Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Boeing's 787 Dreamliner Has Taken Its Battery Certification Flight

Posted by timothy on from the could-barely-lift-all-those-AAs dept.

Daniel_Stuckey writes "Boeing just flew the flight it needed to certify the improved battery housing on its 787 Dreamliner, whose battery woes have marred the next generation plane's launch. Here is Flight Aware's live data map, showing the path of BOE272, the test flight from Friday afternoon. On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that the 787's recertification flight was pending. A Boeing news release stated yesterday that the '...flight departed from Paine Field in Everett, Wash. at 10:39 a.m. Pacific with a crew of 11 onboard, including two representatives from the FAA. The airplane flew for 1 hours and 49 minutes, landing back at Paine Field at 12:28 p.m. Pacific.'"

3 of 123 comments (clear)

  1. Re:I wont be a guinea pig by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    I don't think it was even a bad battery design. It was wired incorrectly. After reading the book "Airframe," I understand why Boeing hasn't hyped this more. They can't shit on their customers, so they have to keep their mouths shut lest they lose sales to the people they are (rightfully) blaming.

  2. Re:No way! by Richard_at_work · · Score: 4, Informative

    For scheduled maintenance, airlines fly their aircraft to major maintenance bases around the world - if they do their own maintenance, that's usually one of their hubs.

  3. Re:I wont be a guinea pig by Richard_at_work · · Score: 4, Informative

    Sorry, but the fact that this aircraft was "not built by Boeing" have nothing to do with the issues that have shown up thus far - no Boeing aircraft have flown with a battery system designed or built by Boeing, it's always been an item that's been outsourced (same for Airbus).

    The fastener issues were 100% Boeings direct fault (hey, let's ignore the fastener suppliers lead time and assume they can fill any order we want in an mpossible time - wait, no, they can't. Arse. Let's use off the shelf non-aviation grade fasteners then and replace them before the plane flies! Oops, that just cost us months of extra work....).

    The side of body issues were a Boeing design fault.

    The electrical panel fire was a Boeing design issue.

    None of the issues the aircraft has thus far seen has been the result of a part that was outsourced when before it hadn't.

    Spirit builds the entire 737 fuselage as an outsourced process, no issues there...

    Thousands of suppliers provide major components of the 777, no issues there.