Farnborough Wrap
What a week. I wanted to say thank you to you all for visiting last week, I really hope you enjoyed the coverage. From Sunday to Friday, Farnborough brought this blog a 38% increase in traffic over the Singapore air show in February, as well as an increase in content by almost 70%. Also, in case you were wondering, I ‘twittered’ 93 times during the week. I have about 10 hours worth of recordings and 50 pages of notes to sift through and begin putting together some features. So, more to come.

Top 5 Best Farnborough SWAG (Giveaways)
1. The C-17 Moose
2. QATAR Airways 1:200 777, A330 and A340 models
3. Sukhoi
Su-47 tie clip.

4. Airbus A340 (snark)
5. (Tie) Pratt & Whitney combination lock thumb drive & Boeing pen/laser pointer/thumb drive

CRJ1000 First Flight Watch
After last week’s launch of the CSeries, Bombardier is hard at work getting its 100-seat regional jet into the sky. The company has said that July was going to be prime time for first flight, so I’m officially on first flight watch. I’ll keep you posted.

777F Flight Testing Underway
First flight, take two last Wednesday ended at its originally intended destination. The aircraft, WF001, N5020K, 777F no. 1 (it goes by many names) is now at home at the flight test center at Boeing Field. The first flight ended at Paine Field because of telemetry problems. The flight lasted 2:38 minutes and took the 777 up and down the Olympias [Olympics] to the west of Puget Sound.

A380 Emirates Delivery
Emirates will take delivery of its first (of 58) A380 next Monday from the Airbus delivery center in Hamburg, Germany. Following the delivery, the aircraft will make its first revenue flight from Dubai to JFK on August 1st. Not only is Emirates the 2nd A380 operator, but the Dubai-based airline is also the launch customer for the Engine Alliance (GE & Pratt & Whitney) GP7200 engines.

Home sweet home…but not for long.
Walked in my front door at 11:30 PM lastt night from my Heathrow flight. I’m home for about 96 hours, then I’m off to Oshkosh next week. Not expecting a whole lot of news coming out of the show, so it’ll give me a good chance to try some new techniques for the event. I’ll have more detail later this week.

FARNBOROUGH — Boeing and Air India gave us a look inside the brand new 777-300ER and here’s the video we put together. VT-ALN, which is just 17 days old, made the trip from Everett last weekend to Farnborough.

There are six parts to the video, three of which take you through the lavish cabin and narrated by Jitender Bhargava, Executive Director of Corporate Communications for Air India.

The other two are narrated by yours truly. One is a brief introduction welcoming you to the 777-300ER.The second is a peek at the crew rest area and demonstrates my inability to convert to Celsius on the fly. The final one is a very tired, over-caffeinated blogger giving a 7 minute guided tour of the 777 flight deck. I know for a fact that there are those of you who visit the blog who either fly the 777, have some part in designing, or build them, so please, cut me some slack, because I’m sure I missed a lot.

MORE HI-RES CABIN & FLIGHTDECK PHOTOS AFTER THE JUMP

Airbus SAS will provide a briefing hosted by Tom Enders and John Leahy at 11:00 GMT (6 AM ET). A large order announcement is expected at the conclusion of the event.

Follow it here for liveblogged coverage.

Transcript continued after the jump.

Photos Courtesy of Max Kingsley-Jones

FARNBOROUGH — Boeing is actively considering opening a second 787 production line to minimize the impact of its program delays to customers, industry sources tell FlightBlogger.

The plan, which has not been finalized, would allow Boeing to boost output across two lines rather than push more aircraft at a higher rate through a single line. As the production system matured further, production levels could potentially exceed Boeing’s target of 10 aircraft per month by 2012 on a single line.

Sources familiar with the plan say that Boeing hopes to head off serious delays and uncertainties that 787 customers are facing as they try to adjust their fleet capacity planning in the wake of the delivery rescheduling. Some customers have been quoted as expecting deliveries up to 30 months late.

Boeing reiterated that its “787 production/delivery schedule follows a more gradual ramp up to full-rate production than was previously planned, and reaches a rate of 10 airplanes per month in 2012, rather than in 2010.”

Adding, “the planning assumption we’ve given customers is to expect the start of their delivery streams to be adjusted, on average, by around 20 months. The specifics of these estimated delivery streams vary by customer and assume no improvement over our current plan.”

The company slowed its ambitious production ramp up plan in April to permit its supply chain to reduce travelled work being sent to final assembly and better manage part shortages.

Though Boeing has not recorded a new 787 order since April, demand for the product has far from slowed, one 787 customer tells FlightBlogger.

The customer, who discussed the situation on the condition of anonymity, says Boeing is focused on a successful ramp up rather than expanding it’s already overflowing orderbook for 896 aircraft.

The customer adds that the 787 is sold out until 2017; a date which does not take into account an average 20-month delivery delay.

“They aren’t quoting [delivery positions] before 2019,” said the customer.

Delivery slots prior to 2019 would only be available to strategic customers such as US airlines or those considering both the 787 and A350 or current A330 operators.

The customer emphasized that if they could purchase additional 787s right now, they absolutely would.

SAS & Bombardier
One small items of news buried in yesterday’s show was the announcement that Volvo Aero was partnering with Pratt & Whitney to design and produce three major components of the new PW1000G Geared Turbofan engine. The news itself is unremarkable, yet in an age where industrial investment and partnership often leads to product purchases, Volvo’s involvement could signal a potential order from SAS for CSeries. SAS is one of the few airlines in the world that operates the 737-600 in a 112-123-seat configuration, the core of the CSeries market. Scandinavian does have a troubled past with Bombardier, though time (and economic incentive) may heal all wounds.

As far as Bombardier goes, Qatar Airways said yesterday it was “still interested in CSeries.” Though, in the same breath CEO Akbar Al Baker said the airline was still interested in purchasing more Airbus narrowbody aircraft. So, who knows?

Shorthaul Composite Aircraft
At yesterday’s Mitsubishi Regional Jet briefing, program executives discussed the rationale behind the decision to go with a metal fuselage. They were concerned about the exposure of the aircraft to the often perilous ground handling environment. Boeing has put an enormous amount of energy in developing a composite repair system for 787 which will spend limited time on the ground with its long haul missions. No doubt, Boeing and Airbus will apply its 787/A350 lessons for the 737/A320 replacement if it decides to go with a majority composite aircraft.

Sukhoi@100
By the end of the morning here, Sukhoi should pass the century mark for its SSJ backlog.

Keep an eye out for a Boeing narrowbody order announcement later today.

Lastly...

From Show News this morning:

On Monday during the Airbus A380’s magnificent display of aerial
cavorting, consternation erupted at Stanwick, the regional air traffic
control center, as a “pop-up” target appeared in the busy airways tens
of thousands of feet above Farnborough.

The problem, however, was quickly resolved: the A380’s transponder was
set to predictive mode and so broadcast its altitude based on momentary
rate of climb… Which was, at times, impressive. “Please don’t do it
again,” Farnborough Ground Control said as the leviathan taxied in.

Once again, I had the opportunity to sit down and record a podcast with Addison Schonland to recap the second day of the 2008 Farnborough Air Show. I’ll be doing these nightly throughout the show, so stay tuned.

LISTEN HERE