Sunday, November 29, 2009

Did the Boeing 787 fail it's first re-test?

If, as reported by a commenter on Aubrey Cohen's SeattlePI blog, the first re-test 'failed,' remember it's a test of the repair - which was a difficult task in the very confined wing root interior, and conceivably was not a perfect repair. The real test is with one of the airframes on which the modification was introduced before wing attachment, when workers had better access to the area where delaminations occured. Of course, regulators might accept results on the basis of computer modeling (a la A380); Boeing would prefer that to having to devote a second airframe to static test - but if the latter passed muster the only problem would remain with the early airframes that involved retrospective modification. Think it not impossible that this all could still end in tears...

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