In what has become a common trend in new airplane launches, the Boeing Dreamliner 787 has suffered delay after delay. Her initial maiden flight was scheduled for the end of August 2007, with deliveries to start taking place in May 2008.
When Boeing engineers discovered problems getting pieces to fit together, the launch was delayed. Then delayed again, and finally in June of this year, it was delayed yet again.
Thankfully, all the problems have been taken care of, and the newest jet from Boeing is set to take to the skies on December 15th at 10 a.m. PST. A web site dedicated to the maiden flight has been created, which should go live tomorrow morning (24 hours before the flight).
Fingers crossed all goes well – engineers are examining the test data from a series of ground tests, including one which pushed the plane to 150mph, lifting the nose wheel from the ground. Of course, all the technology in the world can’t help prevent bad weather – which is one of the few remaining factors that could delay the test flight.
Looking back on the accomplishments of the Wright brothers in 1903, I find it a miracle that they were able to get into the air while lacking a critical piece of material. Something so important that the FAA, JAA and CAA would ground any airplane today that tried to lift off without it.
You see, the Wright brothers lacked the paperwork to fly. They had no airworthiness certificate, no weight and balance data, no flight plan or even a license in their wallets. It’s truly astonishing that they ever left the ground.
Today we need this paperwork to fly and despite efforts to create a paperless cockpit, we’re carrying reams of additional information that’s still printed with a dot matrix printer at the airport before each flight.
To give you an idea what’s needed before a typical transatlantic crossing, I took a moment before beginning the preflight inspection and sat down to go through the trip paperwork for our recent flight from London to Boston.
This didn’t include the customs and immigration paperwork that the purser, or number one flight attendant, handles. Nor did it show the volumes of books that we carry with approach plates, checklists, procedures and aircraft manuals that I’ve described before.
Boeing and Airbus have done their part to offer a Class III Electronic Flight Bag (EFB) in their newer airplanes that promises to eliminate the need for these books and manuals and some of the paperwork shown in the video above.
The 787 even includes a Class III EFB as standard equipment. But it’s up to the airlines to retrofit their older cockpits with this technology that will not only save weight, but promises to give us better situational awareness when taxiing around the airport and maneuvering to avoid thunderstorms since airport diagrams and real-time satellite weather can be displayed on the newer EFBs.
Maybe then we could get away from paper depictions of weather phenomena along our route of flight in favor of real time information that just might keep us away from unforecasted headwinds or areas of moderate or greater turbulence.
Even Orville and Wilbur could see the benefits in that.
Cockpit Chronicles takes you along on some of Kent’s trips as an international co-pilot on the Boeing 757 and 767 based in Boston. Have any questions for Kent? Check out Plane Answers.
If you’ve been following the development of the Boeing 787, you may have heard about the electronic shades on their extra-large passenger windows.
So far, we’ve had to imagine how effective this technology would be, knowing it would be over a year before the first revenue flight of the Dreamliner.
Luckily, we managed to find the PPG Industries booth at the Paris Air Show, and scored a demonstration of this signature feature of the 787 known as Alteos Interactive Windows.
We’ve all been on airliners with plastic shades that frequently become stuck between the interior panel above the window. Sitting in that seat can be torturous on a sunny day. Not to mention the scratches they produce on the plexiglass inner pane.
Boeing and the airlines have found that these mechanical window shades represent an added maintenance cost, and for that reason, these reliable electronic shades will be a standard feature on all Boeing 787s and possibly other airliners in the future.
Passengers will be able to control the windows through five different settings, which take about a minute and a half to go from full dark to fully bright, at least on the version we saw. While this delay is a limitation of the design, the gradual transition could be a nice feature for passengers sleeping nearby.
Mark A. Cancilla, Director of Commercial Transparencies at PPG gave us a demonstration:
Flight attendants will have some control over the cabin as well. During a movie or as the sun begins to rise after a transatlantic flight, they’ll be able to lower the brightest setting without eliminating the view for someone who would rather look outside. And catching one of those sunrises can be more entertaining than an old sitcom episode you’ve seen three times that month anyway.
For some reason, I had imagined the darkest setting wouldn’t be dark enough, but I was thrilled to discover that PPG had designed a system that would allow as little as just .1% of the light to come through. Boeing has chosen a range of 70% transparency down to .1% for the Dreamliner over the five available steps.
The technology for these windows originally came from the automotive industry. In fact, you may have it in your car. The auto-dimming rear view mirror found in newer cars is the same technology behind these shades.
But will this technology make it into the pointy-end of the airplane or will pilots continue to resort to newspapers and safety briefing cards to shade themselves from the sun? We learned a bit about the 787’s cockpit windows and the new technology they’ll be using as well.
Poor Boeing. They are right in the middle of one of the worst economic downturns in their history, and their newest plane is creating a bit of a disaster of its own.
The 787 Dreamliner was scheduled to take its first flight early last year, but they realized back then that it could be moved to September 2008. We are now in the Summer of 2009 and Boeing is on their sixth delay.
The delay comes just one week after a horrible Paris Air Show, which is traditionally where Boeing announces a boatload of orders, but this year Airbus beat them, though neither manufacturer had that much good news to report. Airbus reported 112 aircraft sales, Boeing only sold 2.
The bad news is having a horrible effect on the share price of Boeing, which is down over 7% this morning (at the time of writing).
Still, fingers crossed that they sort out the problems with the plane. It really is a beauty, but it won’t do them (or their customers) any good if it just sits on the runway. By now I am sure Boeing will be regretting laughing at the problems Airbus encountered in building the massive A380 double-decker plane.
Development of Boeing‘s 747-800, heralded as a direct competitor to the A380 has been underway for several years now. The super jumbo jet will feature many of the same engineering marvels that the 787 will, including swept wings, cut engine nacelles and similar cockpit controls, and will some day be the largest commercial airplane built in the western hemisphere.
So far, however, nobody has seen concepts of the interior. What new concepts from the 787 will be carried over? What new exciting upgrades will passengers of the 748 be amazed by?
Well, that mostly depends on the carrier that purchases the aircraft. Yes, seat quality, color, spacing and class is all determined by the airline, so don’t go blaming Boeing for your 3″ of leg room on your next transoceanic flight.
What Boeing has done, however, is released conceptual drawings of several 748 interiors, including a special “VIP” aircraft that is decked out to the nines. In several of the renderings that you can see at The Sydney Morning Herald, features like spiral staircases, a dining area and even a library are prevalent. Wouldn’t that be nice?
The passenger version of 747-800 is slated for delivery in 2011 with Lufthansa as the first customer. Don’t forget your reading glasses.