The next big thing for airliners made its maiden flight today. Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner jet took off at 10:27 am (1827 GMT) from Paine Field near Boeing’s plant in Washington state in the US. As Boeing’s first new design model in over a decade, it takes advantage of advances in aviation technology and is capable of flying long-haul routes using up to 20 percent less fuel. At two year overdue, the milestone is critical for Boeing at the key to the future of the US aerospace company.
Billed as a “green” passenger jet, up to 50 percent of the mid-size, twin-aisle 787 Dreamliner is made of lightweight composite materials, such as carbon fiber-reinforced resin, compared with 12 percent on the Boeing 777, contributing to fuel efficiency, the company said.
The test flight was expected to last more than five-and-a-half hours — over Puget Sound and Washington state.
The biggest competition for the Dreamliner will be a new long-haul A350 built by Airbus, a unit of the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company, which is expected to fly in 2013.
Boeing says it has 840 orders from 55 customers for its new the cutting-edge plane, which it claims is the “fastest-selling all-new jetliner in aviation history.”
Sources: Airline Reporter, Raw Story
The way those wings bend as the plane picks up speed is scary.
I hope the fuel efficiency claims hold up in the real world. A 20% improvement is a significant in most areas.
I thought the Dreamliner is supposed to be the opponent of the A380 — the big kid with at most 800 seats?
Interesting wing shape.
Worrying how that woman sounded like Meg Ryan in When Harry Met Sally.
At cruising speed it would take 26 years to reach Mars
DrFlimmer: Boeing decided not to compete with Airbus’ A380. The idea is that Boeing decided to concentrate in a more fuel efficient plane first.
There appears to be still a market for the 747. Boeing keeps updating it and backporting technologies from newer models. The wiki page on the 747 has a lot of info on the evolution of the iconic plane.
The following page shows how much the 787 wings flex.
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/flightblogger/2008/05/a-closer-look-at-787-wingflex.html
With such a degree of wing flex in dynamic flight I’ll bet the wings could regulate overloading to some degree through oscillation and thereby prevent catastrophic failure.