Tag Archives: dreamliner

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.

Boeing 787-10 on Test

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I wrapped up some work in Seattle and was about to head back home when a quick check on FlightRadar24 showed me that the Boeing 787-10 test aircraft was en route back to Boeing Field. It would be rude to ignore that. The weather had been pretty crummy and there was plenty of heavy cloud in the area but it looked like it might brighten up a bit and, as the sun went down, there was a chance of it lighting up beneath the clouds. I sat in the car dealing with some emails and waiting for the arrival.

Sure enough, as the time approached, the sun did start to peep out from beneath the clouds. It was intermittent at first but it became more consistent as Boeing 01 Heavy called up on approach. Meanwhile, a nice black cloud was still lurking in the background. What a great combination that type of light makes. The plane glided down the approach, its trailing static cone hanging from the top of the fin and then it was down. A nice result.

The Less Subtle Bits of Dreamliner Design

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Airliner design is a complex task with many compromises. It is not a surprise that some aspects of the design that results aren’t exactly what you would like. Today I am picking on one particular type – the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. This is almost as new as it gets in the airliner design world so you would expect it to be better than what came before. However, having seen a number of them recently, I have been focused on two areas of the design that are rather disappointing. One is the wing root fairing area and the other is the cargo doors.

A nice smooth design is what the old aero guy in me likes to see and the inlets and fairings around the transition from the fuselage into the wing root are pretty ugly. They are obviously there as a result of functionality requirements but it does not look good and I imagine it comes with a drag penalty that has had to be accepted.

The other area is the cargo doors. I am not sure whether this is a function of the load transfer requirements from composite to metal in the hinges but this area looks rather chunky and draggy. I know from previous projects that the nature of composites versus metals means that you can end up with some large joining fixtures to redistribute the loads but there may be other reasons I haven’t thought about. Given how smooth some metallic fuselage cargo doors are, these jumped out at me. Perhaps I have never looked closely enough at other types. Whatever the fairness of it, I just don’t like what they have done here.

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.

Test 787s

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There was a bit of activity at Boeing Field for the fleet of test Dreamliners. Boeing has been in the process of moving the original test airframes around to their final resting places. One of them has been donated to the Museum of Flight so didn’t have to go very far. Others are finding home further afield. Meanwhile, there is still some work for the rest of the test fleet.

I managed to see them both on the ground and in the air. Obviously the flying shots are the ones I prefer but I will take any I can get. It is strange that, during the test program, the development aircraft are the only ones you see and you want to see more of them in airline colors. Once they get well established, the original test frames suddenly have more interest again.

787s

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Boeing is building 787s at something like ten a month these days. Consequently, seeing a Dreamliner is not such an unusual event any more as they are getting to the airlines at a rapid pace. However, it does mean that more airlines are getting the type. I have not seen a whole lot of different carriers using them yet although that will, no doubt, change. However, when a new one shows up, it does get my interest. China Southern started flying them to SFO and I saw my friend Roger had caught one. It has a pretty interesting color scheme so I wanted to get one too but they only fly three times a week and I hadn’t been there on one of those days.

Then I did end up in place when one was coming in. I heard it call up on the approach so knew it was coming in. At this point, my brain shut down completely. Another Asian jet was taxiing out of the international terminal area and came straight across the runway to taxi up alongside the bay. This provides a good view and some nice shot possibilities so I starting shooting it. Meanwhile, guess what was landing. I only realized at the last moment. I did get some shots of it on the ground but not exactly what I had in mind. However, since they will be coming for a long time, I guess I needn’t beat myself up too much. There will be another chance. In the mean time, here are a selection of Dreamliners I have shot so far, even if some of them are not in pristine condition!

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.

SFO Quick Visit

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On my way home I wanted to stop into SFO to get something specific. JAL operates their new 787s into SFO and the daily arrival is around 4pm. I had seen a few shots from people catching it coming in and had been planning to try and get it for a while. This was a good opportunity since the weather was looking nice. I got there slightly ahead of time and just in time to catch an EVA 777 coming in.

It was a quiet time at SFO so I was able to relax and watch the activity along the shoreline between arrivals. A few departures looked interesting but the light was too far round to get a decent shot of anything that wasn’t departing from the 28s. A few heavies did go from there and I made sure to shoot them for practice.

The JAL 787 showed up as planned and so I got my shots. I was a little unsure about lens choice. SFO is a place where the 500mm can be very useful but it is too much for the longest aircraft when they are abeam you. The 787 is a deceptive aircraft that looks smaller than it really is so I was a little unsure as to whether to risk the long lens and miss the shot. I started out with the 100-400 which was fine for the part where it crossed the threshold and the aircraft holding for departure. Things looked about right so I quickly swapped back to the 500 and it was not too much. Good to know in future.

I was about to head home after the arrival when I looked up and saw a four engine jet passing over heading to the approach. A quick check on Flightradar24 confirmed it was a Swiss A340 so I figured I could manage ten more minutes. Once it was on the ground, a Virgin and BA 747 pairing were taxiing out. The Virgin jet went off 01 so was not well lit from my side and the BA jet spent so long taxiing it was clear the sun would be below the hills before it got going so I called it a day.

United 787

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A while back I was in Seattle and headed up to Everett to see the large numbers of 787 airframes parked up awaiting rework and delivery to their customers. When you see that many of them lying around, sometimes it is hard to remember that some of them are now getting delivered and entering service. One of Chicago’s local airlines (if you have a local airline these days) is United and they are the first US operator to take delivery of the aircraft.

Houston is the base of operations for the early aircraft but as they are trying to build experience for the crews, they are carrying out internal flights before taking the planes overseas. The first revenue flight was a leg from Houston to Chicago O’Hare. I was interested in covering this for the magazine since they were planning a reception for the aircraft when it got to O’Hare. The Chicago airport media relations people were not handling the event but they gave me the contact details for United. Sadly United were not inclined to respond to inquiries.

However, I decided that it was worth heading up to O’Hare anyway since the forecast was looking quite pleasant. Admittedly, these things will soon be a very common sight but getting the first arrival seemed like something worth spending a morning on. (In truth, the 787 had already been to O’Hare a few times on proving flights but let’s not get too picky!)

I was not the only one there. A lot of people had shown up and the place under the approach to 28 was pretty busy. That is until they changed runways shortly before the 787 was due in. A convoy of cars suddenly headed out to get around to the 10 arrivals. I was part of the convoy and found a spot that seemed reasonable. I had barely got out when the 787 came into view. Fortunately, the sun was being cooperative and the 10 approach actually was better for putting the light on the nose of the aircraft rather than the rear. I wonder how long it will be before I get bored with United 787s showing up.