Qantas 787

[Peter C]

Full 787-9 fleet "CoVid-19 suspension" dispositioning:
4 aircraft in Melbourne [ZNA, ZND, ZNG & ZNJ],
3 in Sydney [ZNB, ZNE & ZNI],
2 in Brisbane [ZNF & ZNK]
& 1 each in Perth [ZNH] & Los Angeles [ZNC]

[Peter C]

It appears that Qantas has used a single crew to relocate three 787-9 aircraft from MEL to BNE during the week ...
ZNJ on 1st, ZND on 2nd and ZNG yesterday (3rd) - leaving just ZNA in MEL.

[Greg Hyde]

Boeing 787s must be turned off and on every 51 days to prevent 'misleading data' being shown to pilots

US air safety bods call it 'potentially catastrophic' if reboot directive not implemented

The US Federal Aviation Administration has ordered Boeing 787 operators to switch their aircraft off and on every 51 days to prevent what it called "several potentially catastrophic failure scenarios" – including the crashing of onboard network switches.

The airworthiness directive, due to be enforced from later this month, orders airlines to power-cycle their B787s before the aircraft reaches the specified days of continuous power-on operation.

The power cycling is needed to prevent stale data from populating the aircraft's systems, a problem that has occurred on different 787 systems in the past.

According to the directive itself, if the aircraft is powered on for more than 51 days this can lead to "display of misleading data" to the pilots, with that data including airspeed, attitude, altitude and engine operating indications. On top of all that, the stall warning horn and overspeed horn also stop working.

This alarming-sounding situation comes about because, for reasons the directive did not go into, the 787's common core system (CCS) stops filtering out stale data from key flight control displays. That stale data-monitoring function going down in turn "could lead to undetected or unannunciated loss of common data network (CDN) message age validation, combined with a CDN switch failure".

https://www.theregister.co.uk/2020/0...ys_stale_data/

[Brenden S]

The Airbus fleet have a maintenance task to depower fully for 30mins or so and re power. This has been going on for years. Good to see Boeing finally catch up.

[MarkR]

ZNI just left Syd heading to Lima

[Peter C]

After ZNE positioned from Sydney to Melbourne yesterday morning as QF6006 in the first 787-9 flight since 3rd April, ZNB repeated the operation earlier this morning as QF6007, and then operated QF151 MEL-AKL, before returning as QF156 AKL-MEL

Flight number for the ZNI flight is QF7027

ZNE is now operating QF9 MEL-PER-LHR : all three flights listed as repatriation flights on "The Qantas Source".

[Peter C]

This appears to be the weekly situation for the Qantas 787-9 fleet, now the Federal Government's priorities have been set ... five rotations each out of Melbourne and Brisbane. Four each to Auckland and Hong Kong, & one each to Los Angeles and London Heathrow.

Melbourne based flights ...
Sunday : a QF151/QF156 MEL-AKL-MEL rotation; and the QF9 MEL-PER-LHR sectors of a QF9/QF10 rotation.
This latter flight is using the International Terminal T1 and not the Qantas Terminal T3 at Perth for the stop over, albeit Gate 50 which is a dual use gate on the Virgin T1 Domestic wing.
Monday : a second QF151/QF156 rotation and a QF29/QF30 MEL-HKG-MEL rotation.
[The return QF30 sector last week was delayed overnight with an early Tuesday morning departure.]
Wednesday : first sector of QF10 departs LHR
Thursday : 2nd sector of QF10 departs PER
Friday : the QF29 sector of a QF29/QF98 MEL-HKG-BNE rotation
Saturday : the QF30 sector of a QF97/QF30 BNE-HKG-MEL rotation (arrives MEL early Sunday morning)

Brisbane based flights ...
Sunday : the QF16 return sector of a QF15/QF16 BNE-LAX-BNE rotation arrives early in the morning
Wednesday : a QF97/QF98 BNE-HKG-BNE rotation
Thursday : a QF119/QF126 BNE-AKL-BNE rotation and the QF15 sector of a BNE-LAX-BNE rotation
Friday : the QF98 sector of the QF29/QF98 MEL-HKG-BNE rotation (arrives BNE in early hours of Saturday); and the QF16 sector of the QF15/QF16 BNE-LAX-BNE rotation departs LAX
Saturday : a second QF119/QF126 BNE-AKL-BNE rotation; and the QF97 sector of the QF97/QF30 BNE-HKG-MEL rotation.

Note also that last week ZNE and ZNI swapped between MEL & BNE via the Thursday MEL-HKG-BNE and Friday BNE-HKG-MEL rotations respectively.

[Dennis McLean]

ZNL is showing parts arriving on All things 787

[Peter C]

While ZNA is operating today's QF29/QF98 MEL-HKG-BNE rotation, VH-ZNI is currently positioning or operating to Buenos Aires as QF7027.

[Peter C]

Originally Posted by Dennis McLean

ZNL is showing parts arriving on All things 787

The Boeing announcement at https://boeing.mediaroom.com/2020-04...in-Puget-Sound indicates that the Everett 787 line should just be starting to 'crank up' - not sure whether Qantas will be in a hurry to take delivery when L, M & N are eventually available, given current situation.