For those of you who have paid a visit to the Future of Flight museum at Paine Field in Everett, Washington, this large monolithic composite barrel will be quite familiar to you. A few weeks ago, Boeing removed three barrel - a demonstrator of 787 section 47 - from its exhibit in at the museum and relocated back to the factory grounds. It's been rigged up near the 40-41 building and appears to have a vertical stabilizer leading edge now attached to the top of it. I confess to having absolutely no earthly clue as to the purpose of this barrel's reclamation, but it does inspire many many questions? Can anyone shed some light?

Photo Credit Mark Palmer

Boeing has completed the first of three rounds of gauntlet testing on the 747-8F, marking a significant step towards the aircraft's first flight, the company confirms.

RC501's two-day factory gauntlet took place over Wednesday and Thursday and consisted of ground control and autopilot checks, as well as testing of the flight deck and power systems.

Gauntlet testing places the aircraft in a closed loop simulation that 'fools' the aircraft systems into thinking they are flying. The factory gauntlet also represents the first major test of all of the aircraft systems as they operate in unison.

The first 747-8F also flew a simulated reduced B1 first flight profile with dynamics, flight controls and autoflight checks.

The nine-hour "first flight" was flown by Mark Feuerstein, chief project pilot for the 747-8F program and was joined on the flight deck by Captain Sheila Beahm, says Boeing.

RC501 will continue functional testing before rolling out of the factory then heading to the paint shop and fuel dock for first APU start, followed by a move to the flight line for the intermediate gauntlet. The second phase of gauntlet testing will see the first start of the four General Electric GEnx-2B engines under the wings of the new freighter.

After the intermediate gauntlet is complete, the aircraft will move into the final gauntlet systems testing, followed by low and high-speed taxi testing before first flight.

RC501 is expected to take its maiden flight early next year, with first delivery to Cargolux in the fourth quarter of 2010.

Photo Credit Boeing

Late last night, Aviation Week's Guy Norris published a blog post discussing progress on the upcoming A330-200F first flight and the potential for 787 first flight by year's end:

Meanwhile up in Seattle, first flight of the 'other' new twin, the Boeing 787, still remains at least a month away with ZA001 and the other test aircraft in various states of storage and modification, and a re-activation pending structural test results from the side-of-body rework on static airframe ZY997.

Boeing says the installation of the wingfix on ZA001 is not yet complete, and sources say completion on ZA002 is now slightly ahead. There's conflicting information on the next point, which suggests some early steps are being taken to prepare ZA002 for flight ahead of ZA001 if it is ready first, but others indicate that ZA001 is still the prime candidate for 787 first flight.

Boeing continues to reaffirm that the 787 will fly before the end of 2009.

Additional program sources indicate that the installation of the wing fix on ZA001 is tentatively scheduled to be complete just before the middle part of the month. Once ZA001 and/or ZA002 are ready, ZY997 becomes the pacing item for the full-scale validation of the side of body modification.

Mr. Norris followed up with an additional post this afternoon that mapped out the remaining tasks for ZA001 before first flight. His assessment leads to a late-December target for ZA001's first flight. Once the static testing is complete and the fix is validated, Mr. Norris says, ZA001 will begin a three-week pre-flight process of gauntlet tests and other activity.

My sources and Guy's sources both agree: Either way there's a busy December in store for Everett.

Spirit AeroSystems CEO Jeff Turner says his company will deliver 10 787 shipsets to Boeing by the end of 2009. Turner says that six shipsets were delivered to Boeing's Everett, Washington facility in the first half of 2009, with two in October.

To date, Spirit has shipped eight 787 shipsets, including two flight test units and six production barrels. Boeing currently has Airplane 12 in final assembly, with 13 and 14 to follow before year's end. In June, Spirit projected that it would deliver between 10 and 12 shipsets for the mid-size long-range aircraft.

Turner says that Spirit will restart regular composite barrel fabrication later this quarter as it prepares to meet Boeing's 787 production ramp up. Spirit is responsible for the engine pylons, leading edges of the wings and the forward fuselage of the aircraft.

On the flightdeck of the Pratt & Whitney PW4000-powered freighter (MSN 1004) for the 3h 50min flight were Airbus test pilots Philippe Perrin and Martin Scheuermann, accompanied by test-flight engineers Wolfgang Brueggemann, Stephane Vaux and Pascal Verneau.

With just under a day to go before her maiden sortie, the Airbus A330-200F underwent rejected takeoff (RTO) testing at the Toulouse-Blagnac Airport in the south of France. The high-speed taxi tests are part of the final series of check-outs on the new freighter before its scheduled first flight tomorrow morning.

The first A330F (F-WWYE - MSN1004) is now wearing marketing stickers on either side of its windowless fuselage. The left side of the aircraft reads "the right aircraft right now" and the right side reads "Efficient, reliable, profitable".

RTO testing brings the aircraft to just under the takeoff decision speed known as V1. At anytime below the V1 speed, the aircraft is able to safely stop in the remaining length of the runway. The decision speed is determined based on many factors including the length of the runway, weight of the aircraft, thrust rating of the engine, as well as runway and weather conditions.

Airbus will be streaming live video of the A330F's first flight on its website beginning at 8:30 GMT (3:30 AM ET) Thursday morning.

Photo Credit Eurospot

One small item on Airbus.com caught my eye this morning:

First flight of the A330-200F freighter

5 November 2009

Toulouse, France

The A330-200F's first flight is planned for 5 November (weather permitting) from Airbus' Toulouse, France headquarters. This maiden takeoff will mark a key milestone for the cargo version of Airbus' popular A330 jetliner, which is the first new mid-sized freighter to be launched in 40 years. Photos, video and articles from the event will be posted after the first flight.

A little over a week ago, my colleague Mary Kirby and I had a chance to join several industry journalists in an interview with Gary Scott, president of Bombardier commercial aircraft programs.

The small gathering was part of a kickoff to a roadshow Bombardier has begun to market its new narrow-body CSeries aircraft to airlines and lessors. The first stop was New York city to be followed by stops in Europe, Asia and the Middle East.

Our hour-long conversation covered an enormous amount of ground on the future of the CSeries. After being twice burned with the 787 and A380, Scott says that program execution is the number one concern of airlines looking to buy into a new aircraft.

Scott, for the first time, outlined the five-aircraft flight test program that Bombardier has planned for the 100 to 125-seat CS100 which has a planned 2013 EIS. After flight test, all the aircraft, Scott says, will be offered up for sale and likely sold with a discount following refurbishment.

He also discussed emerging competition from China, Brazil and Japan and how a Comac selection of the GTF for the C919 would be an endorsement of the CSeries. Scott also spoke candidly about the Trans States MRJ order which neither Bombardier nor Embraer was invited to bid on.

Bombardier has put a lot of energy into designing the cabin of the CSeries which will include a five-abreast layout and a 1-inch wider middle seat. The overhead bins, Scott says, will enable passengers to carry on more luggage, avoiding baggage fees and reducing ramp baggage loading times for aircraft. The company is also looking distantly down the road to a time when the passenger interior is removed and fitted in VIP configuration to create a new BBJ, or Bombardier Business Jet.

Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, the composite wing of the CSeries was a topic of conversation. Rather than laying down composite tape for the top and bottom wingskins, Bombardier will use resin transfer injection to create the CFRP panels at the company's Belfast unit. The new $520 million facility represents the largest investment in the history of Northern Ireland.

Scott says that Bombardier went back and took a long, hard look at the CSeries wing design after Boeing announced the side-of-body issue with the 787 wing, but ultimately made no changes to its own design as a result. In addition, Scott reaffirmed that both the CS100 and CS300 would have a common 115 foot 1 inch (35.1m) wing design even though the wing is sized for the larger CS300.

Scott's comments came after I asked him whether or not the CS100 was carrying around too much extra weight as a result of the larger wing in comparison to the Embraer E-195. The Brazilian airframer says the CS100 only offers a 2% advantage in cash operating costs over the E-195.

"Yes, we have a bigger wing, but it's optimized for our family and putting a larger wing on does add weight, no doubt about it. Obviously we've offset that with the new materials, as well as the fly-by-wire. That gives us the range that our customers want and that also gives us performance. The CS100 can take off in less than 5,000 feet of runway. It can fly in an out of London City it also can fly in and out of difficult airports...whether it's Jackson Hole or Western China. The Embraer [E-195] can't do any of that, it needs over 7,000 feet of runway to take off. The bigger wing means you can actually carry payload, so at high/hot conditions like in Denver, I'm not sure how many people the E-195 can carry, but it's not many, so they have to start dumping payload in a hurry if they want to fly very far. So the bigger wing...is intended to solve all of those different issues."

Embraer's formal response to Mr. Scott's comments on the E-195:

"While Embraer is not in a position to comment on the strategic positioning its competitors are aiming with their own projects, it is important to note that over  600 Embraer E-Jets have already been delivered to 45 airlines operating in five continents, providing significant benefits in terms of performance, economics and passenger comfort.

E-Jets are flying right now - in 2009,  from challenging airports like Denver and London City, stretching the right-sizing benefit to cities that otherwise could not be served as efficiently and environmentally friendly."

Sometimes you can just tell when you've got an airplane geek in your midst. FlightBlogger reader and proud papa Chris Darringer sent these photos of 23-month old Theo to me this evening of his little guy trick-or-treating.

He writes that Theo "dressed up as a 747-8, performing final gauntlet testing for Halloween.  Like Boeing, I experienced some manufacturing problems with wrinkles in the fuselage and mounting of the wings (which I fixed with the "stringers").  Luckily my plane launched on time this year, though ;)"

Thanks Chris!