Boeing has passed the 1,000th flight mark for its 787 test fleet, as it nears 80% of Rolls-Royce and 60% of General Electirc airframe certification.
ZA004, one of seven test aircraft now flying, completed the 1000th flight on 23 February just after 13:00 local at Yuma International airport in Arizona.
The programme has completed 3,000h of flying since 15 December 2009 covering a distance of more than 1,600,000km (1,000,000 mi).
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"But the bigger deal doesn't have anything to do with the number of flights, miles or hours logged," says Boeing vice president of marketing Randy Tinseth, who sees the completion of 80% of the certification test points on the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000-powered 787 and 60% of the GE GEnx-1B model as the more important metric.
"We're really eager to get this airplane through its flight testing so our customers can see for themselves this airplane's excellent performance," says Capt. Mike Carriker, 787 chief pilot.
Boeing aims to certify and deliver the 787 to Japan's All Nippon Airways in the third quarter.
Source: Air Transport Intelligence news
