Last month, Boeing said it was delaying the first flight of the 787 Dreamliner until some time between mid-November and mid-December. Now it has been put back to the end of the first quarter 2008, with first deliveries at the end of the year.

Are there serious problems which will prevent the plane ever getting off the ground? Will the number of new orders now slow down? Is this good news for Airbus?

Is the Dreamliner a nightmare?

Boeing is still promising on time delivery. They did admit that the flight tests will need some extra time but they are confident that the delivery will be on time.

Assuming that they are doing some "window dressing" and the testing takes some extra time, the worst case scenario is about 3 months.

Far from a nightmare on a totally new design.

Airbus is 3 years behind schedule with the 380.

It looks like 6 month delay:

<i>The Boeing Company [NYSEA] today announced a six-month delay in its planned initial deliveries of the 787 Dreamliner due to continued challenges completing assembly of the first airplanes.

Deliveries of the strong-selling Dreamliner are now slated to begin in late November or December 2008, versus an original target of May 2008. First flight is now anticipated around the end of first quarter 2008.

The company said the financial impact of the delay would not be material to earnings and that its earnings guidance for 2007 and 2008 remained unchanged.

&quot;We are disappointed over the schedule changes that we are announcing today,&quot; said Boeing Chairman, President and Chief Executive Officer Jim McNerney. &quot;Notwithstanding the challenges that we are experiencing in bringing forward this game-changing product, we remain confident in the design of the 787, and in the fundamental innovation and technologies that underpin it.&quot;</i>

http://boeing.com/commercial/787fami...71010d_nr.html

<i>Boeing is still promising on time delivery. They did admit that the flight tests will need some extra time but they are confident that the delivery will be on time.</i>

No, McNerny said today they would be delaying deliveries until November/December next year, around 6 mos. late.

It's still the fastener problem mainly, although some subs and vendors were taken aback by the speed of sales. Learning curves and &quot;just in time&quot; inventory management can cause trouble up and down the supply chain.

As for it being a &quot;nightmare?&quot; As if. You wanna see a nightmare? Go hang out at the ethics hearings, insider-trading proceedings, and annual shareholder meetings at EADS. Now <i>that's</i> nightmarish.

&lt;&lt;Boeing is still promising on time delivery.&gt;&gt;

No, they are not, read Boeing's official release to the NYSE

http://www.boeing.com/news/releases/...71010d_nr.html

&lt;&lt;Assuming that they are doing some &quot;window dressing&quot; and the testing takes some extra time, the worst case scenario is about 3 months.&gt;&gt;

No, you're incorrect again

I don't know where you're getting the information from but i think you should stick to giving out frequent flyer info and how to get from A to B.

Some of your 'facts' are completely bogus

Geordie

beat you to it.....

in my first post I reported what I knew at the time but I did take the time and check news releases and posted it.....

&lt;&lt;beat you to it.....&gt;&gt;

You did, I was actually distracted by doing some 'work' before I posted.

6 months is the best case scenario, Boeing have a lot of hurdles to overcome, not least the plane is overweight and they can't fasten it together, this is before you get into the software and mechanical glitches that will occur.

I wonder how many people realised that when Boeing displayed the plane on 7/8/2007 that it was held together by temporary fasteners and that it had to be dismantled immediately after the event

Geordie

Geordie, perhaps you could chill it with the hyperbole? Aircraft manufacturers assemble and disassemble airframes umpteen times during prototype phases. They also make static copies of all or parts of airframes for destructive testing, as well as swapping parts and doing all sorts of production-line engineering and re-engineering. Part of the process. Delays happen. Contracts managers anticipate them.

Major sub-assemblies are being built for several more planes in the pipeline, and I see various LCFs flying around the sky all the time, full of bits and pieces for the PAE line (or deadheading back to Scotland or South Carolina or Japan...)

<i>Will it ever fly? </i>

Yeah.

&lt;&lt;Geordie, perhaps you could chill it with the hyperbole&gt;&gt;

Which part of my post was hyperbole?

&lt;&lt;Aircraft manufacturers assemble and disassemble airframes umpteen times during prototype phases.&gt;&gt;

Ah that explains it, they were prototyping

Geordie

<i>Which part of my post was hyperbole?</i>

The title, the last line, the rhetorical questions about the plane ever getting off ground, the line about &quot;how many people knew...&quot;

Perhaps we don't agree on definitions. One person's hyperbole is another's literary license I guess.

But more to the point, what's your point? Do you really think the 787 isn't going to fly? Or are you just stirring the pot?

Gardyloo

I think you've been on the turps again, did I write all that!

Perhaps you're getting me mixed up with the OP.

Geordie

Of course, Boeing had some ethics challenges not long ago.

I did and I apologiz/s/e.

<b>Geordie</b>,

I will reply to any post I feel like.

Who are you to tell me what I should/should not post about?

Get a life!

tick tock tick tock

Seems like another delay is to be announced

http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/flightblogger/

and this is before a plane has been built or tested

AAFF - I have a life, I just don't play it out on internet forums

Geordie

Including the three additional 787s ordered by Air Pacific yesterday, there have been a total of 817 Dreamliners ordered by 55 customers.

So the sales department is doing well.

<b>Final Assembly Begins on Another Boeing 787 Dreamliner</b>

<i>Loaded snugly into the first position of the 787 production system, workers in the Everett, Wash.-based factory can now begin joining together the fuselage sections and wings. All major joins take place in this position. While this is the second of six flight-test airplanes, this Dreamliner is actually the fourth on the production line. It follows the two airplanes that will be used for static and fatigue testing.</i>

http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/080215/aqf076.html?.v=21

btw, 857 orders from 56 airlines and counting.....

You can see the assembly stations (all occupied) from the visitor balcony during one of the factory tours offered at Everett. It's really a beautiful airplane, even compared to the occupants of the 777 line adjacent.

As we're coming to the end of the year, I thought I'd top this previous thread.

Maybe some predictions on the first flight or the first built plane

Mine, first shipped aircraft to airline, 1st quarter 2010

Geordie

OOPs
I meant 1st quarter 2011

Geordie