Boeing 787 Dreamliner - Mark Wagner [34]
Definition of the 787-9 stretch, meanwhile, continued as part of attempts to satisfy the interests of Emirates, the influential Dubai-based carrier. “We still have some ‘trade space’ left on the 787-9, which could still change by a seat row or two,” said Bair, who added that size range was 259 passengers in a three-class configuration “plus ten or twenty, but even that’s kind of iffy.” Entry into service for the 787-9 was also provisionally brought forward to the end of 2010 following an important order by Air Canada.
More big-ticket wins were to follow, some strategically vital in the growing war with the Airbus A350 (see chapter 10). In April 2005 news emerged that Northwest Airlines, a major U.S. A330 operator, had selected the 787. Airbus had been optimistic of a breakthrough with Northwest with the A350, since the carrier firmed up additional A330-200/300 options. The carrier also had about sixteen A330-200/300s in service at the time of the decision and had roughly the same number due for delivery by 2007. The defeat was therefore particularly hard on Airbus, which had hoped the high degree of cockpit and systems commonality would provide a better incentive to Northwest.
By June 2005 the 787 was on a firm footing with growing airline interest and on track for firm configuration to be completed around schedule that September. “It’s been gratifying how the world is receiving the Dreamliner” said Walt Gillette, whose title had now grown to be vice president of engineering, manufacturing, and partner alignment. “Now our assignment is to deliver the goods. We have definitive agreements and proposals accepted for 261 aircraft from 21 customers. Of that 261, some 118 are firm, and we have active proposals for around 400 more aircraft out there, and that doesn’t include the possibility of options.”
By now more than eight hundred thousand hours of computing time had been amassed on the Cray supercomputers, while wind tunnel work was about 80 percent complete. Data from this latter work, mostly focused on the 787-8 variant, were used to develop initial flight control system software for the first flight simulators. The final round of wind tunnel work was scheduled for early 2006. “We will go back and do specific tune-up testing for the 787-3 and 787-9. It’s a pretty action-packed schedule, and it’s more like a continuous development,” said Gillette.
Boeing’s extensive wind tunnel test plan for the 7E7/787 covered fifteen thousand hours over three years and covered twenty different “campaigns.” These included four main high-speed tests in the Boeing transonic wind tunnel, five main low-speed test phases, four propulsion-related, and four noise-test campaigns. Powerful computational fluid dynamics design tools helped cut out a lot of preliminary work, reducing the number of final wing designs tested on the 787 to about a dozen, compared to about sixty on the 767.
Boeing set up a sophisticated and comprehensive test facility in the Integrated Aircraft Systems Laboratory for the 787. The “iron bird” at the heart of the integrated test vehicle (ITV) replicated all the flight controls of the real thing. The yellow-and-black-striped wheels in the center of this photograph represent the rudder and the left and right elevators, while to the left are hydraulic and electrically actuated flaps and spoilers. To the right are the horizontal stabilizer trim and minispoiler test rigs. Orange wiring is for test and monitoring, while white wiring is for flight hardware. Mark Wagner
Tests on the composite fuselage sections were also ramping up, with three test barrels completed, including two versions of the original aft fuselage Section 47, plus a constant diameter