the test program. Or maybe only 650 hours are needed to complete the test program. Boeing management has confused this issue.
One announcement says that several hundred hours may be cut from the test program. Another counters that all the original test hours must be completed.
Let’s assume that 650 hours is the “new” test regimen. If the pace of testing since May 22 is maintained, 650 flight hours will take until Dec. 7. If the test program still needs the full 950 hours, the test program won’t be completed until Jan. 25.
First delivery would then not occur until the end of March in the best case or the end of May in the worst case. And each of those possible dates assumes no additional problems with the program.
The GE-engined 787 test flight program began in June.
That program has completed only 137 hours in more than 10 weeks. The second test plane is not ready to fly and is at least three months late. This appears to signal more delays and confusion like those we’ve seen with the RR-engined test program.
Boeing has announced that the 787 program is delayed again for the sixth time. I don’t believe we have been told the real reason, and we certainly don’t know whether this is the last postponement.
At the same time Boeing fired the head of the 747-8 program which, according to Boeing, is in worse shape than the 787 program. I wonder if the real problem is in Chicago.
• • •
(Tim Raetzloff, who operates Abarim Business Computers at Five Corners in Edmonds, evaluates Puget Sound business activity in his regular column in the Beacon. In the interests of full disclosure he says, “Neither I nor Abarim have any interest in or conflict with any company mentioned in this column.”)
