Boeing's 787 Dreamliner Has Taken Its Battery Certification Flight

Daniel_Stuckey writes "Boeing just flew the flight it needed to certify the improved battery housing on its 787 Dreamliner, whose battery woes have marred the next generation plane's launch. Here is Flight Aware's live data map, showing the path of BOE272, the test flight from Friday afternoon. On Thursday, Bloomberg reported that the 787's recertification flight was pending. A Boeing news release stated yesterday that the '...flight departed from Paine Field in Everett, Wash. at 10:39 a.m. Pacific with a crew of 11 onboard, including two representatives from the FAA. The airplane flew for 1 hours and 49 minutes, landing back at Paine Field at 12:28 p.m. Pacific.'"

I wont be a guinea pig

[JoeyRox]

Anybody who's followed the travails of the 787 knows that Boeing still hasn't root caused the issue. Aside from better separation of cells, nothing has been done to prevent future batteries from failing and melting. There is a backup battery, and a Ram Air Turbine for critical flight control, but considering how poorly engineered and conceived the battery system has turned out to be I don't trust the general engineering of the plane.

Re:I wont be a guinea pig

[WindBourne]

Give me a break. The plane is solid. And as to this battery, it is in a strong case that vents to the outside. If you are up in the air, then it will go out on its own. If down by the ground, not a problem.

Any real issues with this plane has been the fact that Boeing did NOT build it themselves. .Sadly, they allowed their board to be composed of others outside of the aviation industry, who were more business idiots than engineers.
Regardless, I trust the craft, but think that it was expensive. Hopefully, next time, Boeing will revert back to how they do things.

Re:No way!

[amiga3D]

No one has a perfect record but generally American workers have a better record. One thing that helps is that if you screw something up then 7 or 8 years down the road it causes a problem it will come back on you. They keep records of work done that is stamped by journeymen mechanics and that record stays for the life of the aircraft. Generally with overseas contractors your chance of actually putting the mechanic responsible in jail is nil. I do depot level work and I know that I and my fellow mechanics obsess over safety to the point that it often causes clashes with supervisors who push for speed. I've seen multiple times that a mechanic refused to stamp something because he didn't feel comfortable with it and no amount of pressure would persuade them to do it. Many is the time is that I've heard "It's my fucking stamp and I'm not going to jail for your ass!"