Boeing has now announced that it has completed the Federal Aviation Administration’s (FAA) final certification test regarding these modifications to its lithium-ion batteries. To test the new configuration Boeing conducted a test flight on one of its production 787’s built for LOT Polish Airlines. According to a press statement from Boeing, “The purpose of the flight was to demonstrate that the new battery system performs as intended during normal and non-normal flight conditions.” Boeing added that the 1 hour 49 minute flight was “straightforward” and “uneventful.
Now that Boeing has been able to demonstrate that their redesigned battery is free of its earlier flaws, engineers will gather the vast amounts of data collected during the test flight and analyze it before submitting a final report to the FAA. If after reading Boeing’s report and concluding that its new battery configuration is sound, the FAA could clear the 787 to resume flights within months.
Images Courtesy of Boeing