The world’s largest aircraft with only two engines, the Boeing 777X, made its first maiden flight on Saturday, after long months of delay and capricious weather in recent days.
The aircraft, in blue and white livery and long wings each with a huge reactor, landed at Boeing Field near Seattle after about 4 hours of flight in the sky of Washington State, to the north western United States. “I’ll still be flying if they let me do it,” said Van Chaney, one of the two pilots on board.
First flying due north before heading east, the 777X then made ellipses at just under 15,000 feet above sea level (about 5,000 meters), according to the flight tracker Flightaware, visible on the Boeing site. It was around 10:10 a.m. local time (19:10 p.m. in Switzerland) when the wheels of the aircraft broke off from the runway before the aircraft rushed into the clouds over Paine Field, in Everett, some 50 kilometers to the north of Seattle. This inaugural flight, with only two pilots on board, marks the beginning of a whole battery of flight tests that should lead to the certification of the aircraft.
Wow! # 777XFF pic.twitter.com/dcVvP05Cg9
– elisa hahn (@ElisaTHahn) January 25, 2020
The 737 MAX crisis – the automaker’s flagship aircraft nailed to the ground since March and the death of 346 people – was on everyone’s mind, including that of the director of the commercial division Stan Deal. This flight “is a demonstration to the world that we know what we are doing. We know how to build safe planes and give confidence to the public, ”he said.
The 777X, which can carry 384 to 426 passengers, has an order book of 340 units, mainly from seven major airlines, including Emirates, Lufthansa, Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines and Qatar Airways. It is supposed to compete with the A350 of the European aircraft manufacturer Airbus.
Problems during pressurization tests
The first deliveries are not expected before “early 2021”, instead of mid-2020 as initially planned, because the period of test flights is expected to be extended and the approval procedure deepened. The maiden flight of the 777X was originally scheduled for the summer of 2019, but had to be postponed due to problems with the new GE9X engine, manufactured by General Electric, and difficulties with the wings and software validation.
The aircraft also encountered significant problems during pressurization tests – knowingly exceeding normal operating conditions to ensure the reliability of the equipment – last September. The 777X is supposed to consolidate Boeing’s dominance over Airbus in the long-haul, a position weakened by the imminent reduction in production rates for the 787 “Dreamliner”, due to the lack of firm orders from China.
According to the manufacturer’s website, the 777X has a range of 16,200 to 13,500 kilometers depending on the configuration and the number of passengers on board, and is extremely fuel efficient. A strong argument in these times of “fly shaming” and all-round savings for airlines. It costs between 410 and 442 million dollars at the list price, which is only very indicative and often exaggerated compared to the real price paid by the customers.
Tea # 777XFF coming home … pic.twitter.com/BQ8J1Nzmz5
– elisa hahn (@ElisaTHahn) January 25, 2020
The aircraft manufacturer absolutely needs good news. It is stuck in an unprecedented crisis since the close accident of two 737 MAX in October 2018 and March 2019, which killed 346 people. The ongoing investigations into the causes of the accident have involved software, the MCAS, which was to prevent the aircraft from “stalling”, that is to say falling, in certain flight configurations.
But beyond this system it is a whole culture of neglect, priority to profit before security and dangerously close relations with the American regulator which has been revealed by the hundreds of thousands of documents given by the manufacturer to the investigators.
Loss of around 970 million francs per month
In mid-January, the board of directors appointed David Calhoun, 62, at the helm to replace Dennis Muilenburg sacked for a management deemed calamitous by the MAX crisis. Since then David Calhoun has tried to reassure regulators, employees, airlines and President Donald Trump.
In addition to the serious crisis of confidence which the American manufacturer must face, the MAX affair has an exorbitant cost. The bill currently stands at more than $ 9.2 billion (8.94 billion francs), but analysts expect it to fly. The shortfall is about 1 billion dollars (970 million francs) per month since immobilization, calculate analysts of JPMorgan. (Afp / nxp)
Created: 26.01.2020, 00h02
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