Boeing

A tale of success and hardship for Boeing’s flagship 787.

The FAA on Tuesday approved a plan to test changes to the Boeing 787 Dreamliner’s lithium-ion batteries in a bid to certify a new design and get the grounded airliners back in the air. The Boeing plan includes changes to the internal battery components to minimize the possibility of short-circuiting, which can lead to overheating […]

While the rest of the Boeing 787 fleet remains grounded, the FAA has authorized a one-time crew-only Dreamliner flight to return one of the airplanes from a paint facility in Fort Worth, Texas, to the company’s factory outside Seattle. FAA approval for the flight was given alongside the stipulations that the flight crew take a […]

The NTSB on Thursday said the Boeing 787 Dreamliner battery that caught fire earlier this month in Boston shows evidence of thermal runaway, a serious condition in which an increase in temperature causes progressively hotter temperatures. Still unclear is the question of which occurred first, the thermal runaway or a short circuit in the battery […]

The FAA and EASA have temporarily grounded the U.S. and European fleets of Boeing 787s after a second incident involving a battery fire forced a Dreamliner to make an emergency landing in Japan on Wednesday. The FAA said Boeing would have to demonstrate that the lithium ion batteries involved were safe before 787 flights could […]

A fire broke out aboard an empty Boeing 787 Dreamliner at Boston Logan Airport on Monday after the battery powering the Japan Airlines jet’s auxiliary power unit exploded as the jet sat at the gate. A firefighter suffered minor burns controlling the small fire, which caused heavy smoke in the cabin. The flight had arrived […]

Before I walked through the doors of the museum at Boeing Field in Seattle, I scanned the sharp lines of the B-47 perched just outside. The 1947 vintage bomber had really been the catalyst that heralded the beginning of the U.S. commercial jet age. The concept of swept wings was in its infancy, an engineering […]

The business jet side of Boeing this week announced its intent to offer a new ultra-long-range line of airplanes called BBJ Max. The first offerings will be the BBJ Max 8 and BBJ Max 9, said BBJ President Steven Taylor at a press conference at the NBAA Convention in Orlando, Florida. The new models, he […]

Boeing on Tuesday was preparing to fly its experimental X-51A WaveRider, a scramjet-powered unmanned aircraft that is designed to travel at speeds above Mach 5 burning JP-5 jet fuel. The Air Force planned to transport the aircraft under the wing of a B-52 bomber from Edwards Air Force Base in California to an altitude of […]

The NTSB is investigating a preflight incident over the weekend in which falling debris from a Boeing 787 engine triggered a grass fire at Charleston International Airport in South Carolina. There were no injuries as a result of Saturday’s fire, but analysts are now looking into what caused the GEnx engine failure and whether an […]