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Before ZA001 can complete its final round of taxi tests, Boeing will take the first 787 though
two to three days of final gauntlet tests for final check outs of the aircraft’s 92 systems.

Currently, the Final Gauntlet is scheduled to begin as early as Tuesday, December 8 and stretch through Wednesday or Thursday. The Final Gauntlet is a series of closed loop ground tests that will evaluate ZA001’s systems while fooling the aircraft in believing it is flying.

Sources say the Final Gauntlet will be split into two primary blocks. The first includes a B1 first flight profile, the standard checkout of
all aircraft systems as part of standard production testing. The second block will be a more rigorous “first flight” final gauntlet with an expanded profile of tests and failure scenarios.

Today (December 7) is being spent undergoing a flight test safety review, while tomorrow will include the setup of the aircraft Flight Emulation Test System (FETS), that interfaces directly with ZA001 and governs the gauntlet tests.

The FETS system is part of a Boeing-patented method (PDF) of activating and monitoring the aircraft during gauntlet testing. The 1993 patent abstract reads:

The system thus generates an initial set of stimuli similar to what an
aircraft would be exposed to when in flight; monitors the response of
the aircraft to the stimuli to which it is exposed; and, in response
generates an updated set of stimuli to the aircraft. The system also
records the response of the output responses of aircraft components so
that they could be monitored by personnel charged with insuring that
the aircraft is functioning properly. The system can also be used to
train flight crews since it can be used to place the aircraft “in the
loop” during a flight emulation.

We see the FETS system manifested today in the flight line bread truck that attaches directly to the aircraft systems to fool the inertial and air data systems, while applying simulated flight dynamics and aerodynamics that govern aircraft performance. This “stumuli” causes the aircraft systems to respond, allowing Boeing to see their in-flight performance while remaining on the ground.

Last Friday, ZA001 was spotted rolling near flight line stall 105 as the aircraft tested its brakes while operating solely on main battery power, say program sources. According to Aviation Week’s Guy Norris, Boeing also tested the latest flight control software as part of regression testing. The software is believed to be version 8.0.2, say sources familiar with the testing.

Once the Final Gauntlet tests wrap up by the end of this week, Boeing will head into taxi tests this weekend for the final round of low and high speed tests for final checkouts of the aircraft ability to slow down and stop safely.

Photo Credit Jim Larsen – Taken May 29, 2009

787 Pre-Flight
While ZA001 and ZA002 are being readied for first
flight, Boeing is expected to deliver its verdict on the data collected
from the static tests conducted last weekend on ZY997. The results will
serve as a go/no-go for Boeing to fly the 787 with the side-of-body
reinforcement the week after next.

More on 787 as the day/week progresses.

MSN001 will fly with two pilots, two flight test engineers, one
handling qualities specialist and one engine specialist on board, and
will relay real-time information to telemetry rooms in Seville and
Toulouse, enabling about 100 more personnel to monitor its performance.
The aircraft is expected to lift off at a take-off weight of about
125t, says Isorce – 16t below its maximum limit.

G650 Second Flight

In recognition of the 68th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, today’s Movie Monday is another installment of the show Dogfights. This episode explores the development and deployment of the US Navy Grumman F6F Hellcat as a response to the Japanese Mitsubishi A6M Zero and the battles that ensued in the Pacific Theater of Operations. The A6M was one of three aircraft that made up the assault on Pearl Harbor along with the Nakajima B5N and Aichi D3A.

Parts two through five after the jump.

Like a slowing pendulum, the amplitude of the swings identifying 787’s first flight date are narrowing…and changing daily.

The Seattle Times reports today that ZA001 will take to the skies on December 18th, up four days from previous forecast of December 22nd. This page reported Tuesday that the 14th was the opening of the first flight window, and at the time, was what several people close to the program were telling me.

That date, say those same sources today, has shifted to December 15th.

While it remains impossible to predict the future (for now), all these different reports should serve as a good guide for Boeing’s timing. Reports have now established the clear intent by Boeing to fly sometime during the week of December 14-22. Call that a no-brainer assessment on my part, but now Boeing has mother nature to compete with. Seattle winters are anything but predictable.

Boeing, meanwhile, has continued preparations for ZA001 and ZA002 first flight this week. ZA001, which remains on the Everett flight line, underwent thrust reverser actuation checkouts and heading into the weekend will conduct software regression testing to sweep the software for any remaining bugs that may be festering. Spirit AeroSystems said in September that a software upgrade is planned for after first flight, once Boeing sees how the 787 behaves in flight. Final gauntlet testing, which will include both B1 and first flight profiles, is still planned for the early to middle of next week. Additionally, ZA002 has been moved indoors for its aqueous wash and close out for final restoration.

Picture: Cover of Flight International – 8-14 December

Almost exactly three years to the day, Boeing has earned its second firm order for the airline configured 747-8I. Korean Airlines placed a firm order for five of the jumbo jets for delivery between 2013 and 2015.

Lufthansa launched the 747-8I program on December 6, 2006 with an order for 20 aircraft. Since then the company has seen a dry spell of orders for the passenger version, while earning seven orders for the VIP variant.

Korean Airlines, which also holds orders for ten A380 aircraft, said that the 747-8I fills a gap between the carrier’s 300 and 550 seat aircraft.

The order breathes new life into the -8I program, which over the last three years has had sparked speculation as to whether or not Boeing would go through with its development of the new jumbo jet.

Boeing always firmly maintained that the 747-8I would become a reality, and the surpassing of 90% design release combined with this latest order should put those questions to bed for good. The replacement for Air Force One alone was almost certainly enough to keep the -8I alive.

I went back and looked at my notes today from a conversation I had with Boeing’s Randy Tinseth at the Dubai Air Show about the 747-8. His comments, which came before the Korean order was announced, were quite interesting: 

It’s a really tough market to be selling big airplanes and people forget that since we launched that airplane in November 2005 we’ve only been in two passenger campaigns where airlines made decisions: Lufthansa and the other was British Airways. We’re pleased we won one and disappointed we lost the other. 

Frankly the airplane has been selling in total about where we expected, we’ve been very pleased with the strength of the freighter, we’re disappointed that we haven’t sold more passenger airplanes. Ultimately we believe that market is going to pick up…when we start going on the upside of the cycle – this coming cycle – and airlines start replace their older 747s.

At the end of the day the 747-8 and the A380, it’s our belief that these are a replacements for the 747, so when that happens that when we’ll see airlines making those decision.

You saw it [in the presentation], 740 airplanes, 200 of them are freighters, so that means you’re down to 540 aircraft. That means a handful of campaigns moving forward, all those campaigns are going to be tough. I like to say, lots of hand to hand combat.

Boeing’s own market forecast, which Tinseth references, expects 740 large aircraft to be sold between 2009 and 2028. That 740 number was a 25% cut over the previous year. Though with 1 in 10 747-400s now parked, the potential for the -8I and A380 may just take hold.

However, that shrinking market, says Richard Aboulafia, vice-president of analysis for the Teal Group, may be dominated by big-twins, not jumbos and superjumbos:

The big plane market has been all but obliterated by the huge popularity of the long-range mini-jumbos, especially the 777-300ER and A350XWB. Operating large aircraft can be very dangerous when the market tanks. But the Korean order shows that the 747-8I still will have part of this niche, despite some very aggressive A380 pricing.

As the saying goes, nobody ever went bankrupt flying planes that were too small. Very few carriers will replace 747-400s with equally large or larger planes. There’s just too much to be said for getting rid of 20% of your lowest yield passengers and focusing on improving profits. You also get greater schedule and route flexibility with smaller long-range planes.

Getting rid of jet engines works great, too.

Though, word on the street is another -8I order from an airline customer may be coming soon.

Photo Credit Boeing

The A350 XWB doesn’t quite resemble an aircraft yet, but today in Nantes, France, Airbus announced it has fabricated the first composite piece for the upper panel of the first A350-900’s center wing box. MSN001 is now a 387 sq. ft composite panel.

This panel will eventually be incorporated with others manufactured in Nantes to become the aircraft’s center wing box. After completion, the center wing box will be shipped to Saint Nazaire.

The center wing box will be joined in with composite panels fabricated in Kinston, North Carolina by Spirit AeroSystems. Saint-Nazaire will host the assembly and equipping of A350 center fuselages, also referred to as Section 15, then shipped to Toulouse for final assembly.

If you’re looking for a not-quite-perfect 787 comparison here, Saint-Nazaire will be the “Global Aeronautica” of the A350 program.

***Editors note: I’ve created a tag for the first A350 called MSN001. Looking forward to using it a lot more in the coming months (and years).

Embraer’s Phenom 300 light jet earned its Brazilian type certificate this morning, the Brazilian airframer confirms.

First delivery, says an Embraer spokeswoman, is expected “soon” and an official announcement from the company is due out shortly.

UPDATE: Here’s my extended story on the Phenom 300 Brazilian certification.

Bombardier C-FRJX CRJ 1000 Experimental, originally uploaded by moonm.

Bombardier announced this morning that it has suspended flight test and delayed first delivery of its CRJ1000 aircraft “pending software updates to the rudder control-by-wire system“.

The delay now places delivery to Air Nostrum between August 2010 and January 2011, representing the second half of Bombardier’s 2011 fiscal year which begins on February 1, 2010.

The Canadian airframer said it has not flown the triple-stretched CRJ for flight test purposes (C-FRJX)  since the second quarter of FY10 (May-July 09), but say it flew the first production model in July.

Bombardier Aerospace president and chief operating officer Guy Hachey said today that flight testing was expected to resume “after Christmas” and adds that CRJ1000 has about 30% of its flight testing regime remaining.

Bombardier announced in September that it had pushed delivery to the end of the first quarter of FY11 (by April 30, 2010) because of the initial software glitch which was first seen in July.

Air Nostrum, an arm of Spanish flag carrier Iberia, is launch customer for the type. The airline, which also operates under the name Iberia Regional and has hubs in Madrid, Valencia and Barcelona. Air Nostrum holds orders for 35 100-seat CRJ1000.

What remains unclear at this moment is the impact of the slowing CRJ production rate on this delay. Bombardier does not attribute the delay to the slowing rate, but the recent decision to slow production could slow the flow of CRJ1000 deliveries. 

Bombardier commercial aircraft president, Gary Scott, says the CRJ line is currently operating on a 3-day rate, based on 20 manufacturing days per month.

Bombardier’s CRJ1000 backlog consists of 49 orders.

Around 9:30 PT last night, ZA001, parked in Stall 105 on Boeing’s Everett flight line, restarted its twin Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines. The engines were started left to right and each produced clouds of white smoke as a result of an inhibitor that was stored inside each engine while the aircraft’s side-of-body was being modified, says engine-maker Rolls-Royce. The twin-power plants were run for roughly 45 minutes at idle as part of last night’s tests. The 787’s engines were first started back on May 21, 2009.

Last night was almost certainly the coldest airframe start of a 787 in program’s short history of airframe engine runs. The temperature at the time of the start was a chilly 33 degrees F (.5 C) last night, so Boeing now has demonstrated it can start its engines on an average February day at MSP. However, last night’s chill in the air is going to look like the Caribbean compared to the -40 degrees F (-40 C) that the 787 is going have endure during cold soak testing!

Video Courtesy of Liz Matzelle.

While Boeing crunches the data from the latest volley of static tests to validate the side-of-body reinforcement, sources within the company are increasingly confident that the long-delayed program could fly not one, but potentially two 787s later this month.

A static test yesterday, internally dubbed “2C”, was a key hurdle on the now restarted path to 787 first flight. Boeing will review the data between now and December 9th to formally validate the side-of-body reinforcement and provide a green-light for first flight.

However, Boeing is actively preparing ZA001 for its first flight, which could come as early as December 14, according to several program sources. The new date accelerates the internal schedule for first flight by about eight days, reflecting the program’s rising confidence.

Boeing has publicly said that it given itself until the close of December to fly the 787 for the first time.

Boeing moved ZA001, the first flight test aircraft, back to the fuel dock early yesterday morning after completing restoration operations inside the factory. Early tasks for ZA001 included refuelling the aircraft for fuel systems cleanliness tests that culminated in auxiliary power unit runs and a move to Stall 105 on the flight line at Boeing’s Everett facility.

Tentatively planned for today or tomorrow, ZA001 will conduct engine build verification testing with a variety of power runs of its twin Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines, according to sources. Also planned for the near future is the calibration of ZA001’s navigational equipment that will see the aircraft towed to the Everett “compass rose“.

As the week progresses, ZA001 will go though additional hydraulic leak checks and other testing before heading into a flight test safety review, followed by the repeat of the closed-loop final gauntlet tests penciled in for early next week.

After the final gauntlet tests are completed, ZA001 will go through a pre-taxi test preparation. Heading into late next week, the aircraft will begin taxi tests at various speeds to recheck the braking and handing characteristic. During the weekend, the aircraft is expected to go through pre-flight preparations, followed by an all crew pre-flight briefing late in the weekend.

If all goes to plan, several sources indicated that Boeing’s first flight window opens at 10 AM on December 14, depending on weather.

Boeing says its second 787 test aircraft, ZA002, has completed installation of the wing fix, while sources add the systems restoration is now complete. The aircraft will now undergo aqueous wash and final door close-out later in the week to complete the restoration. ZA002 will progress through mini-gauntlet as it is prepared for first flight which is tentatively planned for late in December.

Photo Credit Liz Matzelle