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Boeing’s 787 fatigue test airframe has passed the critical 10,000 cycle milestone, solidifying a regulatory requirement to maintain ahead of the fleet leader in simulated takeoffs and landings, say program sources. 

The airframe, dubbed ZY998, first began its fatigue trials in September 2010, parked behind the Everett factory in a custom test fixture designed to simulate the normal stresses on an aircraft during flight. 

Each cycle, representing one takeoff and one landing, includes flexing of the various structures, as well as repeated pressurizations expanding and contracting the aircraft’s composite primary structure fuselage.

The airframer expects to certify the 787 for 44,000 cycles in its lifetime, but is required to double that margin during the testing, which must remain 10,000 cycles ahead of the flying fleet leader. Boeing will push ZY998 to as many as 165,000 over the next three years to determine the long-term structural life of the 787.

Boeing firmed its schedule for the 787’s service ready, operation and validation (SROV) testing schedule today, readying ZA002 to fly to Tokyo’s Haneda Airport and visit airports in southwestern Japan from July 4 to 8. The company has also ruled out a July first delivery to All Nippon Airways, placing the first handover in August or September.

Initial reporting by this page in January put the first delivery in September, though per the latest Z23 schedule, Airplane Eight (ZA101), the first for ANA was slated to be handed over to the airline in late July. 

The slimmer margin keeps delivery within the third quarter and perhaps may be attributable to the start ETOPS and functionality & reliability shifting from late-March to early-June. Boeing 787 vice president and general manager Scott Fancher confirmed the June start of the 300h F&R at Tuesday’s Investor Day Conference. Had ETOPS begun in late-March it would have wrapped up just over three months later in July per flight test schedule.

Fancher discussed in detail the SROV preparations in detail and the last phases of the certification campaign:

During its visit to Japan, ZA002 will visit Haneda, Osaka Kansai & Itami, Okayama and Hiroshima, providing a likely preview of the early destinations that will be flown by the early 787s configured with medium-haul seating. In July 2007, Aviation Week reported that ANA would have to fly the 787 on domestic and regional routes for 12 to 18 months for the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau (JCAB) to conduct its own ETOPS certification. 

I went back and listened to the Boeing Investor Day recordings last night and an item that I missed on the first path jumped out at me at second glance. Today’s mixed Delta Air Lines A320/737NG narrowbody fleet is a creation of the Delta/Northwest merger, but Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Albaugh hints that the carrier may be a point of traction for the A320neo.

A May 9 note from Leeham Co, suggests that not only is this is prime Airbus territory, but that Boeing may not even get into competition:

The Next Generation 737 has been an extraordinary sales success for Boeing, though the company’s incremental update to the narrowbody created an aircraft that has a 75% non-commonality with the 737 Classics. This level of change opened the door for British Airways, easyJet and US Airways to look to Airbus for its narrowbody fleets. 

In a war of attrition, victories may be measured in inches.

Submitted without comment.

July 14, 2009:

January 26, 2010:

In his Boeing Investor Conference presentation today, 787 vice president and general manager, Scott Fancher, included something extra in his accompanying slides: A new rendering of Boeing’s 787-10X.

The last rendering of the aircraft was first unveiled in 2007 when the notional 787-10 was first presented at the Paris Air Show. At that point, the aircraft would have been optimized to supplant the 777-200ER with a comparable range and payload.

Jim Albaugh, CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, says the new jet – a simple fuselage stretch of the 787-9 – will include 43 more seats than its 270-seat smaller predecessor. 

“I believe this will be an airplane we will probably do,” says Albaugh.

The rendering didn’t initially show up on the original presentation as it was broadcasting live, but materialized after the event in the accompanying materials. Interestingly, it’s now the second time we’ve seen a Boeing concept aircraft in the “ghost” Dreamliner colors.

A few interesting notes about this rendering, which offers official confirmation that there will be a stretch of the 47 Section aft fuselage. Also, the design is definitely shorter than the 2007 concept and eliminates any stretch of the Spirit AeroSystems-built forward 41 Section. If you look closely, you can almost see a subtle fuselage join in front of Kawasaki-built Section 43, perhaps suggesting the addition of a new “Section 42” barrel between the center and forward fuselages.

Boeing’s yearly gathering of financial analysts in Seattle gets underway today at 11 AM ET/8 AM PT this page will be bringing you liveblogged coverage of the commercial presentations from CEO Jim McNerney, CFO James Bell, Boeing Commercial Airplanes CEO Jim Albaugh, 787 vice president and general manager Scott Fancher.

The presentations will all be webcast, and questions from analysts are expected to focus on the future of new airplane programs (737RS/797, 787-9, 787-10, 777NG), 787 delivery schedule, profitability, order book stability and production readiness. Follow updates below the fold and on twitter for the latest on #BoeingID.

Updates available after the jump.

This week’s Movie Monday is another trip into the vault for classic aircraft development footage. This declassified 1955 report on the original Lockheed C-130 Hercules runs 13min – a bit shorter than usual MMs – but the level of detail provided in the report is really extensive. The C-130 airframe has been upgraded and adapted to so many different missions over the years that the 1955 C-130 bears little to no ‘under the skin’ resemblance to the C-130J of today. One particularly notable modification was the addition of jet assisted landing, designed to make the aircraft capable of landing and taking off again inside the confines of soccer stadium.

Apologies for the lack of content here the past two weeks, I’ve been mostly ‘heads down’ working on features for our Paris air show issue. 

The Package B engine includes a revised six-stage low pressure turbine (LPT) design, high-aspect-ratio blades, relocation of the intermediate-pressure (IP) compressor bleed offtake ports and a fan outlet guide vanes with improved aerodynamics. 

Additionally, it is believed that the Package B engine also incorporates undisclosed hardware changes that were prompted following the August 2010 uncontained failure of a Package A model Trent 1000 at the Rolls-Royce test stand in Derby, UK.

UPDATE 7:44 PM ET: It appears the flight plan has been withdrawn from Flightaware.com, scrubbing Friday’s Package B engine first flight. 

UPDATE 12:45 PM ET: Program sources say ZA004 should likely fly on Saturday. A bit of archival digging began to answer a few on-going questions about the Package B engine. From a December 2009 report I authored just before 787 first flight (EIS planned for late 2010), I wrote:

UPDATE 8:39 PM ET: ZA004 has completed its first flight with the Package B engine, flying up and down the Pacific coast of Washington, Oregon and California. The aircraft was spotted on final approach to Boeing Field just moments before landing on its roughly four-plus hour flight.

The World Trade Organization appellate body released today a final ruling on the 2004 Airbus launch aid complaint filed by the US on behalf of Boeing. Flightglobal’s reporting on the ruling deputy editor Kerry Reals and mylsef was titled WTO appellate body partially upholds Airbus subsidy ruling, capturing the reaction of the US and European, along with both Boeing and Airbus. To read the complete statements from Boeing and Airbus, you could easily get a very different impression of the final result of the complaint. 

The Boeing take: The World Trade Organization’s Appellate Body today confirmed that Airbus received $18 billion in illegal “launch aid” and other subsidies from European governments.

The Airbus take: The World Trade Organization (WTO) report released today constitutes the final blow to the Boeing-sponsored myth that government support to Airbus somehow caused harm to Boeing.

As often happens, the appellate ruling is far more ambiguous and far from clear cut. Though what is clear is that neither Boeing nor Airbus interpretations of the ruling leave room for nuance, beyond the rhetorical battle. The war of words being what it is, I wanted to step past press releases from airframers and the statements of government officials and provide access to both the summary of the ruling (below) directly from the WTO, a way to read the complete appellate ruling (PDF) and the original October 2004 complaint and complete June 2010 report that inspired the appeal.

Summary of key findings

The Appellate Body today upheld the Panel’s finding that certain subsidies provided by the European Union and certain Member state governments to Airbus are incompatible with Article 5(c) of the SCM Agreement because they have caused serious prejudice to the interests of the United States. The principal subsidies covered by the ruling include financing arrangements (known as “Launch Aid” or “Member state financing”) provided by France, Germany, Spain, and the UK for the development of the A300, A310, A320, A330/A340, A330-200, A340-500/600, and A380 LCA projects. The ruling also covers certain equity infusions provided by the French and German governments to companies that formed part of the Airbus consortium. Additionally, it covers certain infrastructure measures provided to Airbus, namely, the lease of land at the Mühlenberger Loch industrial site in Hamburg, the right to exclusive use of an extended runway at Bremen airport, regional grants by the German authorities in Nordenham, and Spanish government grants and regional grants by Andalucia and Castilla-La Mancha in Sevilla, La Rinconada, Toledo, Puerto Santa Maria, and Puerto Real. The Appellate Body found that the effect of the subsidies was to displace exports of Boeing single-aisle and twin-aisle LCA from the European Union, Chinese, and Korean markets and Boeing single-aisle LCA from the Australian market. Moreover, the Appellate Body confirmed the Panel’s determination that the subsidies caused Boeing to lose sales of LCA in the campaigns involving the A320 (Air Asia, Air Berlin, Czech Airlines, and easyJet), A340 (Iberia, South African Airways, and Thai Airways International), and A380 (Emirates, Qantas, and Singapore Airlines) aircraft.

However, for different reasons, the Appellate Body excluded certain measures from the scope of the finding of serious prejudice. In particular, the finding under Article 5(c) of the SCM Agreement no longer includes the 1998 transfer of a 45.76% interest in Dassault Aviation to Aérospatiale; the special purpose facilities at the Mühlenberger Loch industrial site in Hamburg, Aéroconstellation industrial site and associated facilities (taxiways, parking, etc.) in Toulouse, or the various research and technology development (R&TD) measures that had been challenged by the United States (Spanish PROFIT Programme, grants under Second, Third, Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth EC Framework Programmes; 1986-1993 R&TD grants by French government; Luftfahrtforschungsprogramm I, II, and III German grants; grants by Bavarian, Bremen, and Hamburg authorities; civil aircraft research and development and aeronautics research programmes by the UK government). The Appellate Body also reversed the Panel’s findings of displacement in Brazil, Mexico, Singapore, and Chinese Taipei, and of threat of displacement in India.

Moreover, the Appellate Body disagreed with the Panel’s views on when subsidies can be considered as being de facto contingent upon anticipated export performance. Consequently, the Appellate Body reversed the Panel’s findings that the financing provided by Germany, Spain and the UK to develop the A380 was contingent upon anticipated exportation and thus a prohibited export subsidy under Article 3.1(a) and footnote 4 of the SCM Agreement. The Appellate Body also rejected the United States’ cross-appeal of the Panel finding that it had not been established that certain other member State financing contracts constituted prohibited export subsidies. As a consequence, the Appellate Body reversed the Panel’s recommendation that the European Union withdraw prohibited subsidies within 90 days. The Appellate Body also found that the United States’ claims regarding an alleged unwritten launch aid/member State financing programme were outside its jurisdiction. In addition, the Appellate Body reversed the Panel’s findings regarding the rate of return that a market lender would have demanded for launch aid/member State financing loans because they were not based on an objective assessment; but found that a benefit was conferred even on the basis of the European Union’s calculations. Finally, with respect to the actionable subsidies that have been found to cause adverse effects to the interests of the United States, the Panel’s recommendation that the European Union “take appropriate steps to remove the adverse effects or … withdraw the subsidy” stands.

The Panel in this case was established in July 2005. The Panel circulated its Report to WTO Members on 30 June 2010; and the European Union filed a Notice of Appeal on 21 July 2010.

A separate dispute brought by the European Union against the United States for subsidies allegedly provided to Boeing is currently before the Appellate Body. The panel report in that dispute was circulated to WTO Members on 31 March 2011. Both the European Union and the United States have appealed aspects of that panel report.

A forecast of summer air travel released Monday by the Air Transport Association (ATA) reveals some fascinating figures about US carriers an aircraft market that been steadily shrinking over the past decade – driven down by consolidation, recession, the threat of terrorism and other exogenous shocks. 

ATA expects 2.24 million passengers will fly daily aboard US airlines this summer, up 34,000 passengers per day from 2010, transporting 206.2 million fliers from June through August. That figure is about 1.5% higher than last year 203.1 million passengers flew on US carriers during the same period a year prior.

Amazingly even with this massive increase in fuel the average domestic fare in the last ten years has only risen $1.81 since 2000 to $316.27 (adjusted for inflation), illustrating the dearth of pricing power airlines have when it comes to managing their ticketing revenue stream. This fact should illustrate why ancillary revenue has become such a core component to achieving the thinnest of margins.