By Dan McCue
Staff Writer

Global Aeronautica achieved a significant milestone Tuesday night, delivering its first mid-fuselage section for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

The combined section, measuring 84 feet in length, was assembled from components built in Grottaglie, Italy, and Nagoya, Japan. It represents about half of the Dreamliner’s fuselage structure.

Last week, the Vought Aircraft Industry facility, collocated within the Global Aeronautica building on a campus in North Charleston, delivered its first aft fuselage for the new passenger airliner, the hottest selling new commercial aircraft in aviation history.

Now that Global Aeronautica’s contribution to the project has been flown to Boeing’s facility in Everett, Wash., all the pieces of the first 787 are ready to be fitted together by Boeing.

“This is an exciting first for our young company, and a moment in which our 160 employees can take considerable pride,” said Randy Smith, Global Aeronautica’s chief operating officer, as the Dreamlifter, a specially modified 747-400 used to transport 787 parts and sections around the world, taxied into view from the Charleston International Airport.

Work on the first 787 mid-fuselage officially began in North Charleston in mid-January, when Boeing delivered the first two sections from Nagoya, Japan. That flight into Charleston was Boeing’s first-ever delivery cycle for the strange looking engineering marvel, which is still flying as an experimental aircraft, as far as federal regulations are concerned.

The Dreamlifter is expected to receive full certification by the Federal Aviation Administration on May 24.

Workers at the 334,000-square-foot North Charleston facility have been working in two shifts since the sections of the first mid-fuselage arrive, and will continue to do so as they complete other assemblies already in the pipeline, Smith said.

“In the simplest sense, this is an integration facility, and what they’re doing here is laser alignment of the pieces and connecting the joints,” he said.

Each of the sections Global Aeronautica receives is made primarily of composite materials and measures from 23 feet to 33 feet long and 19 feet in diameter. Once the aircraft is completely assembled, the combined sections will contain passenger seating, a cargo hold, an avionics bay, the aircraft’s central fuel tank, as well as environmental control systems.

Boeing currently has more than 560 orders for the 787 Dreamliner from 44 customers. The first aircraft, which will ultimately be delivered to Japan’s All-Nippon Airlines, is expected to take its first flight on July 8. It is expected to formally enter into passenger service in 2008

Over the next year to two years, Global Aeronautica will be steadily ramping up to a full production schedule of seven to 10 mid-fuselages a month. By the end of that period, the facility will likely have as many as 350 employees, Smith said.

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