Model Airplanes

By Tim Hepher

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Boeing Co BA.N has scrambled to reorganize testing of its new 777X to avoid being delayed by engine snags, while robots and mechanics are starting work on the fuselage, the executive who heads efforts to build the world’s largest twin-engined jet said in an interview.

Engine supplier General Electric GE.N began flight trials of its new GE9X jet engine on Tuesday after a three-month delay caused mainly by a problem in its compressor. But to put the engine development back on track it must build a new component.

During that time, Boeing will place two temporary engines on the first flight-test aircraft that is gradually beginning to take shape, starting with its lightweight carbon wings and now the fuselage, which Boeing says is on schedule.

The engines, identical in every other respect to the ones that will go into service, will be swapped for fresh ones with the new part before the first 777X carries out its maiden flight next year. The temporary engines will not be fired up, but having them in place will allow other tests to go ahead.

“Honestly, when this happened I thought ‘this is going to be bad’ and we just kept grinding and grinding at it, and we came up with some pretty creative things to test where we could, build where we

Article source: https://finance.yahoo.com/news/boeing-moves-keep-777x-track-engine-snag-213332871--finance.html

By Tim Hepher

SEATTLE (Reuters) – Boeing Co has scrambled to reorganize testing of its new 777X to avoid being delayed by engine snags, while robots and mechanics are starting work on the fuselage, the executive who heads efforts to build the world’s largest twin-engined jet said in an interview.

Engine supplier General Electric began flight trials of its new GE9X jet engine on Tuesday after a three-month delay caused mainly by a problem in its compressor. But to put the engine development back on track it must build a new component.

During that time, Boeing will place two temporary engines on the first flight-test aircraft that is gradually beginning to take shape, starting with its lightweight carbon wings and now the fuselage, which Boeing says is on schedule.

The engines, identical in every other respect to the ones that will go into service, will be swapped for fresh ones with the new part before the first 777X carries out its maiden flight next year. The temporary engines will not be fired up, but having them in place will allow other tests to go ahead.

“Honestly, when this happened I thought ‘this is going to be bad’ and we just kept grinding and grinding at it, and we came up with some pretty creative things to test where we could, build where we could,” 777X Vice President and General Manager Eric Lindblad told Reuters.

“To put engines on and then take them off – that is all to protect the schedule,” Lindblad said.

The hurried

Article source: http://kfgo.com/news/articles/2018/mar/16/boeing-moves-to-keep-777x-on-track-after-engine-snag/

DUBAI (Reuters) – All 65 passengers and crew were feared dead in a plane crash in central Iran on Sunday after the domestic flight came down in bad weather in a mountainous region.

A spokesman for Iranian carrier Aseman Airlines had told state television everyone was killed, but the airline then issued a statement saying it could not reach the crash site and could not “accurately and definitely confirm” everyone died.

The airline had also initially said 60 passengers and six crew were on board the twin-engined turboprop ATR 72 that was flying to the southwestern city of Yasuj. But it later said there were a total of 65 people on board, as one passenger had missed the flight.

The Aseman-operated plane crashed near the town of Semirom after taking off from Tehran’s Mehrabad airport, emergency services spokesman Mojtaba Khaledi told ISNA news agency.

As night approached, bad weather prevented helicopters searching the probable crash site but emergency workers were scouring the mountainous area by land, the television said.

“It is getting colder and darker and still no sign of the plane,” said a television reporter accompanying rescue teams searching snow-covered areas in Mount Dena which has more than 40 peaks higher than 4,000 meters (13,000 feet).

Media reports said the plane disappeared from radar screens 50 minutes after taking off from Mehrabad airport in the southwest of the capital. It mainly handles domestic flights.

Worried relatives of passengers gathered at Yasuj

Article source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-iran-airplane/all-65-passengers-crew-feared-dead-in-iranian-plane-crash-idUSKCN1G207I

(Reuters) – Boeing Co (BA.N) is doubling down on its landmark new strategy designed to muscle in on the business of maintenance providers by making its next jet the laboratory for in-house services that could radically alter the global business model for selling planes.

Unlike Boeing’s last all-new design, the 787 Dreamliner, its proposed new mid-market plane will not bring a flood of revolutionary technical designs to the drawing board.

But it will give the world’s largest plane maker a chance to test its new business approach of designing the plane so that it generates lucrative services revenues for Boeing while also offering efficiencies to airlines over the aircraft’s decades-long lifespan.

Along with production costs, the new approach could help Boeing decide whether to invest the $15 billion or more in development needed to build the jet.

“If we decide to launch, it’s a big investment and it’s an investment that has to contemplate not only the product itself but all of our other strategic objectives,” Chairman and Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg told Reuters.

“So you can imagine we would want to look at this airplane through the lens of lifecycle value as we are growing our services business,” he said.

Until recently, Boeing and Europe’s Airbus (AIR.PA) sold planes with little involvement in the way they were operated and maintained. Instead, that was work carried out by their own suppliers or third-party shops.

Heavy outsourcing on jets like the

Article source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-boeing-strategy/new-boeing-jet-to-accelerate-services-shake-up-idUSKCN1GP0DD