Airbus A380 touched down for the first time on American soil last week, but Boeing, not to be upstaged by its European rival, has offered the first quarterly update on the 787 Dreamliner.

The message from 787 program boss Mike Bair was that unit one of the Dreamliner is “on target” to roll out on July 8, 2007 — that is, on 7/8/7 (Get it?) — and fly for the first time in late August. Bair also said the late-August date is neither hard nor fast. “The airplane is ready to fly when it’s ready to fly… it’s stupid to pick a [fixed] date,” he said, adding that “unique quirks” will invariably rise after the first flight.

Five are presently in various stages of assembly and Boeing is sticking to its forecast that 112 will be made in the first two years of production. Bair said Boeing will likely increase production of the aircraft in the future — though the planemaker remains cautious of ramping up production rates, and that any such increase would occur following the first two years of initial production. That’s not in response to the nearly 500 orders Boeing now has on the books, Bair said — but rather comes in light of the potential for “three times as many” orders now under consideration by several airlines.

The first commercial deliveries are slated to commence a year from May.

Last fall, we pitted the design and delays of both aircraft manufacturers against each other, and here we have news on Boeing’s guarded secret: its innovative materials.

During the 80-minute update, Bair took pains to reassure investors the airliner's composite structure is proving workable.

Bair said:

The quality of the composite parts is better than we expected. The airplane is about 98 percent designed. We’ve implemented designs on the parts that need to be redesigned.

Bair also noted Boeing’s effort to trim weight and increase efficiency appear to have paid off, as after weighing components that make up about 1/4 of a completed Dreamliner, Boeing found the plane is coming in lighter than even Boeing expected.

“We are driven by trying to drive weight out of the composite structures,” said Bair, who added that so far, “the laminates have been phenomenal.”

Bair confirmed the engines will be “swappable at the pylon interface.” Both are on “test beds” now.

Major assembly work and testing of several large components of "plane one" has been completed at Boeing's facility in Everett, Wash. There are about 100 engineers in the field with partners to make last-minute design tweaks, which can lead to retooling, one of the biggest factors in driving up cost.

What has been the cause of Boeing’s troubling delay? To hear Bair tell it, the biggest problem with the new 787 Dreamliner manufacturing schedule has been olive trees.

Uh, what?

Yep. Italian partner Alenia Aeronautica sited its new factory in Grottaglie, a city in southeast Italy, on a 300-year-old olive garden. So Alenia had to move the trees so it could build its factory. This according to the head of the Dreamliner program last week in his quarterly conference call to update journalists of progress on the jet, as The Seattle Times reports.

Further, he characterized small delays as caused by problems with “a CNC operator who thought he could do better than the computer.”

Perhaps in response to comments made the previous week by Airbus COO John Leahy — who hinted to as much as a six-month delay in the Dreamliner program, citing comments made by unnamed suppliers — Bair reiterated some systems work that was originally planned to be handled by contractors was brought in-house for the first aircraft, after those companies experienced problems.

Bair said the “catch-up recovery plan” was ahead of schedule. With those pesky trees out of the way, it’s all systems go for the Dreamliner.

Earlier:

King of the Sky: Boeing Dreamliner vs. Airbus A350 XWB

Airbus Lands Super-size Private Aircraft