It just doesn’t seem to matter how much time passes for the new United Airlines livery. Every time I post something positive about the new United livery, I have lots of folks give their opinion about how much they do not like it. So, today I am posting something for all you new livery haters out there. The video is a bit raw, but doesn’t stop me from laughing.
You can hate me all you want, but with all three liveries together, I am actually liking the newest one the most. Yes… it has grown on me, what can I say?
What is in a name? Well a lot actually. Could you imagine the Boeing 787 not being called the Dreamliner? Well, it almost happened. The 787 was almost called the Global Cruiser instead.
When the Boeing 787 was first discussed, Boeing named it the 7E7. Randy Tinseth, Vice President , Marketing for Boeing Commercial Planes, describes the naming process on his Randy’s Journal Blog.
Tinseth explains how there were many different naming sessions and workshops to come up with a proper name. After many different sessions and post the trademark and legal teams it seemed that the name Global Cruiser was leading the pack.
Boeing decided to hold a contest to see what the name would be. The finalists were: Dreamliner, Global Cruiser, Stratoclimber, and the eLiner.
Almost 500,000 votes came in from 160 different countries and it was a close race. Counting just votes in the US, the name Global Cruiser would have won. But with all the votes world-wide, the name Dreamliner won by only 2500 votes.
I couldn’t imagine the Dreamliner being named anything else — it fits the aircraft well. Although if Global Cruiser would have won, the DreamLifter probably would have been called the Global Lifter which sounds pretty sweet.
Do you think something would have been lost or gainedwith another name?
The foundation is a nonprofit organization made up of 1500 members whose main goal is to keep the DC-3 travelling across the country promoting the history of aviation — what a great cause.
The aircraft was built in 1937 and was the 21st DC-3 that American Airlines received. American ended up operating 84 DC-3s until they went out of service in 1949. NC17334 is the oldest DC-3 still flying today.
The DC-3 was purchased by the Flagship Detroit Foundation in August 2004 and was restored. Today it is flown around the country to remind people of the history of flying. It is surely one of the most impressive DC-3s that I have seen that still flies.
Boeing 787 Dreamliner wing inside the Boeing factory.
Jon Ostrower on his FlightBlogger site posted a story late last night on how thousands of improperly coated fasteners inside the Boeing 787 Dreamliner’s wing need to be replaced to help protect against lightning strikes.
The FAA requires that all joints and fasteners not produce sparks around fuel after a lightening strike. Since the majority of the aircraft is made of composites, it is vunerable to arcing from one metal part to another. Boeing flies their test fleet of Boeing 787s with special anti-static additives. When the first Dreamliner, ZA001, was hit with lightening, it received no damage. 35 Boeing 787’s that have already been built which will require the re-work, which will take weeks per Dreamliner.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner (ZA001) and Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental (RC020) flying side-by-side. Photo by Boeing. Click for much larger.
If a picture is worth a 1000 words, this is worth probably around a million. This is the eye candy of eye candy for airline nerds, so please enjoy the 747-8 Intercontinental (RC001) and the 787 Dreamliner (ZA001) flying next to each other during flight tests. The photo was taken April 16 by flight test photographer Leo Dejillas over Washington state. Yea, he has a rough job huh? Click the photo for a larger version.
