It was a big day for Boeing today as their brand new 787 Dreamliner took its maiden flight this morning. The oft delayed 787 (originally planned to enter service in 2007) has taken its first critical step towards certification and entering service with the commercial companies. They’re now aiming for a late 2010 commercial introduction, which is really fast for first flight to implementation, but we’ll see if their intensive testing will be up to the task (for the record, I hope it is… but I’m still leery).
The 787 is designed largely to be a replacement for the 767 and a competitor for the Airbus 330 (and, to a degree, the Airbus 350, which is also still in development). The 787 is built entirely out of composites, which makes it far more fuel efficient than it’s competitors. There’s already a huge market demand (677 sold by July 2007) for it, and the consumer demand will follow (it’s a very “green” aircraft for its size.
We haven’t heard much from the Airbus 350 in a while, so it will be interesting to see how Airbus responds to this initial flight test.
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