BA B788
 

Does anybody have any idea what mods are being implemented on the BA B788 fleet?
G-ZBJA left Heathrow yesterday for Victorville where it is undergoing maintenance and a programme of modifications is being carried out on the fleet by Boeing.
Aren't they all a bit new to be undergoing modifications already?

It has been mooted by some that the 787 was put into service before all the challenges of working with new materials and technologies were addressed fully, but as the in-service dates were already delayed, commercial pressures mounted and here we are,

According to thebasource.com:

"This is as part of a Boeing programme of modifications which will see several BA Boeing 787-8s heading to Victorville over the next several weeks"

which would imply that it's only some of the fleet (presumably the earlier ones, reported elsewhere as the first 4) that need the work done.

Kelvin D
Not a good advert for a some what troubled plane would be my thoughts. Perhaps being brought into production during the worst recession for some time led to some, "design engineering" as we say in my sector of work (high rise specialist construction), with equally problematical results.

I am not sure what to make of this modification. There is an article from Reuters that says it is being carried out to improve reliability/effectiveness of the fire suppression system in the electrical equipment bay which just happens to be the location of those batteries.
What puzzles me about it is the use of Halon as the fire suppressor. I thought the manufacture and use of Halon had been banned decades ago?
U.S. proposes plugging fire-suppression hole in Boeing 787 | Reuters

"The chemical constituents in Halon gases, and the products of the reactions they induce when discharged on fires, have been identified as causing damage to the Ozone layer. As a result, their manufacture and use have been banned for many years in most countries and non-essential uses have been eliminated. Nevertheless, they remain widely in use on board aircraft for most applications because of the difficulty in finding alternatives."

SKYbrary - Halon Fire Extinguishers

Halon is difficult to replace and most tests of new agents have failed or even made a fire situation worse. There is a series of deadlines relating to the use of halon in new design and current design aircraft. It is expected that halon usage is phased out by 2018 on new designs although what constitutes a new design I don't know. Either way it is difficult to replace it because most agents that have been tested have failed miserably.

It seems the job has been jobbed and G-ZBJA has moved to Austin and will fly the Austin-Heathrow service today (12th October). Meanwhile G-ZBJB has flown the opposite route and is en route from Austin to Victorville.

This is part of an in service modification programme that is designed to improve the dispatch reliability of the aircraft. It is very common in new aircraft types as the operators build up experience and report back defects that come up to the manufacturer. The manufacturer then develops a service bulletins (SBs) to fix the reliability issues. It's very similar to a car manufactured modifying a starter motor say after a year of data that the motors are not reliable enough. Usually, the mods are very small in nature, maybe just a software change.

There are over 60 SBs being carried out to the first 4 BA 787s at Victorville (VCV), where Boeing have a maintenance facility. Of those sixty, roughly 50% are hardware and 50% software (just like updating the firmware on you phone/PC). Just in case you think 60 is a lot, they include such items as fitting soft-closers to the toilet doors (before they slammed shut) and disabling the auto-closing of the toilet seat which never really worked as designed.

BJA is complete and BJB is there at the moment. Also at VCV is a Lan Chile 787 having a similar mod package. BJC and BJD are scheduled to go after BJB is complete. BJE onwards are not scheduled to go as they already have a lot of the SBs incorporated from manufacture.

Hope that helps to explain the process.

Will the Thomson 787s be going to Victorville for these mods? I think some of them are older than the BA ones.