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Early retirement: Boeing's flight test 787 to Pima Air Museum

Paul Heymont 4/20/158:17 AM

Seems like only yesterday the 787 Dreamliner was a newborn...and now one of them is already retired. Boeing has presented ZA002, the second ever built, to Arizona's Pima Air and Space Museum as a permanent exhibit.

The plane is one of 6 that were built for flight testing, rather than for commercial service. Each was specialized to test particular aspects of the new plane; this one primarily tested systems performance. The test planes are where the updates and fixes happen before the rubber leaves the road...HERE is an example from ZA002's history; a small electrical fire during a test flight led to redesign of a control panel.

Photo from Airline Reporter shows ZA002 just before its first flight. Although it was never intended for airline delivery, it was painted in ANA livery in tribute to the model's launch customer

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