BOEING COMPLETES FIRST 787 DREAMLINER ENGINE RUNS

KUALA LUMPUR, May 22 (Bernama) -- Boeing continued to make steady progress toward the first flight of the 787 Dreamliner, completing the first engine runs on the all-new airplane.

The occasion marks the first all-electric start of a commercial jetliner
engine on a commercial jetliner; the engines had been started electronically in
test facilities earlier, the company said in a statement here Friday.

Engine runs began at 9:30 a.m. (PDT) on Thursday (May 21) and ended 40
minutes later.

During initial engine runs, the engines are started and operated at various
power settings to ensure all systems perform as expected.

Thursday’s engine run test began with the Auxiliary Power System providing
power to start the two Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines.

Basic systems checks continued throughout the test. The engines were powered
down and inspected and will be restarted following a technical review.

The team completed a vibration check and monitored the shutdown logic to
ensure it functioned as expected.

"We were very pleased with the performance on the engines during this test,"
said Scott Fancher, vice president and general manager of the 787 program.

"We will now get ready for our intermediate and final gauntlet tests."

-- BERNAMA