787 Dreamliner Debut

Boeing's 787 Dreamliner Has successful First Flight

After more than two years of delays, Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner took to the sky for the first time Tuesday, taking off under cloudy skies and heading west over Puget Sound carrying the company’s future with it.

Thousands of people, including seemingly everyone who works for Boeing, cheered as the plane decked out in Boeing’s livery lifted off at Paine Field. The flight came exactly six years after Boeing greenlighted the next-generation airliner, marking a major milestone for a program plagued by setbacks, delays and labor squabbles.

But Tuesday’s flight of 787 Dreamliner test plane No. ZA001 couldn’t have gone any more smoothly.

Updated: Under gray, overcast skies, ground control cleared chief pilot Scott Carriker and co-pilot Randy Neville to taxi to the end of runway 16R shortly after 10 a.m. Pacific time. The crowd cheered as the plane turned onto the 9,010-foot runway. As news helicopters and a red ‘copter fitted with an IMAX camera circled overhead, ZA001 taxied past the crowd slowly, as if to increase the tension.

The plane, the first with an airframe made of primarily composite materials, has faced numerous delays, putting the program a full two years behind schedule. Most recently, a structural fault was found in the side-of-body portion of the airframe that connects to the wings, causing the initial first flight planned for July to be canceled just a week before it was scheduled to take place.

WIRED