787

[den]

Boeing 787 sure is a nice looking plane.

Comments

[charles.livejournal.com]

I was down in Melbourne doing consulting work for Boeing and I met some of the guys working on the "moving trailing edges" for the 787 (http://www.boeing.com/commercial/787family/dev_team.html). It was pretty incredible, especially since I had access to their intranet at the time.

On the way back to Sydney, I had possibly one of the most violently turbulent plane trips I've ever experienced. Somehow, though, I felt safer.

[oceansedge.livejournal.com]

Air Canada is making a serious move back to Boeing products with a big order of 787 Dreamliners as well... they are indeed lovely

I presume you've watched the video simulations. (YAY World Design Team *snicker*). She really is very pretty... makes an airplane geek like me all sniffy at the loveliness of her lines, bears a startling resemblance to a swallow. Love, just love those new wings, the lines are so perfectly graceful, and that tail!

If the real thing is even half that pretty. ...

[acelightning.livejournal.com]

[hafoc.livejournal.com]

I fight very hard against my prejudices. I know I'm a bitter old guy, that prejudices are wrong, that I should treat everyone and everything as they are, not as my preconceptions would make them be. But I still have one prejudice I have a terrible time fighting down. I can't hear Airbus without thinking French Airliner, and I can't hear French Airliner without thinking Smoking Hole in the Ground. :D

That said.. this looks to be the first commercial airliner with major structure made out of composites. I would be a lot more comfortable with aluminum and steel for a while. We have about 70 years of experience building airliners with those materials, and about none with composites.

Somebody had to take that next step to composite construction, and I'd just as soon have Boeing do it as anybody else. They're pretty good. On the other hand, military jets were pretty well tested when jet technology went from military to civillian aircraft-- and we all know what happened with the Comet.