U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) officials have signed the official certification documents for the Boeing 737-10, marking the passing of the final regulatory hurdle required to bring the aircraft into commercial service. The 737-10 is the largest member of the 737 MAX family, with a typical seating capacity for 185-210 passengers and a range of up to 3,100 nautical miles (5,740 km).
The certification documents (Amended Type Certificate and Production Certificate 700) were presented to Boeing by Sean Duffy, secretary of the U.S. Department of Transportation at a small ceremony in Everett, Washington, USA.
The 737-10 joins the 737-7 (which was certified earlier this year), and the 737-8 and 737-9 in Boeing’s single-aisle aircraft lineup.
“After extensive safety reviews – including thousands of hours of test flights – the team at the FAA is ready to approve this critical aircraft for sale,” said Sean Duffy. “This is a major win for American manufacturing and our nation’s status as a global aviation powerhouse. We invented flight, we pioneered air travel, and we are going to continue leading the way in aviation safety and innovation.”
Boeing claims that the 737-10 has the best cost-per-seat potential of any single-aisle aircraft on the market. The airplane is designed to give operators more passenger capacity while keeping fleet maintenance costs low through as it shares parts with other MAX variants.
Boeing has received 1,555 orders from more than 30 customers for the 737-10, which represents more than 30% of the current order book in the 737 MAX programme.
“Everyone should feel proud of this accomplishment as it reflects years of hard work and dedication from across our company,” said Stephanie Pope, president and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes.
“In particular, I couldn’t be prouder of the 737 MAX development team for their determination and resilience. They achieved 737-7 certification in August, while remaining focused on completing the flight tests, safety assessments and design reviews for the 737-10,” she added.
A roadmap for future certification
The 737 MAX is the first airplane to be certified with full compliance to the 2020 Aircraft Certification, Safety, and Accountability Act (ACSAA), which provided new mandates for the documentation of safety assessments and human factors evaluations.
“This certification not only clears a new airplane for deliveries; it provides a roadmap for future certification efforts in this modern era,” said Mike Sinnett, senior vice president of product strategy, product development and development programmes at Boeing. “What we have learned about meeting the new requirements is already serving us well on the 777-9, and will be invaluable to us for a generation of airplane development.”
The certification process
Achieving certification for Boeing 737-10 required extensive human factors reviews, design assurance reviews, and system safety analyses in coordination with the FAA. Boeing says that tens of thousands of pages of documentation and many hours of formal meetings with the FAA were required, in addition to extensive flight and ground testing.
The 737-10 flight test programme logged nearly 1,000 flights, amounting to more than 2,000 flight hours and 1,000 ground test hours. The flight test program included compliance and performance of the enhanced Angle of Attack (eAoA) system, which will become standard across the 737 MAX family.
