Virgin Atlantic finally has a functioning Boeing 787 fleet

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• Dominic Barrington says:

  20 May20 May 04:08

  Er, three times a WEEK, surely?

  • Rhys says:

    20 May20 May 08:16

    Yes, sorry!

• davvero says:

  20 May20 May 05:11

  Surely you can connect Loganair to BA (LHR) to Bangkok on one ticket already? This gives extra choice but it’s not like the Scottish islands haven’t had this before.

  Why is Barra missing?

• Chris says:

  20 May20 May 06:22

  Aren’t Delta in Terminal 2 anyway?

  • B P says:

    20 May20 May 06:39

    DL normally operates from T3, along with VS. T2 is (mostly) the LHR home for Star Alliance.

    • BrightonReader says:

      20 May20 May 08:58

      T2 is the current home for any airline other than BA and Iberia.

• Jonathan says:

  20 May20 May 08:39

  Since Loganair will have KLM flight numbers on, does that mean that Virgin Atlantic flying club miles can be earned when flying Loganair?

  I know that the whole business of being able to earn Virgin Atlantic flying club miles with Air France and KLM was meant to have been finalised a little while ago, then the world got plagued with Covid-19

  • Rhys says:

    20 May20 May 08:46

    Nope – third party codeshares are not included

    • Charlieface says:

      20 May20 May 15:46

      Presumably could earn Flying Bluepoints though

      • Rhys says:

        20 May20 May 15:49

        Yes, that should be possible

• Doug M says:

  20 May20 May 08:49

  Rhys I know you’re a bit of a aviation geek, are the left and right engines different, or can you just fit an engine on either side? I was told for example on 4 engine planes typically only the engines closest to the fuselage have reverse thrust, those outside don’t.

  • Rhys says:

    20 May20 May 09:03

    Good question! Never thought of that. I believe they’re all the same, which makes maintenance/replacement easier. I know that the engines typically rotate in the same direction.

    • Rob says:

      20 May20 May 10:33

      When I toured the KLM engine maintenance workshop in Amsterdam a couple of years ago, they only kept one spare long-haul engine in stock (they cost £50 million, that’s why!). This would imply they are identical.

      • mutley says:

        20 May20 May 11:57

        I’ve been on one of those geeky plane spotting trips. Pity Megado have nothing this year.

      • Ron says:

        20 May20 May 12:34

        All engines of each type are the same, so it doesn’t matter each position the engine goes back on the plane. However, not all engine types rotate the same direction, ie some GE and RR engines rotate the opposite direction, not sure each go clockwise and which go anti-clockwise though.

      • Spaghetti Town says:

        20 May20 May 17:21

        wow. that’s cutting it fine.

        BA will have quite a few 747 engines in reserve I think

  • Pb says:

    20 May20 May 11:41

    In layman’s terms both engines will be same i.e both Trent 1000 or GEnx in the 787 case. Though in practice the specific hardware standards can and do vary. For example, there are different variants of the Trent 1000; Pack A,B,C & TEN and you could have a Trent 1000 Package B on the left and a Package C on the right. This is referred to as intermix in the industry.

    You’re right about the thrust reversers. On the A380 for example, only the inboard engines are fitted with thrust reversers. The rationale for this is to balance cost, weight and complexity. More thrust reversers mean more hydraulics and more maintenance etc.

    • Doug M says:

      20 May20 May 12:01

      Interesting. Cheers.

    • Dubious says:

      20 May20 May 12:38

      Are the different Packs materially different in terms of the hardware, or is this controlled by the microcontroller/software connected to it?

      • Pb says:

        20 May20 May 15:21

        Yes they’re materially different hardware. The associated FADEC software changes as a result too in order to accommodate the different characteristics of the hardware

    • Ron says:

      20 May20 May 12:56

      Thats right, they can intermix, but I don’t know if they can put a Pack B engine on -9 or -10. Ie. 787-8 can have any engines, but 787-9 can only have either Pack C or TEN and 787-10 can only have TEN engines.

    • Rhys says:

      20 May20 May 13:40

      The other reason why A380s only have reverse thrusters on the inboard engines is to prevent debris from being churned up. They are closer to the edges of the runway where it is more likely to occur.

    • ADS says:

      21 May21 May 01:38

      I think I remember reading that at one stage there was an instruction that airlines MUST have different Pack engines on each B787. Possibly after the engine on the Norwegian flight from Rome disintegrated.

    • Alex W says:

      21 May21 May 08:14

      Aircraft I’ve worked on, the engines were the same on both sides but had to be “dressed” for the correct side with the correct pipework, wiring looms etc as they would connect to different places on each side. Don’t know if this would be similar for 787 or not.

      By contrast A400M has 4 of the same engine but 2 propellers turning in different directions on each wing. This is achieved by having different gearboxes and propellers.

• kiran_mk2 says:

  20 May20 May 09:52

  Does this mean that the issue is finally sorted (with a final fix from Rolls) or is it simply that they have got short term repairs applied to all the aircraft and it’s only a matter of time until more repairs are needed? If it was the former I would have though Rolls would be shouting about it to give investors some good news.

  • Rhys says:

    20 May20 May 10:06

    It was never just one issue – the problems vary depending on the engine variant. Most of the fixes have been/are being implemented

    • Kiran says:

      20 May20 May 13:00

      I thought the main issue was premature fan blade corrosion – this was the one Rolls were struggling to permanently fix and the temporary solution was to relace the blades a lot more frequently than originally specified.

• Deenesh says:

  20 May20 May 09:58

  The population of Orkney is circa 23000. Kirkwall itself is circa 10,000.

• jimA says:

  20 May20 May 12:20

  Its a lot easier having all your 787s fit to fly when none of them are actually flying
  Lets hope they are still fit when they start to get a few miles under their belts

  • Rob says:

    20 May20 May 13:32

    Virgin is doing quite a few cargo flights at present.

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