Tag Archives: 787-9

Oh Man! More New 787s

A nice early winter sunny day is a pleasant surprise in the Pacific Northwest and I was able to head across to Everett to see what was happening.  Boeing is busy building Dreamliners too though and a couple were on test flights while I was there.  One was Oman Air.  The scheme is an interesting change from the boring white liveries.  You can certainly hear the jets as they land because the test flight involves the deployment of the Ram Air Turbine and it buzzes away when they go by.  The other arrival will deserve its own post.

Gulf Air 787-9

I caught this Gulf Air 787-9 as it returned from a test flight to Paine Field.  It was at the end of the SkyFair event so the crew will have noticed that there were a lot of people on hand to witness their landing.  Not a particular problem of course but probably one of the few landings of the Boeing production tests to get a large crowd.

Qantas Celebrates Aborigine Art Again

Qantas has decorated previous aircraft with liveries that encompass aborigine art.  Their Wunala Dreaming aircraft was well known around the world and, in an age when airline liveries tend to be rather bland, these colorful jets are a welcome change.  They have taken a similar route with one of their new Boeing 787-9s and I saw it at Paine Field during test flying.  It came in from the south and executed a go around from relatively low level.

Then they caught me out by heading north to turn and make an approach from the opposite direction.  This required some rather swift repositioning by me.  In fact, I got to the parking lot as they were on final approach and, rather than park, I just pulled to the side, ran up the bank, grabbed the shot and then got back in the car to park properly.  It was tight but it worked out okay.

Korean Air Dreamliner on Test

I had a couple of encounters with the same jet while it was on test.  (It’s brake dust already showed up in this post.)  This 787-9 is, by now, part of the Korean Air fleet.  I saw it depart from Paine Field one evening in pleasant light.  The low sun angle really brought out the shape of the underside of the wing in a way that normally you just don’t get to appreciate.  It showed up a second time while I was out to get the farewell flight of the Delta 747 which I wrote about here.  It came in at a similar time and the wet weather helped to make the pale blue color scheme pop a bit more.

Smoky Brake Dust on a New 787

This Korean Air 787-9 Dreamliner is seen taking off one Saturday afternoon from Paine Field on a production flight test.  It was lightly loaded so it was off the ground pretty rapidly and was already cleaning up the gear as it came toward me.  The wheels are braked before the gear comes up to stop them spinning before they enter the bay.  This can result in a burst of brake dust that blows clear in the slipstream and the shadow of the brake dust showed up clearly.  As they continued the climb out, they actually lowered the gear again.  I think this was to cool the brakes given they had done a high-speed taxi run prior to the takeoff.

Qantas Dreamliner Delivery

Delivery flights from Paine Field are good news because the jets are going to be a bit heavier and will use more of the runway.  This brings them closer to where you can be to photograph them.  Qantas were taking their second Dreamliner and it was delivering early in the afternoon of a winter Saturday.  The winter light is just so good when the clouds have parted.  No harsh shadows and a low sun angle are great conditions to be shooting in.  I hope the crew had a good flight.  It was long enough!

Thai Delivery

Before the time changed, it was possible to get some evening departures from Everett in nice light after work.  I saw that a delivery flight was scheduled for a Thai 787 and a Dreamlifter was due out shortly afterwards.  I figured this was a good one to go for.  The Thai delivery actually slipped a bit from its scheduled time and I was more than happy for it to do so as the light was getting better and better.  By the time the jet started rolling, the light couldn’t have been nicer.  It was also a heavy jet and rotated not far from me so I got a great angle on the takeoff and, as it climbed away, the purple in the livery seemed to glow.

KLM’s New Toy Comes West

B11I9877.jpgThe arrival of the Boeing 787-8 on the scene got a lot of attention.  It was a new generation of aircraft with a lot of new technologies.  It also was a major disaster for Boeing.  Years late, massively over budget and with a grounding, it did not go according to plan.  The next version was the 787-9 and, with this one, Boeing really got it right.  The -8 was not a bad plane but the -9 is so much better.  It carries more and goes further.  They also fixed a lot of production issues.  The result is a jet that Boeing is happy to sell and airlines want to buy.  Boeing does not like building the -8 anymore and you will notice that not many have been sold recently.  The -9 is going to be the core product and the -10 stretch will be the second option.

B11I9871.jpgAirlines have been adding the -9 to their fleets in good numbers.  Entry of airlines that didn’t order the -8 did pick the -9 and KLM is one of them.  They have started spreading them out on services across the world.  The demise of the MD-11 in their fleet meant that the 777-300ER and the A330 were their staples.  Now the 787 is becoming a big deal and the SFO run is one that they have started using the jet on.  I was pleased to see it show up.  They still send 747-400s to SFO but the 787 is part of the future.  The 747 will be gone before too long.  Meanwhile, I enjoy the novelty of the new jet.  Soon I shall be glad to see the 747 before it disappears.

Hainan 787

C59F7306.jpgThe San Jose trip also gave me a chance to catch another jet that had been of interest. Hainan Airlines is a Chinese operator. I have seen their jets around at various times but have never had a chance to shoot them close up. I really like the brightness of their livery and had wanted to see one. Unfortunately, my late arrival at San Jose meant their jet had just touched down when I got there. However, it did depart at a convenient time so I managed to get one at last.

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San Jose for R2-D2 Boeing 787

C59F7133.jpgThe arrival of a new Star Wars movie is not really a secret. There are more promotional efforts associated with the film by businesses of all types than I can remember for any other release. All Nippon got in on the game quite early and announced that a number of their jets would be carrying Star Wars markings. The first to break cover was a 787-9 with markings to represent R2-D2. My friend Hayman and I made it to San Jose a while back to catch it arriving.

C59F6660.jpgThe story of finding it made it to a blog post for GAR which is here. Therefore, I won’t repeat the whole story of how I nearly missed the arrival. If you want to see that, click on the link and you can read the whole thing. After the arrival, we hung around and then headed to the departure end of the field to be ready for its return journey to Tokyo. It is a pretty cool scheme that they have implemented. I will now have to keep an eye out for the other two that they are doing.

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