And here’s a clanger you don’t want to drop the week before Farnborough.
Boeing has issued a “cautionary note” that the first 787 delivery could slip into early 2011, citing slower than anticipated instrumentation configuration changes and inspections of the horizontal stabiliser.
It seems the test programme has ran into little issues and they have stacked up, which could see first delivery move into 2011. Whilst not an official slip, Boeing will provide more information as flight testing concludes.
Boeing also state that airplane performance has been unaffected, with 2400 hours of inflight testing to be completed with the Rolls Royce Trent engines, but with additional frames ZA006 being delayed for some time, the test effort may slow down whilst the instrumentation and horizontal stabiliser issues are addressed.
ANA have been long preparing for this, with 787 services commencing in 2011. Looks like ANA will still have to wait for Boeing to get their finger out again.
But to do this 3 days before one of the biggest airshows… is a clanger. Certainly if I was 787 customer, I would be asking what the heck is going on right now…
However, as we now roll up to the 6th delay in the Dreamliner project, perhaps we’re all feeling the delay now…
