Richard Branson christens the new V Australia 777 in LAX

by Grant Martin on

V Australia‘s new Boeing 777 aircraft arrived in Los Angeles on its way down to Sydney yesterday. Onboard were Richard Branson, the mayor of Los Angeles and a few other dignitaries, and when the aircraft rolled onto the Imperial Highway tarmac they naturally had to pop a bottle of Champagne.

So after the creature came to a halt in front of the eager crowd, a red carpet was unrolled on the wing and out popped Branson and a few hotties. Take a look at how it unfolded below, and stay tuned for official and unoffical reports from the aircraft early next week.

Tune in for the V Australia 777 Launch

by Grant Martin on

The world’s newest Transpacific carrier takes delivery of their first Boeing 777 aircraft this week, as executives from V Australia and Virgin converge in Los Angeles for the ceremony. Tomorrow afternoon, Richard Branson and top brass will pick up the aircraft in Washington and shuttle it down to LAX, where a fanfare of media pawns, cocktails and schmoozing will welcome the group.

On arrival, we’re welcome to browse through the aircraft, drinking in the succulent Business Class seats, crawling through the lavs and measuring seat heights, widths and pitches. Yours truly and the Cranky Flier will be there, and unless the latter gets us kicked out of another Virgin event we should be tweeting through the evening (EST) and sending updates.

What do we expect to see? Well, a few pictures of economy and economy plus have already been leaked to the internets, but what we’re really looking for is leg room, video screens (the service is purported to use the same RED system that Virgin America uses,) business class amenities and general ambiance of the aircraft.

Anything else you want to see? Shoot us a comment or a tweet and we’ll try to collect some good content.

First flight delivery of 787 adjusted (again)

by Grant Martin on

Now that the whole strike and fastener ruckus has been sorted out at Boeing, manufacturing is back in full swing on the 787 Dreamliner. The Chicago based company is so confident in their progress that they’ve actually announced another first flight and delivery date for their long heralded aircraft. As of last week, the two respective events are slated for second quarter of ’09 and for the first quarter of ’10.

Not that that means anything. Delivery schedules have been set and broken by the airframe manufacturer a half-dozen times, and by this point, nobody really expects them to hit the milestones. We’ll keep our fingers crossed though.

As for when Joe-consumer gets to ride in a Dreamliner, your first chance domestically should be on Delta Airlines, who now have the rights to Northwest‘s early commitment to purchase 18 787-9’s. Word in the underground though is that Delta might be interested in converting the order to 777’s though, so we may have to wait even longer than that.

Boeing and Air New Zealand to Test 2nd Generation Biofuel

by Josh Lew on

Boeing has announced that it will carry out tests of a new “2nd generation” biofuel using one of its 747s. The plane,owned by Air New Zealand will take off on December 13th. Because it is the first live test, only one of the plane’s 4 engines will use the fuel, made from the nuts of jatropha plants (pictured).

Jatropha is an inedible plant that is indigenous to Central America and the Caribbean, but grows in most of the warm weather regions of the world. Unlike earlier biofuel sources, which were grown on arable farmland, jatropha grows well in areas that cannot be used for agriculture. Its use, therefore, will not affect food prices or food supply.

The fuel is made by extracting the oil from the nuts of the plant. UOP, whose parent company is Honeywell, is responsible for producing the jatropha-fuel. According to Boeing, UOP’s production was “the world’s first large-scale production run of a commercially viable and sustainable biofuel for aviation use.” The biofuel will be mixed with regular jet fuel for the December 13th test.

[Via The Register]

Boeing to push back 787 first flight, deliveries

by Grant Martin on

It was hard to imagine that Boeing could keep on schedule for 787 deliveries with the strike at large among machinists, but yesterday they made the news official: first flight and deliveries are definitely pushed back.

Originally scheduled for 2008, the first flight of Boeing’s Dreamliner has been repeatedly delayed, most recently to Q4 of 2008 and now into 2009. During that time, several PR specialists have cycled through the media chair at Boeing, but the most recent word from Yvonne Leach, courtesy of Saj at Fleetbuzzeditorial, states that:

“Given the duration of the IAM work stoppage, first flight of the 787 Dreamliner will not be accomplished in the fourth quarter of 2008. The timeframe for first flight has not been established and will be based on the strike recovery assessment. The program is working to determine a new program schedule that will be announced when it is finalized.”

In addition to the obvious delays caused by the strike, the airframe manufacturer also announced that several non-conformities in the fasteners for the 787 contributed to the setback.

So when do we get to fly in a Dreamliner? Official word is now that deliveries won’t even begin until 2010. Don’t worry — it’ll be here before you know it.