Dreamliner on track despite some glitches, 787 chief says

Boeing's 787 Dreamliner is still on track for first flight this fall and delivery in the third quarter of 2009 — but manufacturing issues are cutting into the extra margin Boeing built into the schedule.

At a briefing for the world's press at the Farnborough Air Show Tuesday morning, program chief Pat Shanahan said completing the mid-body sections of Dreamliners No. 1 and 2, now on the assembly line in Everett, is the main issue putting pressure on the schedule for getting the first airplane into the air.

Before No. 1 can fly, No. 2 must be completed because it is used for ground verification tests that are a prerequisite for first flight, he said.

The Dreamliner schedule revised this spring gave him some margin for such issues, "and I've been eating some of that up with completing the mid-body" on No.2, Shanahan said. "I'm eating margin I don't want to eat."

The mid-body of Dreamliner No. 4 is still in Charleston, S.C. and will arrive as much as three weeks later than planned after manufacturing glitches at the Global Aeronautica supplier plant there.

That section was supposed to arrive in Everett, almost complete, by the end of June.

But the upper part of the 85-foot long fuselage section was damaged last month when a mechanic mis-drilled holes. Subsequently, the factory shut down for a day for mandatory training after an audit by the Federal Aviation Administration found that mechanics were not following required procedures.

Global Aeronautica is a 50:50 joint venture between Boeing and Alenia of Italy.

Many of the permanent workers there are new to aerospace manufacturing and the workforce is currently supplemented by contract mechanics from all over the U.S. and from the supplier partners in Italy and Japan.

"The experience level (in Charleston) isn't the same as in Everett," Shanahan said.

He said the main problem has been incomplete work coming into Global Aeronautica from its suppliers. The site lacks the engineering resources that Everett has to deal with the problems that creates, he said.

Shanahan also said that the brake monitoring system identified in May as problematic won't be fixed for some months yet.

The problem is a certification issue: the software that monitors the brakes doesn't have the complete development documentation that's needed to be certified.

"It's not that the brakes don't work," Shanahan reassured his audience jokingly.

The supplier--a unit of GE that has subcontracted the system to Crane Aerospace--"had to go back and rewrite portions to verify the development of the software," he said.

"I am confident, because this is GE, that it will get done," Shanahan added.

He said such problems are typical, and yet unpredictable, in any airplane development program, and shrugged off such inevitable glitches with humor.

For those that are behind on the certification track, "We have after-school detention on Saturday," he said.

After the press conference, Shanahan characterized his trouble-shooting leadership role as "a great game of whack-a-mole."

Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or dgates@seattletimes.com