2nd Boeing 787 first flight: Image via Wikipedia
Flightblogger reports:
In the 15 days since ZA002, Boeing’s second of six 787 flight test aircraft, suffered a fire in its aft electrical equipment bay, forcing a fleet-wide halt in certification testing, the airframer is days, if not hours, away from releasing its findings of its investigation and disclosing the impact to the aircraft’s first delivery, say company and industry sources.
An additional delay to the 787’s entry into service with All Nippon Airways is now a virtual certainty, the length of that delay, however, is yet unknown.
While some analysts have suggested the 787’s first delivery could slip to 2012, an additional delay of more than nine months, Boeing’s previous six delays have never shifted the schedule more than six months at a time. A six month slide beyond today’s February 2011 plan would place handover to ANA around August of 2011, more than three years after its original target.The fire, which happened while on approach to Laredo, Texas, and its root cause, revealed an Achillies heel in the 787’s electrical system that must be resolved before the Dreamliner can enter service.
Boeing says its first 787 delivery will slide due to software and minor hardware changes to the electrical system, an assessment the company says will be completed within “the next few weeks.”
The airframer needs to implement changes to the software that manages and protect power distribution on the aircraft, as well as a minor hardware change to the P100 distribution panel to prevent foreign object debris (FOD) ingestion.
“We have successfully simulated key aspects of the on-board event in our laboratory and are moving forward with developing design fixes,” says 787 vice president and general manager Scott Fancher
Boeing says foreign debris “most likely” caused the November 9 fire aboard ZA002 that has halted 787 certification operations.
The k2p blog 