Flight Test Aircraft
Sandwiched between the pressures of getting Dreamliner One to fly and maturing the supply chain outside of Everett for production, five flight test aircraft will accompany Dreamliner One on the 787’s road to certification.
The part shortages and traveled work that have plagued suppliers arrived at Boeing’s doorstep in Everett. Design changes to both structure and systems that impacted Dreamliner One reverberate down the line.
Dreamliners Two and Three, parked behind number one wearing the painted rudders of their final customers, All Nippon Airways and Northwest Airlines, feel the impact particularly strongly.
Work on those two aircraft center primarily around
completing the mid-body sections.
“I feel like there’s an air bubble in two and three,” said Pat Shanahan, Vice President and General Manager of the 787 program.
Before Dreamliner One is able to fly, Dreamliner Two must complete ground vibration testing. In addition, the static airframe (ZY997) is required to complete three limit load tests to validate the structural integrity of the 787 prior to first flight.
Shanahan added that the continuing work on two and three, “doesn’t change flying in the fourth quarter, it doesn’t change delivering in the third quarter of 09, but I’m eating [schedule] margin I don’t want to eat. But the collateral impact would be on number two.”
The more complete structural sections for Dreamliner Four have now been loaded into the first assembly position to begin the body join, as depicted in the exclusive image above, marking the first time four flying aircraft have been on the production line.
One program source remarked that the structural join for Dreamliner Four is expected to be a bit different because of all the systems installed.
“We don’t have the room we always had,” said the source who spoke to FlightBlogger on the condition of anonymity.
For the first time on an all-new aircraft design, Boeing designed ergonomic procedures directly into the assembly process. Boeing’s 777 used computer aided design to demonstrate how parts would interact once installed, the 787’s design took another leap forward by not only modeling static interaction of parts, but also modeled the process of assembly.
The aft fuselage section for Dreamliner Four shipped with 98% of structures and 87% of systems complete. The 38-foot aft section featured for the first time the aft horizontal stabilizer jack screw, potable and waste water tank. By comparison, Dreamliner Three arrived stuffed with only 37% of its systems.
This post was originally published to the internet between 2007 and 2012. Links, images, and embedded media from that era may no longer function as intended.
This post originally appeared at Flightglobal.com from 2007 to 2012.