有关波音公司的留学生论文由代写留学生论文专家提供资源Boeing Has New Delay for Dreamliner
Of the many problems that have dogged Boeing Co.'s 787 Dreamliner development in the past three years, the wide-body jet's new engines haven't been among them -- until now.
On Friday, Boeing said it would delay delivery of the first production Dreamliner until at least the middle of the first quarter of 2011, citing problems obtaining a new engine from supplier Rolls-Royce Group PLC. Rolls-Royce and General Electric Co. are providing engines for the new carbon-fiber composite commercial jet, which is already two and a half years behind its original schedule.
Neither Boeing nor Rolls-Royce would detail the new requirements for the Rolls Trent 1000 engines. But the changes will delay the date of final certification needed from the Federal Aviation Administration and foreign aviation regulators. Chicago-based Boeing said the delay won't halt its flight testing using existing engines.
"We have been informed by Boeing that the currently planned dates for Trent 1000 engine deliveries will not support their latest flight-test program requirements," a Rolls-Royce spokesman said Friday. "We are working closely with Boeing to expedite delivery in support of their program schedule."
The first Dreamliner customer, All Nippon Airways Co., and other airlines including LOT Polish Airlines and LAN Airlines expect to receive early deliveries using the Rolls engine to power their jets. The engines are sold separately from the plane and are delivered completed to Boeing's 787 final-assembly facility north of Seattle.
On Aug. 2, a Trent 1000 engine undergoing tests at a Rolls-Royce facility in England suffered a major failure that damaged the engine and the testing facility. An FAA spokeswoman said the engine failure was "uncontained," which indicates moving parts of the engine escaped from the protective casing, a rare event in a modern engine.
A person familiar with the details of the incident said that only small amounts of debris escaped from the engine and "minor modifications to the test" area are required.
According to the Rolls-Royce spokesman, "the engine availability issue is unrelated to the test bed event which occurred earlier this month." Boeing officials declined to comment beyond a prepared statement.
Four of the five Dreamliners currently flying in Boeing's test fleet are equipped with the Trent 1000 engines. With the exception of a sensor problem during a test flight in February that required an in-flight engine shutdown and unscheduled landing in Washington, there have been no reported issues with the current Rolls-Royce product. That engine was repaired within two days and the plane resumed its test-flight regimen.
For Boeing, the latest delay was preceded by hints and warnings from top executives over the past six weeks. Just before last month's Farnborough International Airshow, Boeing officials said the delivery schedule could slip from year-end into early 2011, but they gave no specific reasons why. The flight-test program has been running behind schedule since shortly after the plane's first flight on Dec. 15, and executives have acknowledged that the extra time they allotted for unforeseen problems had been quickly used up.
Friday's delay comes as Boeing is still trying to solve a manufacturing problem disclosed in June that involves the quality of work done by Italian supplier Alenia Aeronautica SpA. Boeing said it had discovered flaws on the horizontal stabilizers where they connect to the tail area of the plane. That required inspections on all of the test-flight planes and some of the already-completed production aircraft. As recently as last week, Boeing said it was still dealing with those inspections.
Even after Boeing delivers the first plane to ANA, the bigger issue is its need to then quickly ramp up production of the 787 to three to four planes a month, with an eventual target of 10 planes per month by 2013.
代写留学生论文"Boeing's latest 787 delay comes as no surprise given lack of progress in the flight test program," David Strauss, aerospace analyst at UBS Securities in New York, wrote in a research note. "We believe this delay has to do with availability of Rolls Royce production engines in addition to other supply chain issues that likely yields much lower initial production ramp."
As a result of the delays, Boeing has been forced to pay billions of dollars in penalties and concessions to its customers and has seen some orders lost to European rival Airbus. This week, Boeing disclosed that it had hired an outside firm to help reshape the corporate culture at the commercial-airplanes unit, which has been bedeviled by internal and external communications problems. Separately, on Friday Boeing replaced the program manager of its struggling 747-8 commercial jetliner. The wide-body, twin-deck airplane is also behind schedule and more than $1 billion over budget.
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