B747-400
Flight Crew Air Transport Pilot (ATP); Flight Crew Instrument; Flight Crew Multiengine
Situational Awareness
Aircraft Equipment Problem Less Severe; Deviation / Discrepancy - Procedural Published Material / Policy
Air Traffic Control Provided Assistance; Flight Crew Overcame Equipment Problem; Flight Crew Diverted; General Maintenance Action
Aircraft
The Crew departed from ZZZ on a [trans-oceanic] flight with 161;800 kilograms fuel on board. During departure; the crew received a FLAPS DRIVE EICAS MSG and TE FLAPS status message when retracting flaps from 5 to 1. Knowing flap limitations; the crew elected to level off at FL190 and speed intervened to 260 KIAS initially; then 250 KIAS to ensure there was a sufficient airspeed buffer for the flaps 5 speed; although the red speed band showed 280 KIAS as the maximum speed. QRH items were accomplished.Upon contact with Dispatch; Maintenance; and duty pilot via SATCOM; the variables for the flight were forwarded. Quickly it was understood that the flight could not continue to ZZZZ as scheduled and due to the fuel load at the time we would probably have to dump around 65;000 kilograms of fuel for a landing at ZZZ. At this point; the idea was forwarded to divert to ZZZ1 to minimize fuel dumping and allow maintenance. After consultation with all parties; ZZZ1 was selected and coordinated with ATC per the flight plan Dispatch created. Dispatch unfortunately was unable to calculate an exact flight plan based on flap condition. However; I was comfortable with this decision for several reasons. First; I knew my current True Airspeed/Ground Speed and fuel burn rate with flaps almost up. At this point we knew the outboard TE Flaps were approximately 1 degree. Second; after we had the flight plan in the box; we were able to estimate an enroute time and by using the current fuel burn rate; calculate an estimated fuel load remaining in ZZZ1. The calculation based on our fuel burn and flight time to ZZZ1 estimated our need to dump 25;000 kilograms of fuel for a 290;000 kilogram landing. After doing the numbers; we realized we could safely accomplish our landing at 300;000 kilograms and only needing to dump approximately 15;000 kilograms. Finally; we had multiple divert options along if another compounding problem arose.In actuality we were off our fuel burn due to being in a steadily decreasing fuel burn. But this was expected and our previous estimate was a worst case scenario. In the end we dumped approximately 18;000 kilograms and landed at 300;000 kilograms running the checklist per the QRH.
B747-400 Captain reported flap malfunction during climb.