Tag Archives: 787-9

KLM’s New Toy Comes West

The 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.

Airlines 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

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The 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.

San Jose for R2-D2 Boeing 787

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The 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.

The 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.

Virgin Dreamliner

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Not long ago I wrote here about the effort to get a Virgin Atlantic A340-600 before they were retired. At the time I noted that Virgin had added a second flight to SFO and it was using the 340 prior to the availability of the Boeing 787-9 later in the year. It turns out that things have changed a little. The 787 is now operating the service but, rather than replace the A340, it has replaced the 747-400 and the A340 is running the additional flight albeit only on weekdays.

The loss of the 747 is another example of how quickly they are disappearing from services as I have written about a few times now. However, it is nice to have the new type and still retain the increasingly rare A340. Unfortunately, getting out on a weekday to catch the 340 is not usually practical. I have managed to see the 787 at last though. Winter can be a great time to photograph aircraft with low, soft light. It can also combine with crappy weather in the form of high and gusting winds though. Such was the case this time. Hiding behind a tree to try and minimize the impact on the camera does help though. Interestingly, the colors of Virgin Atlantic’s latest scheme do not seem to like digital capture. The red seems a lot more subdued in my images than I recall it being!

Boeing 787-9

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One evening I arrived at Boeing Field to see what was moving. Just as I got there, a 787 was rolling out on landing. Since the wind was in the opposite direction to my previous visit, I didn’t see it land but it rolled down to our end of the field. Interestingly, the gear doors were down and the RAT was deployed. These RAT is usually tested on early production test flights so I suspect this was the reason but the gear doors being down is one that had me wondering. The aircraft, which was finished in the livery of All Nippon Airways, taxied off the runway and turned on to the taxiway where it promptly shut down. It hadn’t even straightened up and the nosewheel was still at an angle. I have no idea whether this is normal practice or if something unusual had happened.

Whatever the reason, it sat there for quite a while until a Boeing team showed up to recover it. Interestingly, they brought an ambulance with them although there didn’t appear to be any need for one. This could also be a standard procedure or maybe something unusual had occurred. I doubt I will ever know. In all of this time, it never occurred to me that this would be other than a regular production 787. However, checking into this later, this was in fact one of the 787-9 and so something new for me. In truth, it wasn’t entirely new. The previous evening one of the dash 9 test aircraft had come back in while I was there so this trip got me my first two airborne dash 9s. I had seen a test aircraft on the ground before but that seems like a bit of a cheat in comparison.