The first Boeing 787 Dreamliner for Royal Air Maroc is out on Boeing's Paine Field flight line, in Everett, on Friday April 23, 2010. (Joshua Trujillo, Seattlepi.com)
It is a Boeing 787 blog-day today!
On Friday, the 17th Boeing 787 Dreamliner made it’s way out of the paint hangar. Due to not having my camera and short on time, I wasn’t able to get up to Paine Field myself to take a look, but luckily the Seattle PI did get a photographer out there.
There are also two all-white Boeing 787’s (photo from @ImperfectSense) sitting out on the line for LAN. Some think they might be willing to paint them in a special livery, but will have to wait to find that out.
The Boeing 787 Dreamliner (ZA003) undergoing cold weather testing in McKinley Climatic Laboratory, Florida
If you have been following the path of the Boeing 787, you know that ZA003 recently made a trip down to Valparaiso, Florida for extreme weather testing. Being in Florida you might assume they are testing the Boeing 787 Dreamliner in just hot and humid climates.
However it just recently went through extreme cold testing of minus 45 degrees Fahrenheit (that is about minus 43 Celsius). How do does this happen? Well, you find a big facility that can create it’s own temperature (and snow). Eglin Air Force Base, just outside of Ft. Walton Beach, has a climatic chamber, large enough to house the Boeing 787. In the mid-1990’s, the chamber was opened up to the general public at a cost of $20,000 to $30,000 per day.
Normally Boeing chaces the cold weather around the globe (normally finding it in Fairbanks, Alaska), but having a controlled environment is so much easier. “Here we say minus 45 and they set the knob to minus 45, and work their magic and get minus 45 and it stays there as long as we want it,” Tom Sanderson, one of the flight test directors for the Boeing 787 told Glenn Farley with KING5.
The Boeing 787 will also undergo extreme hot testing of 115 degrees Fahrenheit (about 46 degrees Celsius) in the same facility. ZA003 is the only Dreamliner with a partial interior. The aircraft will be living at the facility for about two weeks to conduct all the testing needed.
I am sure you want to see more than one photo, luckily I have tracked down some additional media for your enjoyment:
When a new Boeing aircraft takes off from Paine Field (in Everett, WA) they often will make their way east to Grant County International Airport. Once a former Air Force base, it covers 4,700 acres and has five runways. With being so large (it is an alternative landing site for the Space Shuttle) and not being very busy, it is the perfect testing grounds for some of the world’s largest aircraft.
Even though there are no passengers waiting to get on the the Boeing 747-8, the ground crew rush to start their work and prepare the airliner for the next set of tests.
Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner
Last time I was visiting the Future of Flight I picked up a very interesting brochure about the Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engine used on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner and wanted to share the top 10 most interesting things:
#1: At take-off the Boeing 787 Dreamliner’s two Trent 1000s will deliver thrust of 150,000 lbf, which is equivalent to the power of 1,500 cars.
#2 The engine sucks in 1.25 tons of air per second during take off (that’s about the volume of a racket ball court every second).
#3 The 112″ fan spins at over 2700 RPM with tip speeds over 900 mph, but the blades inside the engine spin at 13,500 RPM with tip speeds topping 1200 mph.
#4 Air passing through the engine is squeezed to more than 700 lb per sq inch, which is 50 times normal air pressure.
#5 The engine has about 30,000 individual components.
#6 The Boeing 787 will carry up to 270 passengers, which is equivalent to the economics of a typical car with four passengers. However, the 787 travels ten times faster.
#7 The Trent 1000 is expected to fly for 20,000 hours before its first overhaul. That’s about 11 million miles or 450 times around the world.
#8 The fuel in the engine combustion chamber burns at about 3632 deg F — the sun’s surface is about 9941 deg F.
#9 The force on a fan blade at take-off is about 100 tons. That is like hanging a freight train off each blade. The first generation of turbine blades had about 10 tons of force.
#10 A Boeing 787 at full power take off is 3dB quieter than a Boeing 767, even though it is 1/3 heavier. At the airport perimeter, the noise level would be equivalent to that of a waterfall.
Sigh. I really should have my own photos and video of today’s two flights. But my car had other plans. I was on a camping trip this weekend, with every intention to make it back to the Future of Flight in time for ZA003 Boeing 787 Dreamliner to take flight and then watch the second Boeing 747-8 to take off. However my car broke down and had to be towed 75 miles back to civilization. If this would have happened on the Boeing 787 Dreamliner’s first flight, I would have ditched the car and taken a taxi! Luckily some other great people were there to cover the action.
Above is a video of ZA003 taking off for the first time today, taken by Liz Matzelle (@ImperfectSense). This is the third Boeing 787 built, but the fourth to take the skies. ZA004 took to the skies beforehand on February 24th. ZA003 is being used to test the interiors,which I was able to tour of back in early February.
If seeing a Dreamliner taking off wasn’t enough, the second Boeing 747-8 also took the sky today after a few delays. The first 747-8 took flight on February 8th. I am currently trying to track down any video or photos taken of the flight, but I did find a photo from Kevin (@TxAgFlyer) showing RC22 waiting to fly.
Boeing recently announced before today’s flight, the Boeing 747-8 has completed 13 flights and 33 hours of flight time. The tests are going as planned — which is a good thing. Five pilots have flown the airplane taking it up to 30,000 feet and up to Mach .65. Boeing has completed initial stall tests and other dynamic maneuvers, and performed an extensive checkout of systems on the airplane. They are hoping to get the third Boeing 747-8 in the sky soon.
