Fourth B787 flies
Item by australianaviation.com.au on March 15, 2010 11:36 am
ZA003 flies. (Boeing)
The fourth Boeing 787 to join the flight test program, ZA003 N787BX, made its first flight from Everett’s Paine Field on March 14.
Captains Ray Craig and Mike Bryan were at the controls of ZA003 for the three hour, six minute flight, which took off from Paine Field at 10:55am local time and landed at Boeing Field, Seattle, at 2:01pm.
ZA003 is fitted with a partial passenger interior, and will be used to demonstrate that the 787’s interior meets certification requirements. Boeing says ZA003 will also be used for systems, noise, flightdeck operations, avionics, electromagnetic effect, high intensity radion frequency response and ETOPS testing.
ZA003 is the last of four Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 powered 787 flight test aircraft to fly. Two further General Electric GEnx powered 787s (ZA005 and ZA006) will also join the flight test program.
To date all four flying 787s have accumulated 288 flying hours on 96 flight tests. ZA001 has flown 57 times, ZA002 37 times, and ZA004 and now ZA003 once each.