First Boeing 787 Retired

[Garry Russell]

Yep.......you did read that right ...It is the 1st December and not April

The first Boeing 787 (N787BA 40690/1 (ZA001)) is being flown to Palmdale and retired

It will be stored minus engines until a decision on it's fate is made, but it is expected to go to a museum.

[DaveB]

Not sure what to say.. except that I hope the 'in service' aircraft last a bit longer

ATB
DaveB

[FlyTexas]

Oh I'm sure they'll just chop her up and make beer cans out of her. Er, wait a minute...

Brian

[jonesey2k]

At least being a drinks can isn't as bad as being shredded and then incinerated, like all of the Starships...

[Garry Russell]

I would think it's done as much as it can without the latest upgrades and because other aircraft can test things out now it is uneconomic and probably pointless to bring it up to the latest standard.

She is full of high value items and that no doubt as with the engines will serve well elsewhere.

All the basic stuff is done now, it's just a case of further improvement and upgrades.

Still...the first one retired after just two enter service must be a new record.

[Chris Trott]

An A318 was scrapped 18 months after delivery to service (what an abortion of a plane that was. Frontier was really stupid to even sign on for the project and then not demand a refund after they were kicked to 5th fiddle after paying all that money to be the launch customer).

On ZA001 however, remember this was a true prototype. There were a lot of things they were testing with that fuselage especially that they discovered needed changed that couldn't be made with the way it was designed and thus had to be incorporated on later aircraft. That's part of why they had to have so many prototype aircraft. All the computer modelling in the world can't replace old fashioned flight and stress testing with something as new as large scale composite aircraft.

[Garry Russell]

Frontier scrapped two A.318s

But a lot of the aircraft systems were sellable for other Airbus types so there was some part out value.

[Chris Trott]

Not doubting that. I'm sure a lot of ZA001's guts will go to other airplanes, the problem is the structural modifications required (and I believe that fuselage was also involved in the "delamination" issues too) means Boeing can't sell it to a customer and now that the primary flight test program is complete, it's time to retire it, just as RA001 (the first 747) and the 367-80 were when they finished flight test.

[Garry Russell]

Hi Chris

As I posted above I think too that it's not economic to rebuild ZA001 and the parts are of more use

Laker Airways bought the prototype VC 10 and had it rebuilt to airline standard but at the time it was said that it would probably have been cheaper to build a new one.

It had non standard structure and system and all the wiring needed to be replaced etc.

With the 787 most of the value is with the engines and systems. it makes sense to re use that.

This sort have thing has happened with new aircraft that have accidents...a couple of Viscounts for sure.

The damage was quite bad, but possibly repairable, because the aircraft was new they stripped all the good stuff off, made up a kit and sent it back to the line to have the missing bits added..new fuse shell wing shell etc and just run it back down through rather than rebuild the bottom fuse and fit new engines and wings or whatever.

This was the case with G-AOYF that became G-APOX and a 700 that escapes me at the moment but Vickers took back the wreck and sruck it back on the line and delivered it to TCA as a new aircraft. The C/N were new as they were in effect new, but why waste perfectly good parts.

[Garry Russell]

Just checked the fleet listing and Frontier have now scrapped four 318's with another in storage

One 737-600 has been scrapped but at least that served about ten years.