Speculation is firming on 29 April for the first flight of the Boeing 787 with a relaunch of the Boeing 737 family as the replacement headline act if the prototype of the Dreamliners isn’t quite ready for take off.
Calls taken after the previous posting on the super greening of the 737 line-up claim the goal of first flight next Wednesday in Everett is ‘do-able’ but still a tough call.
There have been no sightings yet of the first 787 doing any of the slow or medium speed ground runs that would proceed first flight but the monitoring equipment is reporting as being in place.
The Dreamliner experience will not be quite as ’spaced out dreamy’ as shown in this interior mock-up graphic. The windows are as large as shown, but in these tougher times most of the seats will be much smaller, like the high density economy numbers just visible in the background.
Will Qantas take delivery of any 787s next year? That looks very unlikely given the unresolved negotiations underway over the deferral or cancellation of the first 15 Dreamliners out of the 65 that the group has on firm order.
But once the jet shows what it can really do further speculation about its future with many of the airlines that have ordered more than 800 of the twin-aisle 200-330 passenger capable jets will start to reflect tangible data on fuel burn, systems performance, flight characteristics and reliability.
