Boeing Commercial Airplane CEO Jim Albaugh says its 787 programme has 24h of US Federal Aviation Administration certification flight testing remaining, and is expected to complete systems functionality and reliability (F&R) evaluations before 15 August.
"The good news is we only have 24h left in the flight test programme," said Albaugh who was speaking at the Jeffries Aerospace and Defence conference in New York.
"We hope to complete the flight test programme probably sometime this weekend. We think the FAA is going to hold their type [certification] review board next week and we hope to get our ticket - so we can start delivering the 787," he added.
Boeing began 300h of F&R and Extended Operations (ETOPS) testing on 26 June with Airplane Nine, dubbed ZA102, and completed the ETOPS portion testing on 2 August.
The company will first certify the 787 with Package A Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines, and anticipates certification of the 787 with General Electric GEnx-1B engines in the fourth quarter, followed by improvement packages for R-R and GE engines to be certified at a later yet-unspecified date.
Albaugh expects first delivery of the 787, the airframer's eighth aircraft built, to launch customer All Nippon Airways in September.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
