787 first flight delayed

[swh]

Boeing investor conference just on at the moment.

Boeing have just announced that the 787 that was due to take to the air on August 27, 2007, will now have its first flight in November or December.

In a rush to get the shell of the aircraft out the door for the photo shoot on the 8th July, 2007, Boeing used many temporary fasteners. The fasteners were painted red and installed in place of flightworthy parts, They were purchased from normal hardware stores, including Home Depot and Ace Hardware (like Bunnings, Mitre 10).

Not only they have the issue of traceability of parts for these normal non-aviation fasteners, but Boeing did not document where they placed them on the aircraft, requiring them to disable large portions to find and replace them.

Subsequently when these fasteners were removed, which also required the removal of the rudder and engines, the joined composite parts were damaged, requiring repair before reassembly.

They are also having issues with wiring, systems integration, flight control integration, and the aircraft is overweight by an unknown amount.

Boeing plans to complete all the flight testing now in 5 months, and anticipate no delays in delivering the aircraft to the customers.

Should make interesting reading tomorrow in the financial papers, in Fridays Australian, and to see what happens to QF group stock as they have a lot of 787 aircraft lined up to join their fleet commencing next year.

see http://flightblogger.*************/2007/09/temporary-fasteners-causing-major.html

[Capn Bloggs]

Oh my heros.

[woftam]

Remember what happened when the DC10 tried to win a commercial "race"? (probably not,most are too young ;) , a book called "Destination Disaster" may enlighten some.)
Beware !!!! :eek:

[Wod]

IIRC

There are three things that people should not see being made

Sausages

Any form of public policy.

Prototype aircraft.

:ok:

[Bolty McBolt]

In a rush to get the shell of the aircraft out the door for the photo shoot on the 8th July, 2007, Boeing used many temporary fasteners. The fasteners were painted red and installed in place of flight worthy parts, They were purchased from normal hardware stores, including Home Depot and Ace Hardware (like Bunnings, Mitre 10).

I for one am not sure I believe the statement above.
Boeing make a few aeroplanes , I am sure if they were short of hardware for the 787 project, bolts, hilocs, rivets etc could all be sourced from other assembly lines before they sent the apprentice down to bunnings to buy a bag of a million self tappers....:ok:

There is a rumour of a delay due in "production line" due to shortage in a type of fastener..Time will tell

But I do agree with:-

There are three things that people should not see being made

Sausages

Any form of public policy.

Prototype aircraft.

[swh]

I for one am not sure I believe the statement above.
Boeing make a few aeroplanes , I am sure if they were short of hardware for the 787 project, bolts, hilocs, rivets etc could all be sourced from other assembly lines before they sent the apprentice down to bunnings to buy a bag of a million self tappers....

One of the main rags based in Seattle ran this story "Dreamliner flight tests pushed back : Buffer for meeting delivery date gone" (http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/business/330377_dreamliner06.html) today

In it, the reporter James Wallace said "One time-consuming job that has taken much longer than expected has been replacing thousands of temporary fasteners with permanent ones. An industry fastener shortage contributed to the problem. But workers in Everett could not find some of the temporary fasteners because of the lack of proper documentation. In some cases, temporary fasteners were simply not installed by Boeing's partners. Even though temporary fasteners are supposed to be painted red, they are not always clearly visible. In some cases, parts must be removed to locate them."

[Fliegenmong]

Fancy a new type having a delayed flight test program :ooh:

[stillalbatross]

oh god that is funny. So they dragged out the 787 "on time" held together with tape and self tappers and now they don't really know which fasteners are spec and which are junk. I don't want to be the one taking that aircraft, no wonder the certification is delayed. Please Lockheed, come back and make a new widebody airplane. Between boeing and airbus the field is looking pretty ordinary.

[Vorsicht]

I See.............................................

So today, those bastions of truth and principle (tabloid newspapers and their contributors) are being held up as a credible sources of aviation information.

Should we do a quick troll through the archives to see what pruners generally think about the quality of aviation information presented via the worlds mass dissemination print media? Or today should we choose to blindly accept a piece of journalism that, even to the most naive of aviation professionals, smacks of sensationalism.

When the delivery date slides, i will accept that someone is still searching from the 3mm selff tapper from Home depot. Until then I am happy to accept that Boeing has a pretty good history of delivering on promises. Not perfect, but generally better than the opposition.

V

[27/09]

I don't want to be the one taking that aircraft,

Don't worry yourself to much SA. The first 8 off the production line are for Boeings test programme.

Vorsicht

I think you summed it up very well

[flying-spike]

"An industry fastener shortage contributed to the problem. But workers in Everett could not find some of the temporary fasteners because of the lack of proper documentation"

The problem wasn't finding the fasteners because their position on the aircraft wan't documented. It was a problem of sourcing fasteners with the correct certification documentation.:=