Having seen the increasing number of 777s and 787s parked up at Everett (777X won’t be certificated for another year or two and the 787s have stopped delivery since October due to fuselage issues and are only now starting to be accepted again), it reminded me of the number of 787s that were stored in the early days due to the extended test program given how many issues there were with the jet.  (Does this all sound rather familiar?)

I didn’t live in the Pacific Northwest in those days but came up to Seattle for an ISAP symposium.  The field trip included time with the Heritage Flight Museum n Paine Field.  We were checking out the collection and also getting to see a few of the aircraft in action.  A few of the attendees had also paid to get flights in the planes as well.  We got to hang out on the ramp as well as on the berm which I understand was a popular spot in days gone by but is now out of bounds.

There were plenty of 787s parked around the field in those days.  To be honest, I can’t recall whether deliveries were underway and the numbers had thinned a bit but the earliest airframes were the most trouble and they might have been the ones still sitting around awaiting a long list of rectification issues and the potential that the original customer wouldn’t even take them.  These are some of the jets that I got shots of that day.