777-200LR Flight Test Journal: Archives

27 May 2005

Desert sunrise

Suzanna Darcy-Hennemann
Chief Project Pilot, Boeing 777-200LR Worldliner

We've all seen them - those glorious photos of sparkling, airborne jetliners silhouetted against a sun partially hidden by the horizon. And you've probably said to yourself, "What a beautiful sunset! The pilots flying those planes are the luckiest people around."

Well, you're half right. We pilots are the luckiest people around. However, you should realize that those photos are actually of the sunrise. And that should tell you something about the lives of all the people involved in Flight Test.

As lead test pilot for the 777-200LR, I assist my colleague Frank Santoni, who's the chief pilot of the 777. But on the -200LR program, Frank has let me take the lead so I can learn the ropes of what a project pilot does.

We've just returned from Edwards Air Force Base in California for a brief hiatus and will go back next week. Edwards is on the western edge of the Mojave Desert, about 90 miles north of Los Angeles. A whole crew of Boeing people have spent much of this month at Edwards. We're putting WD001, the first 777-200LR, through a rigorous test program. It will culminate with certification from the FAA so Boeing can start delivering the planes to its customers and they can put the planes into revenue service.

Now, about the sunrise. Every day we fly - and that is just about every day we're here - sun up means "wheels up." We do it at sunrise because we want to take advantage of the calm air.

At Edwards, which is considered the flight test center of the western hemisphere, the wind kicks up in the afternoon. So our testing window is from about 5:15 a.m. to noon. We try to take advantage of every single minute of that window.

Of course, we can't just show up at 5 a.m. and take off. For most of the crew, the day actually begins a lot earlier, at 3:00 a.m. They have to make sure the plane is ready. They double check all the instrumentation that will record data from the various tests we'll be doing. Meanwhile, the pilots and engineers review the flight and test plans so everyone knows exactly what will be tested and how.

What are we testing for? Primarily, "aero performance" (performance takeoffs and landings) as well as "stability and control characteristics." We want to make sure the aircraft handles the way it's supposed to and performs to expectations.

In addition, we test the airplane in situations that it probably will never experience again. We test at high speeds, low speeds, high altitudes, low altitudes, fully loaded and completely empty.

What we're doing is testing the edges of what an airplane can do - the corners of the flight envelope. One of our philosophies on the 777 program - and what sets Boeing apart from Airbus - is that we have "envelope protection."

We want to make sure that the airplane can safely handle flying right at the corner of the envelope, so to speak, if for some unexpected reason, one of our customers needs to do something with the airplane that they wouldn't normally do.

There's a popular myth that test pilots head to the golf course an hour after landing, Well, not quite. Once we're on the ground, we have reports to file and meetings to go to. We review the day's tests and look ahead to the next day.

At the same time, other crew members are checking the data captured through sensors and other equipment on board while another crew prepares the plane to fly again early the next day. Flight Test is all about teamwork.

Anything that didn't go exactly as planned during the flight is investigated, fixed and set up to test again.

I've been an experimental test pilot for Boeing for more than seven years, and I will tell you that very few things catch us off guard because as a team we prepare so throughly. I've been involved with this particular airplane for more than a year-and-a-half. I took part in early engineering meetings when designs and specifications were being formed. That gave me the opportunity to take the information from those meetings back to our team of test pilots. In that way we're able to give the program recommendation from the pilot's perspective.

As the airplane was being built, I visited the factory regularly and watched the pieces come together. It's always a thrill to see ideas and designs become a reality!

And, so I came to be seated in the captain's seat on March 8 when WD001 made its first flight over Puget Sound. It was a feeling I'll never forget.

I'll have to tell you more about that later. Right now, it's time to get some rest. For test pilots, sunrise comes awfully early.