Boeing has completed ground effect and flutter testing on the 787, moving it closer to achieving Type Inspection Authorisation.
“We tested at a variety of altitudes, speeds and fuel loads on ZA001,” explained Boeing’s vice president of sales and marketing Randy TInseth in a blog post. “During the testing, we saw altitudes above 43,000ft, dive speeds as high as Mach 0.97, and calibrated airspeeds as high as 405kt.
“The technical team has made an initial assessment of the data and we couldn’t be more pleased with the performance of the 787. The damping was as predicted and the pilots report that the airplane responded as expected.”
Tinseth added that the test data has been submitted to the FAA for validation as part of the type inspection authorisation, which will later see FAA officials join Boeing test engineers for certification testing on the aircraft.
To date the 787 test fleet has flown 118 test flights, accumulating 357 flight hours.
