Recently in Boeing 787 EIS Category

All Nippon Airways has grounded five Boeing 787s powered by Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engine. Ground endurance tests by R-R showed the engine could be damaged by crown gears that corroded faster than expected. (Click here to read the full story posted earlier this morning by Flightglobal's Singapore office.)

R-R selected Hamilton Sundstrand nearly eight years ago to provide the Trent 1000 gearbox system, which was the supplier's first such placement on an R-R engine. On the rival General Electric GEnx-1B, which is not affected by the ANA grounding, Italy's Avio supplies the gearbox.

The 787 gearbox is a unique specimen. Boeing chose a "more electric aircraft" architecture, replacing bleed air-sourced pneumatic power for cabin air conditioning and wing de-icing with electric power. The same generator is also integrated with the gearbox and is used to start the engine. A recent Hamilton Sundstrand patent application for an integrated gearbox and air turbine starter illustrates the concept.



The ANA grounding appears to be unrelated to the more-electric aspects of the gearbox that are unique to the 787. R-R has instead pointed the finger at Hamilton Sundstrand's manufacturing process. Hamilton Sundstrand has confirmed it is "of course aware of the issue", and is working with R-R and Boeing to resolve it. 

I'm back stateside recovering from jetlag after last week's five day tour of Asia, and I've decided to start Movie Monday a bit earlier than usual. Typically I post Movie Monday around 6:30 AM ET, but as it's just a few hours into Monday in Tokyo and Hong Kong, it was only right to post a bit a head of schedule. Today's Movie Monday is also the second installment (see the first) of the 787's entry into service. Running just over 12 minutes, we take you through the day and on board JA801A for All Nippon Airways first commercial service, it's special charter to Hong Kong. Another post will follow later this week covering observations and impressions from the new jet. Enjoy!

HONG KONG -- Safe to say my body clock has no clue which way is up at the moment, but before I retire for the night, I wanted to make sure the photos from today's flight were shared. The video blog will follow tomorrow (most likely) but this set of 144 should give you a still sense of what the day was during today's All Nippon's first 787 flight from Tokyo to Hong Kong.