After delays and fixes, Dreamliner almost ready to roll

Boeing's Dreamliner is nearly ready to come out — again.

Within the next week, one of the huge doors at the Everett plant will open and the first of the new 787 Dreamliners will roll out onto the flight line by the Paine Field runway.

It won't fly until June, but after multiple delays the airplane that briefly left the factory in July two years ago — for a ceremony on 7/8/07 — is at long last within sight of reaching for the sky.

This rollout will not have the pomp and circumstance that surrounded the first: the parade of dozens of brightly dressed flight attendants, the narration by former network newsman Tom Brokaw, the worldwide video simulcast.

But unlike the first rollout, after which the jet was unceremoniously rolled back in so that major pieces of the airframe could be dismantled to fix embarrassing assembly flaws, the innovative airplane should fly within a couple of months.

Ground tests required before the jet can fly are progressing well.

Earlier this week, with Dreamliner No. 1 connected to an external power source, Boeing completed a full simulation on the ground of the jet's first flight. Test pilots in the cockpit exercised all the flight-control hardware and software.

And in the 787 assembly bay Tuesday, Dreamliner No. 2 — resting upon sheets of plywood covering a chicken-wire mesh — successfully completed a test of its ability to withstand the indirect electrical effects of a lightning strike.

The final factory tests are now near.

This weekend, test pilots will activate the landing gear on No. 1. A pit in the factory floor will allow the wheels to swing.

And Dreamliner No. 2 will undergo a required vibration test scheduled to begin Saturday morning. Engineers will position the plane on soft supports and shake it so they can detect any vibration resonance.

Speaking to analysts and the media during a quarterly earnings call Wednesday, a day when the company's financial news was poor, Boeing CEO Jim McNerney was relieved to offer a 787 update.

"In the coming days, airplane number one will move out of the factory to the flight line," McNerney said. "There, it will be fueled and its engines operated prior to doing a final systems check and the high-speed taxi test that lead to first flight."

After the cancellation of orders for 32 Dreamliners and just one new order for eight from Gulf Air this year, the 787 order tally stands at 886. The first delivery is scheduled by next March.

Given the recession and the distress of airlines worldwide, there will inevitably be more cancellations. But McNerney predicted the reduction will be "modest."

Since July 2007, the Dreamliner program has been plagued with problems, mostly traceable to the supply chain. Initially, there were fastener shortages. Then major sections arrived incomplete, forcing constant rework.

But if the jet flies as promised, Boeing can begin to put the nightmare of the past two years behind it.

Tourists or locals taking the Boeing factory tour this past week could catch a glimpse of progress as Dreamliner No. 2 sat at the head of the 787 assembly line, next to the big door.

Unlike the other planes in the line, it was surrounded by a fence to keep stray people away. And plywood sheets were placed beneath the jet, like its shadow on the factory floor.

Terry Beezhold, director of 787 airplane integration, said Wednesday the plywood was under the wheels to prevent electric current from leaking to the ground through the tires during the lightning test.

Chicken wire was draped over crucial parts of the plane — the nose, the tail and so on — to test whether running current through those areas could disrupt the plane's electrical systems.

The chicken wire on the ground provides a return path for the low-level current — between 2 and 10 amps — that Boeing passes through the plane.

Boeing shields the wiring on its jets so currents induced by lightning don't play havoc with vital systems. On a plane like the 787, which is largely composite plastic, the effects will be very different from what's usual on a traditional aluminum airframe.

A direct lightning strike could generate 200,000 amps, Beezhold said, but the engineers can apply the low current results to work out what happens "at the higher threat levels of a lightning strike."

The test "went very well," he said.

Boeing will run a more extensive lightning current test later in the year, before certification by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Once the jet moves outside to the flight line, the pilots can start up its Rolls-Royce engines, and for the first time put it through extensive ground tests under its own power. Eventually the jet will do some slow, then high-speed taxiing.

If all goes well, in June test pilot Mike Carriker will let loose and take off.

Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or dgates@seattletimes.com