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.

A new computer system the FAA says will eventually handle all radar, communications and flight plan information at en route facilities got its first real-world test last week. Controllers at Salt Lake Center switched to the En Route Automation Modernization system for four hours early Thursday morning, handling a total of 170 flights on the new system during that time, the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization reported. While the FAA called the test successful, it also said that engineers will spend the next few weeks addressing unspecified “problem areas.” Prior to the ERAM test, Utah’s congressional delegation wrote letters to the FAA urging the agency to delay the test until several known large bugs were resolved first, the Salt Lake Tribune reported. The rollout of ERAM has been delayed for months at Salt Lake Center and Seattle Center as Lockheed Martin, which developed the program, has tried to iron out problems with the hardware and software. So far in lab tests, it has been unable to run for more than about a day without needing to be reset.

Cirrus on the hook in $16.4M lawsuit after 2003 crash

A jury has awarded the families of two men killed when their Cirrus SR-22 crashed in Minnesota in January 2003 a total of $16.4 million in damages. The families of the men argued in their lawsuit that Cirrus Aircraft and the University of North Dakota provided training that should have made pilot Gary Prokop proficient in his plane and that the SR-22 was marketed as easy to fly, the Minneapolis Star-Tribune reported. But the pilot’s family said he wasn’t proficient in using the plane’s autopilot because Cirrus’ training program was lacking, and that if Prokop knew how to use the autopilot, the crash could have been prevented. The plane crashed after Prokop took off at dusk in marginal VFR conditions and then flew into instrument conditions, the National Transportation Safety Board said in its probable cause report. Prokop had 250 hours of total time, including 19 hours in the SR-22, with almost all of the rest of his flight time in a Cessna 172. While Prokop had 57 hours of instrument time, the transition training program he completed with Cirrus limited him to VFR flight in his new plane. Cirrus has not decided whether it will appeal the jury’s decision.

Reaffirming what many general aviation pilots already knew, a new report from the Homeland Security Department’s inspector general found that general aviation planes don’t pose a security risk and that GA airports are largely secure. The report, conducted at the request of a Texas congresswoman, directly refuted claims in a Houston television station’s report last year that three GA airports were not secure, making it easy for anyone to gain access to planes. The inspector general found that at those three airports, as well as at many other airports, the combined efforts of law enforcement and airport users serve to keep airports secure, often simply because airport users recognize when something is out of place. The report suggests that existing measures are sufficient, but acknowledges the recent opposition from many pilots over the Transportation Security Administration’s plans for GA pilots coming into larger airports to pass background checks. The inspector general’s report ducks taking a position on the expansion of the Large Aircraft Security Program, but notes that it “would push existing security efforts for the largest charter flights down to many smaller aircraft involved in corporate and private aviation.” The report does not make any recommendations to the TSA or other federal agencies.

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.

The FAA is asking all U.S. airlines to take new measures to check out prospective hires and to provide better training. The first round of recommendations emerged after a meeting of government officials, airlines and union representatives last week, the FAA said in a news release. While the FAA wants all airlines to sign on to the changes, for now they’ll be voluntary. The changes would include doing more thorough background checks of new hires to determine not just their performance at other airlines, but any checkride failures or other training problems. And airlines will start looking for ways to bolster their training programs, though it’s too soon to say what specific changes might be made. The meeting last week was spurred in part by the crash of a Colgan Air Bombardier Q400 last winter that killed 50 people in Buffalo, N.Y. The pilots of that plane were fatigued and may not have had enough training in it, an NTSB hearing revealed. The captain had previously failed a checkride that Colgan did not know about, either. In addition to the newly announced voluntary efforts, the FAA has said it will revise mandatory flight time and duty time limits for flight crews.

With 28 flight tests under its belt, Terrafugia’s Transition proof of concept aircraft is retiring as the company considers making some design changes before building a prototype in the coming year. The flight tests so far have been largely successful, though confined to about 200 feet of altitude and always over a runway, keeping the duration of the flights relatively short, the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association reported. The street-legal plane with folding wings has attracted 60 customers who have put down deposits. Deliveries of the $194,000 plane are slated to start in 2011. Terrafugia says the forthcoming prototype will use lighter materials to shave 120 pounds from its gross weight, so that it meets light sport aircraft requirements. Engineers also hope to trim a substantial amount from the proof-of-concept’s 2,000-foot takeoff run. And they’ll be tweaking the Transition’s elevator, which had to be fully deflected upward on takeoff. The prototype is expected to start flying in late 2010.

The most recent round of layoffs at Cessna, announced last week, means that by August, the company will have just half the workforce that it did in November. The additional 1,300 job cuts will affect all divisions of the general aviation manufacturer, the Associated Press reported. Though CEO Jack Pelton said last month that he thought his company was rounding the bend, officials last week said customers are continuing to cancel orders and even if the economy has reached bottom, it will be some time before aircraft production picks up again. Last week’s announcement of more layoffs brings to 8,200 the number of the people cut from Cessna’s payroll since November. In April, Cessna laid off 2,300 people, suspended development of the Columbus large business jet and shuttered its facility in Bend, Ore.

Piper Aircraft’s former president and CEO is resigning from the company and two other executives are being promoted to fill the roles. James Bass, who has been president and CEO since 2003, gave few reasons for stepping aside other than saying that he had met his goals of turning the company around, the Vero Beach Press-Journal reported. His departure comes just five weeks after an American investment firm sold its 100-percent stake in Piper to a Southeast Asian investment firm. Under Bass’ tenure, Piper secured lucrative economic incentives from local government officials and the company launched the piston-powered Matrix. But it also had to lay off some employees and slow production as the economy sunk. Bass’ replacements are Kevin Gould, the company’s vice president of operations, and John Becker, the vice president of engineering. Gould will become CEO and Becker will be president. Becker has worked for Piper for 20 years, where he has most recently been overseeing development of the PiperJet. He also worked on bringing the Meridian, Seneca V and several other models to market. Gould joined Piper in 2005 after a two-year stint as a vice president at the now-defunct Adam Aircraft. Before that, he worked in Boeing’s commercial aircraft division for 12 years.

The FAA needs to work more closely with airlines and manufacturers so that it can speed up implementing ADS-B and other NextGen technologies, FAA Administrator Randy Babbitt said last week. The number of Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast ground stations is growing, with 350 expected to be active by the end of 2010, the FAA’s Air Traffic Organization reported. But the agency needs to work more closely with industry officials to make full implementation a reality. And Babbitt wants to see that happen faster than the current timeline, which calls for the system to be fully active by 2025. While Babbitt called for the need to “collectively design” the system as he spoke at a conference of officials from the airlines, unions, suppliers and advocacy groups — including AOPA – his speech didn’t directly address how general aviation would fit into the NextGen landscape, since the required cockpit equipment remains expensive. Babbitt also didn’t set a new timeline for NextGen, though he pointed to the need for more small changes such as the continuous descents being used at Louisville and the new Required Navigation Procedure approach at Chicago Midway.