To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (86643 ) 6/26/2010 12:20:17 PM From: Hope Praytochange Respond to of 224729 Boeing: 'Very Disappointed' With 787 Problem By PETER SANDERS Boeing Co. officials said Friday they had found assembly problems in the tail area on some of the 23 completed 787 Dreamliners and would inspect the entire fleet before resuming test flights. For Boeing, the latest issue with the new plane puts additional pressure on the company's ambitious flight-test schedule. The Dreamliner is already more than two and a half years late to market. Boeing last December gave itself roughly a year to complete thousands of hours of flight tests to receive government certification before delivering the first plane to All Nippon Airways Co. sometime before the end of the year. Last week, Chicago-based Boeing said the five planes currently being used in the test program had already flown a combined 1,000 hours, or about 40% of the planned hours. But in the past few months, senior executives have acknowledged the program is behind schedule and that routine delays have consumed much of the test program's extra padding. The company said Friday that even with the latest hiccup, it's still on track to complete the test program this year. In a conference call with reporters, Scott Fancher, head of the 787 Dreamliner program, said Boeing was first aware of the horizontal stabilizer issue last week, but it didn't escalate into an issue affecting flight tests until Thursday morning. Boeing executives over the past few months have repeatedly insisted there were no significant issues with Dreamliner. Only after a report was published on the website of the Seattle Times on Thursday did the company confirm the current issue with the horizontal stabilizer and its decision to suspend test flights. Mr. Fancher declined to specify whether the issue was found on any of the five Dreamliners that are currently being used in the test-flight program. "Obviously, we're very disappointed about this issue," he said. "But it's a fact of life with start-up program issues and one we have to deal with."