to the MAX MAY 2016 | 13 BY DAN RALEY 737 MAX, the second to come off the assembly line and designated 1A002, is parked in a hangar at Seattle’s Boeing Field between test flights. People gather around the new airplane, performing maintenance. A lone engineer seated on board checks flight data, nearly hidden by the 14 banks of computer equipment mounted on metal stands that surround her. Two nitrogen tanks are strapped to the floor in the back, used for engine instrumentation tests. A circular device, which resembles a giant fishing reel, holds rolled-up line that trails a sensor and plastic cone in and out of the vertical stabilizer to measure airspeed. By the fall, this particular MAX and three others will have endured hundreds of test flights—from Washington state to Bolivia—that involve everything from midair stalls to high-speed braking. The airplanes will have been pushed to their aerodynamic limits in every manner, ensuring the airworthiness of the latest 737 series model to satisfy Federal Aviation Administration certification and Boeing engineering standards, according to Boeing test pilots and flight-test engineers involved in the flight-test program. The first MAX aircraft, 1A001, flew for the first time in January, taking off from Renton Field in Washington, adjacent to the factory where employees assemble the 737 airplanes. On March 4, test airplane 1A002 also lifted off from Renton Field on its initial flight. As a new airplane, it had to take off to the north over water, with a fireboat below for safety requirements. James Hanley, one of the two Boeing test pilots on board, said he experienced an adrenaline rush as the jetliner accelerated down the runway, knowing that airplane’s engines had never been airborne before. Flight tests, he explained, are meant to push a new airplane all the way to its A
Frontiers May 2016 Issue
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