Bedek's Boeing 737-800 BDSF is ready for EIS
Romain Guillot
 le 08/04/2020 , Maintenance aéronautique
The programme created by the "Aviation" branch of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), formerly Bedek, to convert Boeing 737-800s to full-cargo configuration is now ready to meet the growing demand for air freight.
On 6th April, IAI Aviation Group announced that its B737-800 BDSF programme had just been certified by the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) and the Civil Aviation Authority of Israel (CAAI). Even better, the first two models were delivered one after the other from January to its launch customer, the American airline iAero Airways, which will be operating these planes on behalf of DHL Aviation in the United States.
Like the other two existing 737-800 full-cargo conversion programmes, Boeing's 737-800BCF and Aeronautical Engineers' 737-800SF (AEI), the 737-800BDSF can carry up to 12 pallets (with 11 positions for standard ULDs). This programme is being carried out in partnership with Chinese industrial group Haite.
As we can still see in the different photos supplied by the Israeli industrial company, the prototype which enabled it to land the STC is a former aircraft which used to belong to the defunct Russian airline Transaero (MSN 30498). The second converted plane came from the fleet of Turkish airline Pegasus (MSN 28619). The conversions were carried out in IAI Aviation Group's Tel Aviv facilities.
The former Bedek is now the only company in the world which is able to convert both 737-700s and 737-800s into freighter aircraft, with the B737-700BDSF programme being certified since October 2017.
Remember that IAI Aviation Group had also joined forces with the American leasing company GECAS last October to launch a new full-cargo conversion programme based on Boeing's 777-300ER platform. The 777-300ERSF (Special Freighter) programme, which has been baptised the "Big Twin", is due to come into service at the end of 2022, with conversion work scheduled to start on a first aircraft from the Emirates fleet at the end of the year.
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