4 ms·

Boeing 787 First Flight Today 10AM PT

41 points by joshwa 17y ago

yosho 17y ago
Wasn't that plane delayed for like 2 years or something?
- notauser 17y ago
  First flight is a bit more than 2 years late according to Wikipedia. However that's not bad for a project this complicated, being built in so many different places. I know more than a few aerospace engineers who would be delighted to deliver their projects only 2 years late. For the frequent fliers here I'd recommend this wing load testing video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe9PVaFGl3o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe9PVaFGl3o - it's from the 777 program but it's pretty interesting. Personally I think the A380 will be more successful due to the increase in the number of Chinese residents able to afford flights and their population density making big city to big city routes a larger component of demand. However there's clearly space in the market for both as they have different roles.
  - gvb 17y ago
    "However there's clearly space in the market for both as they have different roles." Agreed, they serve very different markets in many ways. In addition, I see the A380 and 787 as radically different approaches to the same problem: fuel economy. The A380 approach is to use a lot of fuel but to haul as many bodies as possible. By amortizing the fuel over more bodies, it gives good fuel economy per body. The 787 uses a very efficient aerodynamic design and reduced weight to use less fuel per aircraft, thus amortizing less fuel over the (fewer) bodies it hauls. The weakness of the A380 approach is load factor: if the plane isn't full, it will use more fuel per body. The weakness of the 787 approach is that they must hit their weight targets to achieve all of their projected fuel savings. They are currently overweight compared to their wishes (some of the first flight delays were caused by a need to reinforce parts - that means more weight).
    - notauser 17y ago
      The A380 also gets cost savings from sharing the landing fees, taxes and slot costs between more passengers. That's more applicable for busy airports though - I'd bet that a lot of the traffic at LHR and ATL will switch over to A380s, while it's not as necessary for places like IAH.
  - deleted 17y ago
    [deleted]
- gvb 17y ago
  The original first flight was scheduled for November 27, 2007. Spelunking back in history to the original delay announcement, http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/travel/2007-09-05-boeing-787_N.htm http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/travel/2007-09-05-b..., is interesting: "Chicago-based Boeing now is struggling to avoid missed deadlines and their resulting costs in dollars and reputation. Airbus, for example, is running an embarrassing 22 months behind on production of its new A380 super-jumbo jet, its flagship product. Those delays caused management shake-ups, canceled orders and costly payments to customers." Boeing and the world gave Airbus a lot of grief for the schedule slippage of the A380. Boeing has subsequently gotten its share of grief for 787 slips. Interestingly, I've seen comments holding the A380 up as a success vs. the 787 by people who have already forgotten the A380 schedule slips.
johnohara 17y ago
The wide-angle photo of the flight deck under "who's building" is very cool. Beautiful aircraft.
amichail 17y ago
What is the probability that a plane by Boeing or Airbus will encounter a flight problem in its first flight that would be noticeable to the general public?
- borism 17y ago
  You mean like a crash? Quite low probability on a first flight. Otherwise there are hundreds of minor problems that are revealed during flight testing, after all that's the point of flight testing program.
joubert 17y ago
The Dreamliner cabin was included in the Cooper-Hewitt's 2006 Design Triennial. It looked pretty nice, but only a handful of airlines have any taste when it comes to their interiors.
gaius 17y ago
Meh, it looks the same as any other airliner. Where're the radical designs, a la Concorde (delta), Comet (engines in wings) etc etc? Boeing's just making tweaks to a basic design that's been around since the 1960s.
- gvb 17y ago
  The radical design is under the skin. OK, in and under the skin. "Its materials (by weight) are: 50% composite, 20% aluminum, 15% titanium, 10% steel, 5% other." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/787_Dreamliner#Features http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/787_Dreamliner#Features The Concorde had a delta wing so it could fly supersonically with acceptable range (fuel economy vs. tankage). The trade-off for that speed was horrible fuel economy and poor takeoff and landing characteristics (extremely high drag - it had to use afterburners to get airborne). WRT the Comet, airframers don't put engines in wings because they are a bugger to service there.
  - notauser 17y ago
    A big part of the reason for hanging the engines is actually because it means you can make the wings less robust. If you have in-wing engines they generally have to be near the root (where the wing connects to the fuselage) because engines are large, wings taper and wings shouldn't be too fat. Under wing engines can be hung wherever you like, within reason. If you simplify things a bit you can think of a wing as a cantilever which supports half the weight of the plane, balanced by an equal upwards force spread out along the whole wing. By shifting weight towards the middle of the wing, as you can do by moving an engine outboard, some of your weight is no longer at the end of the lever but instead is closer (on average) to where the upwards force is being applied. This decreases the load you have to design for even though the weight remains the same.
    - borism 17y ago
      Engines are not just "hanged wherever one likes". There's an optimal point along the wing where airflow entering the engine will provide optimal performance, and it's not near the wing root.
banjiewen 17y ago
Huh. I'm on my phone, so I can't view the site, but I saw a 787 go over my head at about 7:30 this morning as I left home in west Seattle, which is just northwest of Boeing field. Strange that they're saying it's 10am. Then again, maybe I was mistaken. But full-size jets that look just like 787s don't land at boeing field every day.
- jonah 17y ago
  Quite possible it was - makes sense to me that they'd make private test flights before the first public one. Good to reduce the chance of any serious issues getting widespread publicity.
  - notauser 17y ago
    I believe they flew the A380 a few times before the big day. Watching them throw it around a bit at the Paris air show was interesting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH6tO1qZez8#t=1m06s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH6tO1qZez8#t=1m06s
    - borism 17y ago
      first flight is huge event for every airliner, media and spotters were camping out next to Paine Field days before it. I'm pretty sure it would have been spotted if it was flying before it was supposed to ;) sorry to disappoint, but 787 first flight started today at 10:27AM PST http://flightaware.com/live/flight/BOE1 http://flightaware.com/live/flight/BOE1
mojuba 17y ago
It's ugly. Just look at its nose from the side - it's evilish and ugly. The most beautiful thing Boeing has ever designed is 747. Or compare it to A380.
- borism 17y ago
  Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It's a beautiful machine designed with very specific task in mind. The only thing I dislike aesthetically is it's huge dihedral.
bodhi 17y ago
In the design highlights, it has a diagram of the materials used in each section of the plane. The pointy part at the back is the only part made of titanium in the whole plane, does anyone have any idea why that would be?
- designtofly 17y ago
  My guess is that it's the exhaust for the Auxiliary Power Unit [1]. The APU is essentially a small gas turbine generator, so the exhaust temperature is approximately 1000°C. This is way above the melting temperature of composites, and even aluminum. This site [2] has a very good discussion about the Boeing 737 APU and APU exhaust (which they call an "Educator"). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_power_unit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_power_unit [2] http://www.b737.org.uk/apu.htm http://www.b737.org.uk/apu.htm

41 points by joshwa 17y ago

yosho 17y ago

Wasn't that plane delayed for like 2 years or something?

notauser 17y ago
First flight is a bit more than 2 years late according to Wikipedia. However that's not bad for a project this complicated, being built in so many different places. I know more than a few aerospace engineers who would be delighted to deliver their projects only 2 years late. For the frequent fliers here I'd recommend this wing load testing video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe9PVaFGl3o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe9PVaFGl3o - it's from the 777 program but it's pretty interesting. Personally I think the A380 will be more successful due to the increase in the number of Chinese residents able to afford flights and their population density making big city to big city routes a larger component of demand. However there's clearly space in the market for both as they have different roles.
- gvb 17y ago
  "However there's clearly space in the market for both as they have different roles." Agreed, they serve very different markets in many ways. In addition, I see the A380 and 787 as radically different approaches to the same problem: fuel economy. The A380 approach is to use a lot of fuel but to haul as many bodies as possible. By amortizing the fuel over more bodies, it gives good fuel economy per body. The 787 uses a very efficient aerodynamic design and reduced weight to use less fuel per aircraft, thus amortizing less fuel over the (fewer) bodies it hauls. The weakness of the A380 approach is load factor: if the plane isn't full, it will use more fuel per body. The weakness of the 787 approach is that they must hit their weight targets to achieve all of their projected fuel savings. They are currently overweight compared to their wishes (some of the first flight delays were caused by a need to reinforce parts - that means more weight).
  - notauser 17y ago
    The A380 also gets cost savings from sharing the landing fees, taxes and slot costs between more passengers. That's more applicable for busy airports though - I'd bet that a lot of the traffic at LHR and ATL will switch over to A380s, while it's not as necessary for places like IAH.
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
gvb 17y ago
The original first flight was scheduled for November 27, 2007. Spelunking back in history to the original delay announcement, http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/travel/2007-09-05-boeing-787_N.htm http://www.usatoday.com/money/industries/travel/2007-09-05-b..., is interesting: "Chicago-based Boeing now is struggling to avoid missed deadlines and their resulting costs in dollars and reputation. Airbus, for example, is running an embarrassing 22 months behind on production of its new A380 super-jumbo jet, its flagship product. Those delays caused management shake-ups, canceled orders and costly payments to customers." Boeing and the world gave Airbus a lot of grief for the schedule slippage of the A380. Boeing has subsequently gotten its share of grief for 787 slips. Interestingly, I've seen comments holding the A380 up as a success vs. the 787 by people who have already forgotten the A380 schedule slips.

johnohara 17y ago

The wide-angle photo of the flight deck under "who's building" is very cool. Beautiful aircraft.

amichail 17y ago

What is the probability that a plane by Boeing or Airbus will encounter a flight problem in its first flight that would be noticeable to the general public?

borism 17y ago
You mean like a crash? Quite low probability on a first flight. Otherwise there are hundreds of minor problems that are revealed during flight testing, after all that's the point of flight testing program.

joubert 17y ago

The Dreamliner cabin was included in the Cooper-Hewitt's 2006 Design Triennial. It looked pretty nice, but only a handful of airlines have any taste when it comes to their interiors.

gaius 17y ago

Meh, it looks the same as any other airliner. Where're the radical designs, a la Concorde (delta), Comet (engines in wings) etc etc? Boeing's just making tweaks to a basic design that's been around since the 1960s.

gvb 17y ago
The radical design is under the skin. OK, in and under the skin. "Its materials (by weight) are: 50% composite, 20% aluminum, 15% titanium, 10% steel, 5% other." http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/787_Dreamliner#Features http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/787_Dreamliner#Features The Concorde had a delta wing so it could fly supersonically with acceptable range (fuel economy vs. tankage). The trade-off for that speed was horrible fuel economy and poor takeoff and landing characteristics (extremely high drag - it had to use afterburners to get airborne). WRT the Comet, airframers don't put engines in wings because they are a bugger to service there.
- notauser 17y ago
  A big part of the reason for hanging the engines is actually because it means you can make the wings less robust. If you have in-wing engines they generally have to be near the root (where the wing connects to the fuselage) because engines are large, wings taper and wings shouldn't be too fat. Under wing engines can be hung wherever you like, within reason. If you simplify things a bit you can think of a wing as a cantilever which supports half the weight of the plane, balanced by an equal upwards force spread out along the whole wing. By shifting weight towards the middle of the wing, as you can do by moving an engine outboard, some of your weight is no longer at the end of the lever but instead is closer (on average) to where the upwards force is being applied. This decreases the load you have to design for even though the weight remains the same.
  - borism 17y ago
    Engines are not just "hanged wherever one likes". There's an optimal point along the wing where airflow entering the engine will provide optimal performance, and it's not near the wing root.

banjiewen 17y ago

Huh. I'm on my phone, so I can't view the site, but I saw a 787 go over my head at about 7:30 this morning as I left home in west Seattle, which is just northwest of Boeing field. Strange that they're saying it's 10am. Then again, maybe I was mistaken. But full-size jets that look just like 787s don't land at boeing field every day.

jonah 17y ago
Quite possible it was - makes sense to me that they'd make private test flights before the first public one. Good to reduce the chance of any serious issues getting widespread publicity.
- notauser 17y ago
  I believe they flew the A380 a few times before the big day. Watching them throw it around a bit at the Paris air show was interesting. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH6tO1qZez8#t=1m06s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH6tO1qZez8#t=1m06s
  - borism 17y ago
    first flight is huge event for every airliner, media and spotters were camping out next to Paine Field days before it. I'm pretty sure it would have been spotted if it was flying before it was supposed to ;) sorry to disappoint, but 787 first flight started today at 10:27AM PST http://flightaware.com/live/flight/BOE1 http://flightaware.com/live/flight/BOE1

mojuba 17y ago

It's ugly. Just look at its nose from the side - it's evilish and ugly. The most beautiful thing Boeing has ever designed is 747. Or compare it to A380.

borism 17y ago
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. It's a beautiful machine designed with very specific task in mind. The only thing I dislike aesthetically is it's huge dihedral.

bodhi 17y ago

In the design highlights, it has a diagram of the materials used in each section of the plane. The pointy part at the back is the only part made of titanium in the whole plane, does anyone have any idea why that would be?

designtofly 17y ago
My guess is that it's the exhaust for the Auxiliary Power Unit [1]. The APU is essentially a small gas turbine generator, so the exhaust temperature is approximately 1000°C. This is way above the melting temperature of composites, and even aluminum. This site [2] has a very good discussion about the Boeing 737 APU and APU exhaust (which they call an "Educator"). [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_power_unit http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auxiliary_power_unit [2] http://www.b737.org.uk/apu.htm http://www.b737.org.uk/apu.htm