Beautiful bird!
The nose looks sharper in Boeing colors, I like it.
It looks better in real!
Good job and congratulations to Boeing and their partners.
The only negative aspect I ve seen in the presentation, are the old L1011-like economy class seats.
The cabin lightning is impressive, so are those special windows. The turbulence dampeners are a great innovation I did not expect to be revealed so soon.
The cockpit is going to be very interesting with military-derived technologies such as the head-up display.
Very interesting bird
Fly4hours, making the path to airline pilot affordable to all
A good friend reminded me of this quote from the 1967 movie
" The Graduate "
Mr. McGuire: I just want to say one word to you - just one word.
Ben: Yes sir.
Mr. McGuire: Are you listening?
Ben: Yes I am.
Mr. McGuire: 'Plastics.'
Ben: Exactly how do you mean?
Mr. McGuire: There's a great future in plastics. Think about it. Will you think about it?
Ben: Yes I will.
Mr. McGuire: Shh! Enough said. That's a deal.
How prophetic!
There are no strangers in the world, just friends we have yet to meet.
The Qatar order is indeed interesting. Qatar's logo appears on the 787 and Boeing states that Qatar is the "mystery" order for 30 planes; yet, Qatar says that they can not confirm the order.
In the wake of the previous Boeing/Qatar order situation, I'm sure that Boeing did not let the cat out of the bag without Qatar's agreement.
I saw a posting on the internet that Delta might place an order for as many as 100 787's this month. If true, several things come to mind:
- Can American or British Air afford to not place an order soon after (for either the A350 or the B 787)?
- Since the 787 is generally sold out through 2015 (although a few slots are probably being held for large, prestiegeous customers), any large orders will certainly put pressure on Boeing to increase production (a second production line?).
- Boeing has a critical decision facing them in the near future relating to the 787-10. Emerites, Qantas and other airlines have called for the introduction of the -10. Boeing reportedly is either (1) reluctant to introduce the -10 since it would jeopardize the 777-200, or (2) is delaying the introduction until they get the 787 production (with 3 variants, -3, -8, -9) under control. I believe that Boeing realizes that by delaying, they risk loosing orders to the A350-1000 and are just trying to get the 787 under control before a new variant is announced.
-- The main issue facing the 787-10 appears to be that of range. Both Emirates and Qantas want longer range than Boeing is now prepared to offer for the plane. Just adding supplemental tanks will not result in the desired characteristics. If you just add more fuel with supplemental tanks, you have to cut revenue payload to stay within certificated weight limits. To give the longer range with desired payload, you need higher thrust engines (for balanced field take-off distance), bigger landing gear (to handle the weight), bigger brakes (for aborted stopping distance), etc. All this requires a lot of new design and testng - Boeing will get to it, but now they are busy with the 787-3, 787-8, 787-9, 747-8, plus development work on the 737 and 777.