Yet another 787 delay

Okay, this starts to get ridiclious. Boeing announced another delay in the 787 program according to this article. The first flight is rescheduled to next year and they didn´t announced a new date. The delivery of the first aircrafts in 2009 look impossible for me.

While everybody expected that the IAM strike would have some impact to the schedule, there is another reason: Wrong installation of fasteners. According to Boeing 3% of all fasteners were incorrectly installed.

An estimated 3 percent of the fasteners on four flight-test planes at the Everett plant, plus two others that have been assembled for ground testing, were installed incorrectly and will have to be removed and replaced.

At a count of several hundred-thousands fasteners per aircraft, 3% is a lot of work. Another article at the Wall Street Journal writes:

Engineers have traced it to improper instructions on what type and length of fasteners to use on certain titanium parts. The fasteners, located throughout the airplane, were installed mostly by suppliers at the plants where the major sections of the jet are being built, and affect all fuselage sections built so far

.I start to get some doubts about entering a 787 when it will entering service in the future.