Dec. 15: First Flight is success

As everyone interested knows, the first flight of the Boeing 787 was a success. The flight time was cut short by nearly two hours due to deteriorating weather conditions at Boeing Field, the flight’s terminus. The airplane went over the Strait of Juan de Fuca, the body of water between Washington State and Canada, rather than Eastern Washington.

The flight climbed, descended and turned more than planned looking for clear skies. Winds aloft between 15,000 and 19,000 ft–the height of the 777 first flight in 1994–were between 50-70 knots. Boeing had not indicated the altitude when the 787 pilots decided to return early, and we didn’t see the following press conference to learn if the 787 encountered these winds on the first flight.

There will be plenty of Google News-accessible coverage, and our own story is one of our pontificating on Q13 Fox and KIRO-TV, so we won’t go into either for purposes of this column.

For Boeing: congratulations.

6 Comments on “Dec. 15: First Flight is success

  1. Was a good show and a successful flight…now we all await the diest flight of the ZA002

  2. Was a good show and a successful flight…now we all await the first flight of the ZA002

  3. “Today is truly a proud and historic day for the global team who has worked tirelessly to design and build the 787 Dreamliner — the first all-new jet airplane of the 21st century,” said Scott Fancher, vice president and general manager of the 787 program, in a news release.

    Typical Boeing PR. Has he forgotten about some of the other all new jet aircraft? (such as the Gulfsteam G650, Airbus A380, Hawker 4000-admittedly launched in the 90’s, Sukhoi Superjet 100).

  4. Hmm,
    A380 was launched in 2000, that as everybody knows is still in the 20th century and it is just a blown up 4holer so it can’be all new either πŸ˜‰

    So it still stands uncontested: the 787 is the first all-new plane from the 21th century.

    Twisting facts to just scrape by a hairs breadth away from a blatant lie must be a cultural thing.

    • Damn, why didn’t EADS postpone the official A380 programme launch on December 19, 2000, for a further 14 days so that the A380 would’ve become the first all-new airliner of the 21st century and not the last of the 20th century. πŸ™‚

      • Har, har,
        this is Airbus core lesson learnt.
        That you can really sell a new airplane to the industry
        just by printing an “Emperors New Clothes Catalog” πŸ˜‰
        All the good houses wear them.
        Making very ambiguous economic claims ( 20% better than what? )
        and selling as brand new innovations the achievements
        of the competition ( networkcentric avionics, flightcontrols ).

        “Overstating your case and managing resultant delayed customer reactions.”
        That is a field that Airbus has still a lot of competence to gain.

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