Boeing 787 Dreamliner maiden flight described “historic”

The Boeing 787 passenger airliner, nicknamed the Dreamliner, has finally taken to the skies, after a delay of 28 months.

Boeing Dreamliner cockpit

The Boeing Company described the 3-hour first flight of the Dreamliner as “successful” and “historic.”

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner took off from Paine Field in Everett, Washington, the United States, and landed over 3 hours later – and around 40 miles away – at the Boeing Field in Seattle, Washington.

The aircraft flew at a speed of 207 mph, at an altitude of 15,000 feet, which the Boeing Company described as being “typical for a maiden flight.”

During the course of the maiden flight, some of the plane’s structures and systems were tested, and flight data was transmitted electronically to engineers at the Boeing Field in Seattle.

The test-flight of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner, an ambitious project of the United States-based Boeing Company, has been put off as many as 6 times.

Over 12,000 employees of Boeing Company and guests watched the Dreamliner’s maiden flight. Our quick updates of the Dreamliner test flight and a video.

According to aviation analysts, the Dreamliner will go into commercial service only late in 2010, if , by then, the aircraft comes out successful after going through what Boeing Company describes as “the most rigorous flight-testing and certification programme in the history of commercial aviation.”

The Boeing 787 is a mid-sized, wide-body, twin-engine jet airliner, with a maximum seating capacity of 290-330 passengers, depending upon the variant. The company says that the Dreamliner is the first commercial plane to be made mostly from composites materials, instead of only the conventional steel and aluminum.

Boeing Company has claimed that the Dreamliner will be more fuel-efficient than the Boeing passenger planes that it made earlier.

The company collaborated with a number of suppliers across the world on a large-scale.

Richard Aboulafia, aviation analyst at Richard Aboulafia, has been quoted by the media as saying that the certification of the Boeing 787 should take at least one year. Besides, Aboulafia added, the aircraft “must get production volumes up” as well as “improve it so that it comes close to being the plane that it was promised to be.” That stage could be reached only after about 200 planes.

Another analyst is of the opinion that the 6 delays that pushed back the maiden flight of the Dreamliner by over 2 years certainly did yield one benefit – that is, more chances “to work out bugs” in advanced systems on the aircraft that made the first flight.

True to its nickname, the Dreamliner, is probably the most anticipated of new commercial planes.

In fact, at one point of time, Boeing Company had as many as 940 orders for the Dreamliner. However, on account of repeated delays as well as the global economic recession which led to a drop in demand for air travel, airlines cancelled about 80 orders in 2009 alone.

Boeing Company says it currently has around 840 firm orders in place for the Dreamliner.

According to aviation experts, airlines the world over have opted for the Boeing 787 mainly owing to the manufacturer’s promise that the plane will reduce the cost of flying on long-haul routes by 15%-20%. The Dreamliner saves fuel thanks mainly to its advanced design, reduced weight, and the comparatively more efficient engines that come from Rolls-Royce and General Electric.

Passengers of the Boeing 787 plane, say the experts, are hoped to benefit from the plane’s wider and taller fuselage as also its advanced environmental control systems – the features that Boeing Company claims are bound to make the Dreamliner the most comfortable passenger aircraft in the world.

In a press release, Boeing Company said the features of the Dreamliner also include windows larger than those on current jetliners, more overhead baggage space, as well as electric shades which “roll up or down at the touch of a button.” Related story: American Airlines to buy 100 Boeing Dreamliner 787 aircraft