Boeing has released a new testing and production schedule for its 787 jet program, which is now two years behind schedule. The 787’s first flight will happen by the end of this year and deliveries will begin in late 2010, but investors are skeptical the company will stick to that timeline, the Seattle Times reported. The latest delays, announced in June, came when engineers discovered weaknesses in the joints that connect the wings with the fuselage. The first three test planes have been so extensively modified to correct those flaws that customers don’t want to buy them once flight tests are complete, so Boeing is taking a $2.5 billion loss on those aircraft. The losses will climb higher as some airlines will seek compensation for the delays. All Nippon Airways, the Dreamliner’s first customer, has said it will seek an unspecified amount from Boeing, likely in the form of discounts on new planes. ANA has ordered 55 Dreamliners and was once slated to start getting them in late 2008, Bloomberg reported. Because of the delays, it ordered several Boeing 767s instead. Other airlines may also follow suit, and 75 orders for the 787 have been cancelled this year, leaving Boeing with what remains a record 850 orders for the plane. To help it speed up production once the plane gets off the ground, Boeing may convert a facility it recently purchased in South Carolina. That plant, which was previously owned by a company that made the 787’s rear fuselage assembly, would be the first such final assembly facility outside of the Seattle region. Washington state is also vying to have a second Dreamliner final assembly line located there, and Boeing has not yet made its decision.

The problems with the joints where the carbon-fiber wings meet the fuselage on the new Boeing 787 Dreamliner will take longer to fix and are more serious than originally thought. During ground-based stress tests, engineers noticed that the I-beam shaped stringers inside the wing were compressing when the wings flexed up, causing the skin of the wing to peel apart in places, the Seattle Times reported. Those problems emerged just past the plane’s limit load, the stresses it might encounter in flight. Previously, those issues had been reported as happening only close to the ultimate load, which is far beyond what aircraft would encounter while flying. Because of how the center wing box is designed, the stress was being transferred to the stringers inside the wing box, causing them to compress as well. While the wing delamination problem wouldn’t be dangerous at first, it could require costly regular maintenance for airlines. The fix, Boeing’s engineers say, will require reshaping parts of the stringers in the wings and in the center wing box, as well as adding new bolts. Boeing said it will release an updated testing and delivery schedule in the next two months.

Problems that Boeing engineers discovered last month with how the 787’s wings attach to the fuselage are taking longer to work out and could delay first flight for months. When company officials first announced the problem, they hedged on how long it would take but emphasized it affected a small area where the top wing stringers meet the center wing box, the Seattle Times reported. But the problem is more serious. As the wings flexed upward in tests, the I-beam shaped stringers inside the wing compressed, causing the top layers of carbon fiber skin to separate from each other. The solution, at least in the test planes that have already been built, will take time because workers will have to partially disassemble the wings, carve a U-shaped piece out of the ends of the stringers to relieve the tension and then secure additional bolts to reinforce the area. Boeing will have to put the wings through stress testing again after applying the fix, and could have to do more engineering work on the issue. That means first flight could be delayed six months or longer.

New information released last week into a December accident in which a Continental Airlines flight skidded off a runway at Denver as it tried to take off indicates that winds may have been a factor. The flight crew said they were unable to keep the plane centered on the runway, even with full rudder deflection, the Denver Post reported. While a nose wheel steering cable was found broken after the accident, the National Transportation Safety Board hasn’t said yet whether that was a factor. The crosswind component at the time was 25 knots. While the Boeing 737-500 involved in the accident has a demonstrated crosswind component of 35 knots, the maximum crosswind for a plane with the winglets installed, as that one did, is just 22 knots. The records released last week include transcripts of air traffic control communications, as well as maintenance logs, interview notes and weather information. Just 26 minutes after the crash, first responders told the tower controllers that everyone had gotten off the plane. “Two sweeps through the plane, 105 people and crew … I have no word of casualties at all,” a person in an airport operations vehicle said. Several transmissions later, the controller in charge responded, “Man, you made my day, you made my day.”

Federal investigators have not yet come up with an explanation for how a football-size hole ruptured in the top of a Southwest Airlines Boeing 737-500 fuselage during a flight last week. There were no injuries when a portion of the fuselage opened up, rapidly decompressing the cabin and forcing the plane, traveling from Nashville to Baltimore, to make an emergency landing in West Virginia, ABC News reported. Investigators cut out the damaged section of the fuselage – an area measuring about two feet on each side – to inspect the aluminum, but did not note any obvious signs of fatigue or corrosion. The 15-year-old jet has logged about 42,000 cycles. Following the emergency landing, Southwest inspected all of its 500-series 737s overnight, but did not find problems with any of them. Continental Airlines, which also flies a handful of that model, inspected its planes as well.

An electrical short-circuit ignited oxygen hoses on a cargo plane that caught fire on the ground at San Francisco International Airport last year. The ABX Boeing 767, bound for Ohio, was loaded and was about to be started when the fire broke out behind the cockpit, burning a large hole in the top of the fuselage, the NTSB said in a news release. The hose at the source of the fire had a metal spring that heated up when a wire shorted and sent an electrical current through the spring. That caused the plastic hose to catch fire, which grew quickly as there was plenty of oxygen to support it. Had the fire ignited in flight, the outcome could have been “catastrophic,” the NTSB said. While that particular plane’s oxygen system had ongoing problems with leaks, that was not a factor in the fire, the NTSB said. Conductive oxygen hoses should be replaced with hoses that don’t have metal parts, the NTSB said, urging that the oxygen systems in all transport-category aircraft be inspected to make sure hoses are properly insulated from nearby electrical wires.

The discovery of weak sections of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner where the wings join the fuselage is delaying flight tests and deliveries indefinitely while engineers design a fix. Boeing announced the delay, but would not say how long it would be, in a news release this morning. In a conference call with investors and reporters this morning, officials from Boeing said they discovered the weaknesses in 36 small areas, 18 on each side of the fuselage, where the upper wing joins the fuselage. Ground-based static stress tests that didn’t agree with computer models first tipped off engineers to the problem last month. “We are talking about a one- or two-square-inch area along that upper wing join area in multiple areas,” said Scott Fancher, the general manager of the 787 program. “This is not a problem that extends out the wings or into the aircraft.” The areas include titanium, aluminum and carbon fiber parts, but officials would not say whether the problems involved delaminating carbon fiber layers. The solution will include tweaking the wings, made by Mitsubishi, as well as Fuji’s center fuselage section. While Boeing called the problem a “small scope issue,” the company said it would be several weeks before it knows how long flight tests and deliveries will be delayed. First flight had been expected this month.

Last week’s Paris Air Show gave Airbus a chance to gloat on several fronts, as it tallied 58 firm aircraft orders for the week – well beyond the two firm orders Boeing pull in but less than a quarter of last year’s tally for Airbus at Farnborough, England. And Airbus said it remains in a strong position to bid on the U.S. Air Force’s forthcoming midair refueling tanker contract, the London Telegraph reported. Airbus plans to again offer a modified A330, which would be built in Alabama. Boeing said it would give the Air Force a choice of a modified 767 or larger 777. The latter would likely be more expensive, but would be able to hold more fuel and cargo than the A330. Last fall, the Air Force withdrew the contract after awarding it to Airbus, when the Department of Defense found that Boeing had been unfairly penalized in scoring the competing offerings. But Airbus remains confident it will prevail again in a contract that could mean $35 billion of revenue for one of the companies in the coming years.

Though two companies have modified versions of a DC-10 and a Boeing 747 ready to fight fires, the U.S. Forest Service has been reluctant to let its money be spent hiring such large equipment. The companies flying those planes are hoping for that to change now that a 400-page NASA study says the aircraft are suitable for fighting fires in flat and hilly areas, the Associated Press reported. The NASA study cautioned the planes shouldn’t be used in rugged, mountainous terrain, though, because they’re less maneuverable than the smaller planes currently used in aerial attacks. The operators of the DC-10 say it has been used in rugged areas of California safety by requiring pilots to fly 300 feet above ground level. A smaller lead plane typically flies ahead of the DC-10 to determine how stable the air is and whether there are any downdrafts in the vicinity. The DC-10, which has flown 245 missions fighting fires on a contract with the state of California, can drop 12,000 gallons of water or retardant at once, ten times the capacity of a conventional air tanker. But because the U.S. Forest Service picks up the tab on many forest fire efforts, the plane can’t be used outside of California where the Forest Service money would be paying for it. The 747, operated by an Oregon company, has been tested but not used fighting actual fires. It has a 24,000 gallon capacity. One big benefit of large air tankers is that they can drop a long and thick line of retardant along a ridge in one pass to stop a fire’s advance.

The National Transportation Safety Board wants Boeing 777s flying with Rolls-Royce engines to get new heat exchangers to reduce the risk of in-flight engine failures. a href=”http://ntsb.gov/Pressrel/2009/090311.html”>The urgent recommendation last week comes amid the review of a 777 crash just before landing at London Heathrow in January 2008 in which both engines failed and could not be restarted. In another incident in November, a Delta flight from Shanghai to Atlanta lost one of its engines; the flight crew was able to restart the engine and continue the flight after descending. The NTSB says the common culprit in those incidents is a fuel-oil heat exchanger that’s prone to icing, cutting off the fuel flow, in very cold conditions. New engine restart procedures developed by Rolls-Royce are an adequate stopgap but increase pilot workload too much, the NTSB says. Rolls-Royce is already working on redesigning the heat exchanger, but it may not be certified for another year. The NTSB wants all 777s with Rolls-Royce engines to have that part replaced within six months of certification.