I just flew into SeaTac and the pilot mentioned after deplaning he was headed to Boeing to pick up a new jet for the company.
Strictly by coincidence, I later drove by the Boeing ‘factory’. The doors were open and you could see the planes on the assembly line, as it were.
Thinking about it, surely they don’t just push them out of the hanger and toss the keys to the pilot, right. So I’m wondering how many hours those jets have on them before they turn them over to the customers?
I don’t know the answer. I presume, as you do, that each plane has some kind of proving flight. Never flown a Boeing, but I have flown brand new planes and the hours didn’t seem to be a whole more than the ferry flight. I think I flew a Dash 8 with 20 hours in the logbook. Most of that would’ve been flying from Canada to Australia.
@racer72 works at Boeing, he might know.
Edit: He worked at Boeing.
I am sure someone will come along who knows this stuff. I only know about car production and they don’t get road tested.
Like cars, I suspect that planes get a good deal of quality control testing and at the end, every system gets tested on the ground. So long as no one missed something vital, like bolting a wing on, the thing will fly.
Prototypes get tested extensively and once the design is signed off, they will assume that every plane that rolls off the production line will fly as well as all the others.
I had the same question when touring the Boeing assembly plant. The tour guide said that Boeing will not fly new planes, but the new owner is welcome to test fly them if the want to.
It must be an interesting challenge flying a short-range regional airliner from Canada to Australia! The nominal range of a Q400 is just 1100 nm, and just 924 nm for a Q300. I suppose it might be longer if the plane was completely empty, but still, the flight route must be interesting! I understand that there are such things as ferry tanks that can be temporarily installed to extend the range for such purposes.
This guy flew a Cessna Skymaster from South Carolina to Mount Magnet in Australia’s far Western Desert. “Santa Barbara through Honolulu, Majuro, Marshall Islands and on south to Guadalcanal. 1,000 miles over water across the Coral Sea to Cairns and a long diagonal across all of Australia to Mount Magnet.”
Interesting. No info in the article on additional fuel tanks. “The route was standard—Santa Barbara through Honolulu …”. Yes, well, that’s 2156 nm, whereas the standard Skymaster has a nominal range of 839 nm according to Wikipedia, with standard 92 US gallon tanks (but capable of holding 128 gallons with auxiliary tanks). This thing must have been basically a flying fuel tank to do that leg in one hop…
This is related to Airbus, not Boeing. I was on a flight from London Gatwick to Jersey in a brand new plane. This was the first flight with passengers. The flight was delayed for more than an hour because they couldn’t get the cockpit door to lock properly. So obviously not everything got tested before handover.
Yeah I guess so. I’ve never done it myself, my flight was just an internal leg within Australia after it had arrived in the country and then had some modifications done. A Q300 by the way, with a factory modification of auxiliary wing tanks and an aftermarket modification of internal cabin fuel tanks. With the additional wing tanks it could do 1600 NM and the cabin tanks tanks brought that up to around 2100 NM.
It was this one VH-ZZF Bombardier DHC-8-315MPA, and the route is listed on that website as Downsview - Reykjavik - Bratislava - Heraklion - Abu Dhabi - Male - Padang - Darwin. It then flew to Adelaide and I flew it Adelaide to Broome.
Just seeing what I could quickly see online I found a page on Airbus’ website that mentions ‘flight testing’, specifically before customer acceptance. No mention of how long it’s tested for, but it at least seems like they’re not be passed off without at least getting up in the air. Other than that, again, not doing a real in depth search here, I’m only seeing specific mentions of hours for new models of planes, as opposed to just another plane off the assembly line.
It seems like a lot of the tests can be done on the ground (and in wind tunnels) and so many things are time tested and checked and rechecked as they’re built, they’re not worried about, say, something falling off midflight.
While someone here may very well know the right answer, there’s a number of really good youtube channels run by pilots*, many (all?) of which have message boards or social media pages where they interact with the unwashed masses. It could be a good place to ask.
*Mentour Pilot, Captain Joe and 74 Gear would be good starting points. I believe all three of them currently fly Boeings (and all seem very friendly and receptive to questions).
Maybe things are different in the jumbo world, maybe it’s just too expensive, I can’t say, but every other new Boeing aircraft (fighters, helicopters) gets extensive flight testing. Something always doesn’t work, and the (military, usually) customer hates fixing new aircraft.
Very interesting, thank you! Fascinating to see those route details!
BTW, at one time I used to live not far from Downsview, so for some further trivia: It’s a former World War II military base that is now well within the City of Toronto and the airfield is only ever used for test and ferry flights; until quite recently, that’s where the Dash-8s were manufactured. A vast expanse of that former military base was turned into a park – Downsview Park – and it was where the Rolling Stones (and some other bands) performed a benefit concert as a tribute to Toronto after the SARS epidemic in 2003. I remember the Stones arriving in two (not one, two) chartered 747s for all their equipment and entourage, though they landed at YYZ, not Downsview, which couldn’t hope to accommodate a 747.
I’ve watched all three. Mentour Pilot is my favourite. Learned a lot from him.
Great idea, thanks for the suggestion.
My understanding is a plane is test flown by company pilots until it passes their tests. Then it is handed over to team from the purchasing company and is tested again until it passes their tests. Only then is it accepted by the company.
Believe there is a 747-8I in storage that Lufthansa never accepted
This was actually part of my dad’s job for a while; not from Boeing, but he worked for a regional airline in the U.S. and would pick up new planes in England and ferry them back home. I didn’t get all the details, but I remember him telling me that there was an acceptance flight and inspections that he would perform. There was also a conference call with the head of the airline, the head of the company that made the plane, and someone high-ranking at the bank. And they all went through a well-defined series of steps to transfer the money and ownership of the plane.
When you’re picking up a multi-million dollar airplane, you get treated very well. He happened to mention a rather good ale he had tried and there was a keg of it on the next plane he picked up. I think they took him to a World Cup game once.
The route home was England->Iceland->Newfoundland->etc. The departure from England was midday. Then they’d spend the night in Iceland so the next leg could be flown in daylight. If there were headwinds on the Iceland-to-Newfoundland leg, they’d have to divert to a small airport in Greenland, and the landing fee was really expensive if they came in at night and had to wake everyone up.
Agreed. Captain Joe hasn’t been popping up in my suggestions recently, so it’s been mostly Mentour Pilot and 74 Gear for me. All three are good, all three have different styles, and all three have different accents. They’re all worth checking out.
And, what really goes to show how good they are is that someone like me, not a pilot, not learning to fly, no intention of learning to fly, I only find myself on an airplane once every 10 or 15 years, and yet here I am, watching hour upon hour of the minutia of what a pilot does. I have exactly no practical use for knowing what to do if an engine stops midflight or there’s a cabin depressurization alarm and yet, I keep watching and keep learning.
But that sounds like it’s not the manufacturer doing an initial test flight before allowing the transfer of ownership, but the airline doing a test flight before making the decision. IIRC, I saw a (youtube) documentary from Airbus and I recall them doing that. Once the plane is ready, they call the airline, who sends a pilot and crew (flight only or maybe cabin as well) to take it for a test flight and note any issues they notice. Even just things like squeaky panels or passenger overhead storage doors that pop open on their own.
But that still leaves the question of who is the first person to take the plane off the ground. The manufacturer or the buyer?
He flew BAe146s right? We had to do the flight manual test flight / approval flight procedure whenever they had been in for heavy maintenance. No doubt your dad was very familiar with that process.
I think it was the Avro RJ model, but that may be a distinction without a difference.
Ah yeah. Like the difference between an old model 737 and a new model 737. Same airframe but improved systems and auto-pilot etc.