Around 9:30 PT last night, ZA001, parked in Stall 105 on Boeing's Everett flight line, restarted its twin Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines. The engines were started left to right and each produced clouds of white smoke as a result of an inhibitor that was stored inside each engine while the aircraft's side-of-body was being modified, says engine-maker Rolls-Royce. The twin-power plants were run for roughly 45 minutes at idle as part of last night's tests. The 787's engines were first started back on May 21, 2009.
Last night was almost certainly the coldest airframe start of a 787 in program's short history of airframe engine runs. The temperature at the time of the start was a chilly 33 degrees F (.5 C) last night, so Boeing now has demonstrated it can start its engines on an average February day at MSP. However, last night's chill in the air is going to look like the Caribbean compared to the -40 degrees F (-40 C) that the 787 is going have endure during cold soak testing!
Video Courtesy of Liz Matzelle.
Recent Comments