Third 747-8 Freighter Enters Flight Testing

March 18, 2010

The third Boeing 747-8 Freighter, RC 521, joined the program’s flight-test program yesterday with a successful two-and-a-half-hour maiden mission. Piloted by captains Paul Stemer and Keith Otsuka, the program’s final prototype took off from Paine Field in Everett, Wash., at 3:27 p.m. local time and landed at Boeing Field in Seattle at 5:58 p.m. The airplane...

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NG Aircraft Takes Another Shot at Fokker 100 Revival

March 16, 2010

Long-standing efforts to revive the Fokker 100 regional jet could get a boost from a €20 million ($27 million) loan offered by the Dutch government toward the $120 million, Phase 1 cost of upgrading the original prototype airframe as a proof-of-concept demonstrator with new engines and avionics, additional fuel capacity and winglets. If the Dutch assistance...

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Second Boeing 747-8 Freighter Completes First Flight

March 15, 2010

The second Boeing 747-8 Freighter, RC 522, completed its first flight yesterday evening, the company announced today. The airplane took off from Paine Field in Everett, Wash., at 3:57 p.m. local time and landed at Boeing Field in Seattle at 6:25 p.m.

 

Captained by Kirk Vining and copiloted by Rick Braun, the airplane reached an altitude of 27,000 feet and...

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Fourth 787 Joins Boeing Flight-Test Fleet

March 15, 2010

Boeing has added the fourth 787 to its flight-test fleet with yesterday’s first flight of Dreamliner ZA003. The airplane departed Paine Field in Everett, Wash., at 10:55 a.m. local time and landed at 2:01 p.m. at Boeing Field in Seattle.

Captains Ray Craig and Mike Bryan piloted the airplane on its three-hour, six-minute flight. ZA003 is the final 787 with...

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Boeing 747-8 Freighter Achieves Initial Airworthiness Milestone

March 11, 2010

Boeing has finished initial airworthiness testing on the 747-8 Freighter, the company announced today. The milestone allows test engineers to fly aboard future flights and the remaining pair of test airplanes to begin flight test.

“The airplane is performing as expected in the initial stages of flight test,” said Mo Yahyavi, vice president and 747 program...

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United Signs Firm Order for 25 A350 XWB aircraft

March 10, 2010

United Airlines has signed a firm order for 25 Airbus A350-900 XWBs, formalizing a commitment originally announced last December, the European manufacturer announced today. Plans call for deliveries of the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-powered jets to begin in 2016 and run through 2019.

United also plans to take delivery of 25 Boeing 787s during the same time...

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Airbus To Boost A320 Production in December

March 09, 2010

Airbus plans to increase the monthly production rate for its single-aisle A320 family from the current rate of 34 to 36 starting in December, the company announced today. It also said that the production rate for the long-range A330/A340 family will remain at its current level of eight per month. When Airbus reduced the A320 monthly build rate from 36 to 34...

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Boeing, Turkish Airlines Finalize Order for 20 Next Generation 737s

March 08, 2010

Boeing and Turkish Airlines have finalized an order for ten 737-800s and ten 737-900ERs, the manufacturer announced today. Now flying 66 Boeing airplanes, including 58 Next Generation 737s, Turkish Airlines has yet to take delivery of a 737-900ER. Boeing places the value of the order at $1.6 billion, based on current list prices. The company had already...

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Atlas Air To Fly Boeing Dreamlifters, Replacing Evergreen

March 05, 2010

Boeing has awarded a nine-year contract to Atlas Air for the operation of the manufacturer’s four Dreamlifter cargo haulers starting “toward the latter part of 2010,” spelling the end of Evergreen International Airlines’ three-year stint flying the modified 747-400s. At that time Atlas Air will assume responsibility for delivering major 787 assemblies from...

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Boeing To Close Sydney Plant

March 05, 2010

Boeing plans to close its factory in Bankstown, a suburb of Sydney, Australia, in 2012 and move the work performed there to its plant in the Fisherman’s Bend district of Melbourne, the company announced today. Boeing said it would offer jobs in Melbourne to most of the 350 Bankstown employees affected by the closure, although it added that it expected the...

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ATR 42-600 Completes First Flight

March 04, 2010

The sole ATR 42-600 prototype successfully completed its maiden flight today in Toulouse, France, the Franco-Italian manufacturer announced this afternoon. Powered by a pair of Pratt & Whitney Canada PW127M engines, the aircraft took off at 3 p.m. local time and flew for two hours, marking the start of a flight-test campaign expected to last some 75...

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Bombardier To Open New Regional Support Office in Mumbai

March 03, 2010

Bombardier Aerospace plans to open a new regional-support office (RSO) in Mumbai, India, during this fiscal year’s second quarter, the Canadian manufacturer announced today. Bombardier’s second fiscal quarter runs from May 1 to July 31.

Meant to align the company’s existing commercial and business aircraft support services based in New Delhi, Bangalore and...

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Koito Industries Seat Fraud Not News to Boeing, Airbus

February 26, 2010

Boeing discovered from its field representatives in Japan that Yokohama-based Koito Industries had falsified records related to flammability testing of its aircraft passengers seats more than a year ago, but subsequent tests concluded that no safety “issues” existed, a Boeing spokesperson told AIN. “We started working with Koito last January [2009], and we...

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Bombardier CRJ1000s Back in the Air

February 25, 2010

Flight testing of Bombardier’s new CRJ1000 resumed on February 13, when S/N 19991 took to the air from the company’s Wichita flight-test center, some five months after a second software “glitch” associated with the airplane’s control-by-wire rudder system grounded the program’s two prototypes.

Now flying both of the airplanes from Wichita, Bombardier...

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