V-Flyer

I just heard from a friend who works on the engines at Rolls Royce that the 787 is set for another big delay, possibly months on the schedule. The problem is the Rivets arent fitting as expected. Apparently the enginners working on the 787 had to strip down the first test flight a/c back to its components due to the rivet problem

The a/c which was rolled out to the press will not fly for a while as the engines arent real they and inside was pretty empty.

Interesting ... having a look online there certainly is a lot of chatter about more delays eg link. It does seem spectacularly stunning that an ac that rolled out to the press will wait almost a whole year before power on. The gossip says that the marketeers wanted the ac to roll out on 7/8/07. Well they got their roll out, and what they didn't tell everyone was that the plane was a shell held together with temporary fastenings. Saying that, it hasn't half gotten a lot of committed purchases so maybe that was no bad thing.

Yeah i know its amazing. He told me that they wanted the engines but they couldnt produce them in time so they just made the engine shells and the fan blades.

The are 152 and counting replies to a similar thread on Airliners.net on this! (and the thread was only started 3 days ago). link

Funny how all the Airbus bashers who were having a field day when the 380 announced delay after delay have now gone quiet on a.net as Boeing do the same with the 787.

Originally posted by willd
Funny how all the Airbus bashers who were having a field day when the 380 announced delay after delay have now gone quiet on a.net as Boeing do the same with the 787.

And to me this seems a worse failure - the A380 problems are down to a machine that wires the plane not working properly and having to be redesigned with the first 20 frames wired manually - all planes whether hand wired or machine wired will still have the same physical layout. In the case of the 787 it just seems like there's a whole melee of issues overwhelming the programme currently.

I doubt it's any more of a problem than what faced the 747 or Concorde teams. When faced with cutting-edge materials like CF composites there will always be issues like this. What hasn't helped is the marketing suits wanting it rolled on on 07/08/07. Gives the impression it's ready to fly.