First 787 Rollout (7/8/07)

ChrisReid

ChrisReid

Super Soaker Collector / Administrator
Today the first 787 Dreamliner officially rolls out of its hangar. The plane already has almost 700 orders at this point, which is a 50% increase on the previous commercial airplane pre-rollout order record (held by the new 737 ten years ago). It's the first jet made mostly out of composites, so it's really light and efficient. This also allows for structural improvements that give passengers bigger windows and better cabin pressure. You can watch the premiere event live in about three hours on satellite channels or a webcast at http://www.boeing.com/commercial/787family/787premiere.html


Boeing has also produced a quick feature for their eight other commercial jetliners at http://787premiere.newairplane.com and http://www.boeing.com/news/feature/sevenseries/index.html
Yesterday they lined up each plane in order along I-5 as part of the weekend's celebrations in Seattle. In the background you can also see the first 737, 747, Air Force One, Concorde and some other planes that are regularly on display.

The airplanes on display at Boeing Field included an Omega Air 707; AirTran Airways 717; FedEx 727; Alaska Airlines 737-800; Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 Flying Test Bed 747-200; Continental Airlines 757; Delta Air Lines 767; and Air France 777-300ER (Extended Range). In addition, the Boeing 747-400 Dreamlifter was on static display.

Each airplane, the 707 through the 777, took off from Paine Field, adjacent to Boeings Everett, Wash., facility, and landed at Boeing Field in Seattle in sequence of airplane model numbers matching to time, beginning with the 707 landing at 7:07 p.m. Pacific time. This special display was part of a Boeing-sponsored event held at The Museum of Flight as part of the weekends activities for the 787 Premiere.
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http://www.newairplane.com
 
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I don't want to sound like a nationalist :p, but Polish Arlines were among the first ones that orderd Dreamliner:

 
Yay! Now the plane counts down to first flight, which should be around early September. Here's some shots from today's event:



Mancubus said:
I don't want to sound like a nationalist :p, but Polish Arlines were among the first ones that orderd Dreamliner
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Yeah, and they're super happy that they did, because they'll get their first one in 2008. Now the plane is sold out for six or seven years.

floundericiousMI said:
I have had a chance to see it in person...that wing is #(*)$#)($ HUGE!
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Yeah!

 
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There's three versions now that will hold between 210 and 330 people. It replaces the 200-300 seating 767 and fits between the 737 (120-200) and 777 (300-450). There's also a new 747 in the works (stretched body, new curvy wings) that'll cover the 450-550 seat range.
 
The wing span is JUST shorter than the 777 and the body is a few feet narrower...
The wing is very wide, but has a narrow chord and a very sleek appearance along its length... that's a VERY sexy lady!
 
Shipgate said:
Hehe. Take that Airbus!
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well, Aribus just chose to make the very big(and ver ugly IMO, but were not discussing taste) plane, wich takes totally different segment of the market.

Most 787 orders came from medium sized airlines witch need aircrafthat is tnot too big, but have long-range capabilities

IE in Poland we have neitehr need, nor infrastructer to use such a Behemot as A380 but for the big lines it might be the good choice
 
floundericiousMI said:
The wing span is JUST shorter than the 777 and the body is a few feet narrower...
The wing is very wide, but has a narrow chord and a very sleek appearance along its length... that's a VERY sexy lady!
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Yeah, when you look at something like a 737-600 with a wider wingspan than body length, it can have a little bit of a stubby appearance. But sweeping the wings back and up so much gives quite a different impression.

Mancubus said:
well, Aribus just chose to make the very big(and ver ugly IMO, but were not discussing taste) plane, wich takes totally different segment of the market.

Most 787 orders came from medium sized airlines witch need aircrafthat is tnot too big, but have long-range capabilities

IE in Poland we have neitehr need, nor infrastructer to use such a Behemot as A380 but for the big lines it might be the good choice
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Most of the big airlines have been going with the 777 instead of the 747 or A380 when they really need to carry a lot of people. The 747 is a cargo workhorse more than anything now, so it's yet another blow that Airbus has had to indefinitely postpone their A380 Freighter because UPS and Fedex cancelled (and went with Boeing).

But there's a lot of reasons for big passenger airlines to go with the 787 too. There's more and more problems with the hub-and-spoke system as fuel prices go up and airports get more congested, and so it works out better to shift capacity away from your traditional hubs with a medium size point-to-point airplane. The 777 does this to some extent already, and the efficiency gains and smaller size of the 787 gives them even more flexibility to do so.
 
I've toured the plant once before and saw 777's being assembled, but this latest product, too, seems quite remarkable. Chris, since you're very close to Everett and likely know quite a bit on the subject, can you tell us how you think this craft's sales will effect the company as a whole? I've heard a lot of naysaying from some people (elsewhere) claiming that Airbus has been shouldering Boeing out of a lot of contracts with its own aircraft over the past few years. Since the other company was brought up I thought it would be worth asking... is there any truth to this? Or is good 'ole Boeing as fit and competitive as ever with these fine, new models selling like hotcakes on the global market? I'm rather uneducated on the matter and it'd be nice to have a clear idea of how the two aircraft manufacturers compare right now. :)
 
Drakon said:
Since the other company was brought up I thought it would be worth asking... is there any truth to this? Or is good 'ole Boeing as fit and competitive as ever with these fine, new models selling like hotcakes on the global market? I'm rather uneducated on the matter and it'd be nice to have a clear idea of how the two aircraft manufacturers compare right now. :)
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Frosty pretty much summed it up already. The high-margin 777 and 787 are pretty much outselling their direct Airbus competitors about 7 to 1 lately. The A380 has also been stuck at around 150 orders for a couple years, and their own estimates are that they have to sell in the mid 400s just to break even now. Airbus employees' bonus was $5-10 this year (down from $1500-2000). http://www.forbes.com/markets/feeds/afx/2007/05/02/afx3675420.html

The only segment of the market that Airbus is doing well in at all is the single-aisle small planes, and they're doing so by overextending themselves. The 737 is sold out for the next several years, so Airbus is boosting their A320 rate to make production slots available to airlines who need something cheap soon. This is causing big part shortages and supply chain issues right now that will only get worse. It'll also be a problem for Airbus in the next decade when they're all tied up finishing their 787 copy and unable to take advantage of this ramp-up to compete with some sort of future 737 replacement.
 
You still shouldn't bury airbus. Though I am Boeing fan as well, you shuld remeber, that there are four governments, that can and probably will use taxpayers money to keep airbus alive and kicking.

Also, no matter how good Boeing planes are, you don't want the company to become monopolyst
 
First off, "monopolyst" is a stupid-sounding word. :p

That initial thought out of the way, even if Airbus didn't exist (and without massive subsidies from its parent countries, it most likely wouldn't exist, at least not in its current setup; guaranteed backing goes a long way towards negating poor decisions from the company executives), with the current waiting list for Boeing aircraft (especially the 787), there would be plenty of incentive, in a hypothetical world where Airbus doesn't exist, for someone else to step up to the plate, so to speak. There's no law, in or out of the US, that blocks other companies from taking a swing at Boeing's bottom line.
 
Well one thing is there are natural barriers that prevent a company from entering the market such as this one - the technology used in Plane conostruction is extremally expensive so probably no company would be able to compete with Boeing. As far as I know both Lokheed and McDonell Douglas stopped building big cvilaina airplanes before Airbus even entered the market, and for some reason no other company is producing transatlatic civilian airplanes, and Airbus was abel to compete with Boeing only because it had the government money in the beginning (i'm not talking about subidies it recives right now, if they had better management it could do without them)

As for word 'monopolyst' it is probably bad, but forgive me, as most of my knowledge of english comes from playing wc3 with dictionary in my hand :D
 
When there's profit to be made somebody finds a way to make the costs work. It's a dangerous kind of business to be in though because oftentimes years of financial success singe on each new model of aircraft produced. Brilliant minds, lots of money, and high-end technology make such existing companies great, and will give rise to new ones in the future as well.

Hehehe, as for governments bailing companies out though, keep in mind that the US regularly uses tax dollars to bail out airlines, railways, auto makers, and a host of others. The competition of business is important, but it seems that countries around the world aren't willing to leave such important companies without a sort of financial safety net :p
 
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