Hot Weather Testing Could Be Applied To Yet-To-Be-Built Larger Airplane

Some of the testing being done on a Boeing 787-9 in Australia to determine how the airplane will deal with extremely hot conditions could be germane to the 787-10, according to Boeing engineers.

The Australian Business Traveler reports that, even though the -10 variant of the Dreamliner is still in the design phase, Lead Flight Test Engineer Dominic Thacker said that they are "actually picking up some -10 testing on this configuration."

Thacker said that some of the systems will be similar enough that the testing will be applicable to the larger variant. "If we can do some of those tests in advance on a similar airplane it helps us downstream and will save us time later," he said.

Boeing's Test Operations Manager for the 787-9 program Ryan Smith said the tests being conducted on the -9 variant are derivatives of tests what were conducted with the -8 Dreamliner. "This is just a subset of what a major model needs to go through," he said. "We've flown the -9 into testing very, very quickly," he said.

The 787-10 will be larger than the -9, and carry 330 or more passengers depending on its configuration, according to Boeing, but it will not have the range of the two smaller models. Boeing says that is balanced by maximizing the seat miles the airplane will be able to fly.

(787-9 image from file)

FMI: www.boeing.com