Originally Posted by
Pilot DAR
This.
That fact that some information finds its way in the public realm does not suddenly compel an applicant or authority to explain or justify the outcome of a certification test. I've witnessed many certification tests, both as in interested person, and a delegate of the authority. Some of the tests were not a pass, and some test articles were broken - that's the nature of testing!
Exactly!!! Too many people on here seem to have forgotten why we test things. Cert test failures are not particularly uncommon (if normally less dramatic than a door blowing out). It got so bad on the 747-400 program that the FAA told Boeing to stop wasting their time - and that they would no longer witness certification flight testing unless Boeing had already performed an 'engineering test' to verify it would pass (doing a verification test before inviting the FAA was often SOP, but the 747-400 got so far behind schedule that they tried cutting out the verification testing and going straight to cert to save time).
I failed my first attempted certification test on the 747-8, even though we
had done a verification test previously - the only time in my career I ever failed a cert test. We later determined that the problem was confined to specific OAT temperature band that we had been lucky enough (or unlucky - depending on you point of view) to encounter on the cert test - and it wasn't even my system at fault - it was the FMC. After reading my email to upper management informing them of the test failure, my supervisory pronounced me a 'Master of Understatement'
BTW, I flew a commercial flight out of Paine Field yesterday. I counted
four completed 777-9X aircraft parked on the flightline (presumably without engines but from the angle I couldn't tell for sure).