ZA001 Decommissioned Today

Blue Punto

ZA001 Departed KBFI at 09:02 PST

Destination Palmdale for Long term storage until a museum space is found for it.
Sad that this aircraft that only first flew on Dec 15th 2009 is being retired from service but Boeing must have their reasons as the crew who flew her into Shannon new then she would be retired shortly

ZA001 by niallsaviation, on Flickr

N7777G

in case someone asks!!

ZA001 is the prototype Boeing 787 Dreamliner

http://flic.kr/p/aeGwXY

radar0976

Footage of her departing Shannon on August 19th

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BAbCYKkzEIc

Delancey

Why on earth is she being retired after less than 2 years service ??

Agent P

From what I have read the reason she is being retired instead of going to ANA is due to the amount of times she has been assembled and disassembled.

Blue Punto

Delancey wrote: »

Why on earth is she being retired after less than 2 years service ??

With the 787 now in service ZA001 would have a limited use for future 787 production. This aircraft has had many modifications done to it while being certified and had the wing root structure rebuilt too before certification was obtained . Originally it was destined to go to ANA but that has changed numerous times over the last few years due too delays with the program . Indeed the first 5/6 line aircraft are now not going to operators but staying with Boeing.
ZA003 is closer to the production model 787 and was recently painted in Dreamliner colour scheme do I'm presuming this aircraft will take over from it ,
But I'm sure they could have found use for it as an engine / avionics tested

But I'm sure they know better

Fishtits

Yes Boeing know the answer.

Usually prototypes are kept as research mules, I guess this one is a cripple for one reason or another...

Stovepipe

It's the Mark 1. Never buy the Mk. 1 of anything:)

regards
Stovepipe

guerito

Don't Airbus keep the MSN 001 of each model for R&D?

Plowman

This post has been deleted.

Turbulent Bill

Wild guess, but lots of certification programmes are designed to be performed in parallel on multiple examples of a product - the 'damage' from one test isn't supposed to impact on any other. Depending on Boeing's schedule they could have used ZA001 for multiple back-to-back tests to save time, hence it's had a hard life and couldn't reused it with confidence.

Stinicker

What happened to those "Airbus A380" prototypes Airbus were showing off all over the place a few years back, I recall they crashed one of them into a hangar at the Paris Airshow? But presumably they had more than one built!

Stovepipe

Hi all,
A lot of the time, non-revenue airframes are kept active for engine tests, undercarriage tests, NDT tests, approval of new avionics, crew training, demonstrations of new interiors and a myriad of other engineering and production tests. You could look at the amount of 747s that have become test and experimental airframes (which shows the absolute beauty of the US's "Experimental" system) for Nasa and other research facilities. On the military side, for example, I read somewhere that when the Tornado programme was getting up and running, they had between 40 and sixty airframes dedicated to test and research over the total combined fleets of all users. I don't think this first 787 will become beancans any time soon.

regards
Stovepipe

Tenger

Stinicker wrote: »

What happened to those "Airbus A380" prototypes Airbus were showing off all over the place a few years back, I recall they crashed one of them into a hangar at the Paris Airshow? But presumably they had more than one built!

I think they have kept 2 for testing. Currently one has the proposed A350 engine in the no.2 position for testing.

The first few A380 were overweight but the cutomers who got them got monetary compensation.


In the B787 case I think they aircraft were put through a much more intensive testing schedule, (not that any other Airbus/Boeing new build get any less than that) also ZA001 was taken apart a few times. Boeing had to cram a lot of testing to try make up some of the delays they encountered. So I think the stress on that unit was too much to deliver to a customer.

radar0976

Stinicker wrote: »

What happened to those "Airbus A380" prototypes Airbus were showing off all over the place a few years back, I recall they crashed one of them into a hangar at the Paris Airshow? But presumably they had more than one built!

One of them was refurbished and delivered to Emirates.

This aircraft was one of the original A380 test aircraft (Test Reg : F-WWEA) used by Airbus and was subsequently refurbished before being delivered to Emirates on 7th June 2010.

Here she is in Heathrow in June of this year.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5J6litqY1J8