First GE-Powered 787 Acquired For Part-Out

Alan Dron Guy Norris March 12, 2024

C&L Aviation Group 787 — Credit: C&L Aviation Group

The maturing Boeing 787 fleet and the manufacturer’s inability to meet promised specifications on some of its earliest airframes has opened the door for a rare teardown opportunity.

Bangor, Maine-located C&L Engine Solutions (C&L), part of the C&L Aviation Group, announced March 11 it will be marketing the material from a parted-out GE Aerospace GEnx-1B powered 787-8.

The aircraft was acquired by Florida-based Cloud Investment Partners (CIP) and investment funds managed by Strategic Value Partners, with C&L serving as the exclusive asset manager. CIP describes itself as a global diversified investment group with special focus in the capital markets within the aerospace, defense, and industrial power sectors.

C&L said that the aircraft, s/n 35507, is the first production GE-powered 787 to be disassembled in the U.S. and that it will be the first time a new 787 will be disassembled anywhere in the world. The aircraft has only ferry flight time on the clock.

“Disassembling a virtually new 787 aircraft having only a few ferry cycles has never been done before,” Cloud Investment Partners’ managing partner David Weiss said. “We recognize the benefit of new parts in the market to assist OEMs in supporting their customers as well as providing a source for airlines to purchase hard-to-find parts.”

The aircraft is no ordinary 787. Rolled out in 2010 as line no. 17, it was one of a group of early 787s with higher-than-specification empty weights that caused their original customers to balk at taking them. Dubbed “the terrible teens” because of the problems, Boeing eventually found buyers for each of them.

S/N 35507 was initially ordered by Royal Air Maroc in November 2005 in a four-aircraft deal. But the airline declined to take it, putting it back on the market.

After five years of storage following its rollout, Boeing Business Jets bought the aircraft in a paper transaction for a VIP customer. It was then sold two more times by November 2021, landing in a fund linked to Resorts World Las Vegas. In between, it was re-marketed as a VIP aircraft pending delivery, but was never modified. Aside from a few ferry hops, it has spent its entire existence in storage.

The aircraft will be parted out in Roswell, New Mexico, by CAVU Aerospace, with the resulting components taken to C&L’s new warehouse in Wichita, Kansas. C&L added that it is working with OEMs to utilize these parts in supplementing their current inventories.

“The timing of this project for the 787 is perfect,” C&L Engine Solutions president Tim Brecher said. “The 787 fleet is hitting the 12-year mark from first deliveries and entering a busy schedule for heavy maintenance. The shortage of spares in the marketplace, combined with the ongoing challenges in the supply chain, make this project critical to OEMs and operators.”

Nobody was available from C&L to provide further details.

The 787s that made up the "terrible teens" got their name because of the extra empty weight they acquired through extensive change incorporation required to fix structural issues and bring the aircraft up to certification standards. The problem was discovered in the wing-body join area during limit load tests on the static test airframe in May 2009 and centered on high stress loads at the end of top stringers under the upper skin of the wing.

When the wing flexed, tests showed that the stress levels at the junction of the wing with the side of body caused composite skin structure to delaminate. The issue was solved by redistributing the loads through making a U-shaped cutout in the ends of the upper wing stringers as well as adding titanium fasteners to the ends of the reshaped stringers. The junction of the stringers with the upper skin was also strengthened with additional fasteners.

The fix, which was applied to the initial batch of production aircraft from line number seven to 19, added weight and required a costly maintenance and inspection program that was specifically tailored to this limited fleet.

Together with the impact of other structural and systems inefficiencies which Boeing gradually redesigned out of the aircraft over later batches, the augmented strengthening resulted in a terrible teen fleet believed to be around 13,500 lb. overweight.

—With reporting from Bo-Göran Lundqvist and Sean Broderick