It has been one month since the 787 first flew from Paine Field in Everett and the program has been steadily accumulating flight test hours, having flown approximately 60hr and 56min over 15 flights (Plus one ZA002 ferry), as measured by the take off and landing notification alerts from flightaware.com.
Dennis O’Donoghue, vice president of Boeing’s flight operations test & validation unit, said to Bloomberg yesterday that “We have been so happy with the progress we’ve made with the 787, I’m almost giddy.”
This report, compiled with the assistance of Matt Cawby and numerous other Seattle-based photographers and many others reflects the progress of 787 flight test over its first month.
On its targeted 8.5 month road through through certification, Boeing expects about 4000 “deliverables” to the FAA for the certification for the 787. Mike Delaney, former chief engineer on the 787 program, says those deliverables consist of test reports and analyses, as well as pilots signing off on various aspects of aircraft handling.
Of those 4000 deliverables, 300 are strictly related to flight test, meaning that the only method of demonstrating compliance is through the flight test program. There are “some areas where the method of compliance is analysis substantiated by [flight] test so there are subtleties in there but these are strictly where it says “method of compliance is by flight test,” says Delaney now vice president of engineering for airplane performance & product architecture.
MUCH MORE BELOW
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.