ZA001 - Registration: N787BA - Serial No: 40690 - Final Assembly: 5/16/07At 10 AM on December 15, 2009, chief pilot Mike Carriker, joined by engineering pilot Randy Neville, will push the throttle levels on the first 787 full forward and rocket down Runway 32L at Paine Field in Everett, Washington, marking the commencement of Boeing's flight test program that sets the new composite aircraft on the path toward first delivery late next year.
That first flight is expected to last between three to five hours and land at Boeing Field just south of Seattle, home of the company's flight test center. Throughout the flight test program, Dreamliner One or ZA001 will primarily be used for aerodynamic validation of the aircraft's structure to ensure proper functionality of the flight controls and landing gear, brakes and hydraulic systems.
Early on in the flight test test program that is expected to last a total of 3100 flight and 3160 ground test hours, a small group of pilots will support the most rigorous initial airworthiness testing spread across Boeing Field, Moses Lake, Washington and Glasgow, Montana.
Early in the flight test program, ZA001 - a fully instrumented aircraft - will work to safely expand its flight envelope to work out any unknowns in the handling of the aircraft. Flying the aircraft at different air loads, speeds, altitudes and weights will open the operating range of the aircraft to eliminate the risk of flutter by seeking out vibrations that could damage the aircraft under the wrong conditions.
Early tests will also establish the basic airworthiness of the aircraft by validating the control harmony of the airplane, ensuring the control repsonses are correct, and ultimately seeing that the aircraft is behaving as expected. The aircraft will also conduct in-flight shutdowns and start ups of the Trent 1000 engines.
Following flutter testing, Boeing will begin phase one of low-speed stability and control (S&C) testing and validation of the primary flight control system. Early in phase one, ZA001 will work to expand the lower part of the flight envelope by conducting stall tests at various gross weights. The goal of phase one is to establish the firm configuration of the aircraft before entering into the certification campaign.
After the firm configuration is established about two months into the test program, ZA001 will undergo an FAA Type Inspection Authorization (TIA) officially commencing the flight test certification campaign. All the testing done in the first two months builds to this point when the FAA will begin flying along with Boeing test pilots to certify the aircraft. At that point, the FAA will be invited on board to begin formal certification of the aircraft.
Early in the flight test program, ZA001 - a fully instrumented aircraft - will work to safely expand its flight envelope to work out any unknowns in the handling of the aircraft. Flying the aircraft at different air loads, speeds, altitudes and weights will open the operating range of the aircraft to eliminate the risk of flutter by seeking out vibrations that could damage the aircraft under the wrong conditions.
Early tests will also establish the basic airworthiness of the aircraft by validating the control harmony of the airplane, ensuring the control repsonses are correct, and ultimately seeing that the aircraft is behaving as expected. The aircraft will also conduct in-flight shutdowns and start ups of the Trent 1000 engines.
Following flutter testing, Boeing will begin phase one of low-speed stability and control (S&C) testing and validation of the primary flight control system. Early in phase one, ZA001 will work to expand the lower part of the flight envelope by conducting stall tests at various gross weights. The goal of phase one is to establish the firm configuration of the aircraft before entering into the certification campaign.
After the firm configuration is established about two months into the test program, ZA001 will undergo an FAA Type Inspection Authorization (TIA) officially commencing the flight test certification campaign. All the testing done in the first two months builds to this point when the FAA will begin flying along with Boeing test pilots to certify the aircraft. At that point, the FAA will be invited on board to begin formal certification of the aircraft.
After the TIA, the aircraft will conduct high speed S&C testing, further proving the handing of the aircraft and the primary flight control system, followed by exploration of the VMC (velocity for minimum control) speeds that test the handling of the aircraft in takeoff configuration in the event of a engine failure on the ground or in the air.
ZA001 will then go into a planned layup to have its Trent 1000 engines swapped before moving into low speed aerodynamic validation and certification trials to demonstrate the low-speed handling characteristics to the FAA.
The aircraft will then fly to Edwards Air Force Base in Southern California to conduct take off and landing validation and certification. Edwards Air Force Base allows ZA001 to have a lot of margin along the massive dry lake bed runways at the airport.
Midway through ZA001's flight test campaign, the aircraft will be taken out of flight test for a planned layup to be fitted with ice shapes to simulate icing accumulation on the aircraft. In the past, Boeing would have had to seek out natural icing conditions. The shapes, made of foam epoxy, are attached with glue and speed tape to simulate the worst case icing conditions.
After ice shapes certification testing, ZA001 will return to Edwards Air Force Base, followed by Roswell, New Mexico for aerodynamic braking certification, followed by a return to Puget Sound and miscellaneous validation testing, additional S&C tests, as well as customer airline pilot demos.
The final phases of ZA001's certification campaign will certify the stability & control of the aircraft, hydraulic system, as well as the actuation of the main landing gear. The last phase will focus on feeding the collected data back into the simulator to replicate the primary flight control system of the aircraft as accurately as possible.
It has not been disclosed which 787 will conduct cold weather testing that will take the aircraft to Norway or Iceland, but the aircraft will be initially certified to -35 F and as low as -55 F for Air Transport Canada, a requirement for 787 customer Air Canada.
Boeing will flight test ZA001 about five hours each day, with the remaining hours in a day being used for data analysis, maintenance and preparations for the following day's testing.
...and no, a barrel roll over Lake Washington is not planned.
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