Defense/Aerospace Industries

[DewDiligence]

Has the WSJ been tipped off that the Dreamliner will fly next
week? Perhaps. Alternatively, the WSJ could simply be betting
that BA won’t squander the publicity enveloping this event
by scheduling it close to the holidays.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704825504574579940848189448.html

›Long Overdue, Boeing Dreamliner Taxis Toward Its First Test Flight

By PETER SANDERS
DECEMBER 6, 2009, 6:05 P.M. ET

SEATTLE—After more than two years of delays, Boeing Co.'s 787 Dreamliner could make its first test flight as early as next week.

But once the jet takes off from its factory in Everett, Wash., the company faces another high-stakes test: From the moment the Dreamliner is airborne through roughly the next 12 months, Boeing will race the clock to test the new aircraft in high altitudes, subzero temperatures, desert heat and emergency scenarios.

Even a small slip risks further delaying the certification the Dreamliner needs from the Federal Aviation Administration before Boeing can deliver the long-overdue aircraft to customers.

Boeing plans to deliver the first Dreamliner to All Nippon Airways Co. in the fourth quarter of next year. Originally, Boeing hoped to deliver the first jet in May of last year.

To keep the testing on track, Boeing has converted a warren of cubicles on the fifth floor of an office building into a command center where the company will monitor what essentially will be a miniairline of test-flight planes.

With a sweeping view of the tarmac at Boeing Field, in south Seattle, the Test Operations Center will be the heart of an effort that eventually will have six Dreamliners in testing around the globe. The 25 to 50 people at the center, depending on need, will coordinate the jets' schedules and deal with logistical or maintenance problems that might crop up during test flights.

The testing is especially thorny because of the Dreamliner's cutting-edge design. Built mostly from composite materials instead of the typical aluminum, the jet has been advertised as lighter and more fuel-efficient than its predecessors.

But there is still much that isn't known about composites and how they react to the extreme stresses that come in flight. Engineers in May discovered unexpected damage to the composite material where the wing meets the body, one in a series of setbacks to the Dreamliner.

As Boeing engineers spent the subsequent six months repairing the problem, they also dealt with other, smaller issues that cropped up, which Boeing officials have described as routine for aircraft development.

Problems elsewhere in Boeing's commercial-aircraft division have increased pressure on the Test Operations Center. The first test flight of Boeing's 747-8, a revamped version of its iconic 747 jumbo that primarily will be used as a freighter, also has been delayed, likely until mid-January. The Seattle operations center will coordinate the Dreamliner and 747-8 programs simultaneously.

The test programs come as Boeing is culling its test-flight staff by as many as 300 people through layoffs, part of a plan announced in January to reduce the number of jobs at the commercial-aircraft division by 4,500. The Chicago-based company posted a $1.56 billion third-quarter loss, socked in large measure by setbacks in commercial-aircraft operations.

A Boeing spokeswoman said the test-flight programs will be unaffected by the layoffs.

Boeing officials visited operations centers at Southwest Airlines Co., AMR Corp.'s American Airlines and McChord Air Force base in Tacoma, Wash., to see how other operations centers are structured, says John Fennell, a Boeing official. The idea, he says, is not only to fix problems that test flight crews might encounter from the Arctic Circle to the Southern California desert, but also to enable quick fixes to bureaucratic snafus.

The new center marks an effort to streamline what sometimes had been scattered management of test-flight operations for Boeing's various models in development. Even seemingly simple matters like getting deicing trucks or placing safety screens around jet engines used to be a complicated process involving layers of approval.

"In the past," says Janet Muel ler, a Boeing engineer who oversees development and management of the center, "whoever shouted the loudest got things done first."

Now those issues can be solved with a phone call from the operations center or a face-to-face conversation between technicians sitting side-by-side.

"We have an operations center that is a central point of contact for information, problem resolution and communication," Ms. Mueller says.‹