Saturday Update

ZA001 hasn't filed anything over the last 3 days from VCV, however that doesn't mean that she's not flying, but could be flying VFR similar to how ZA002 and ZA004 were both flying down there but not filing any flight plans. Her last flight took her to Las Vegas for the first time!

ZA002 however did make the trip over and back. She went and added about 6 hours to the test total and flew around Oregon and Eastern Washington before touching down for a short break at Moses Lake. Then made a quick hop back to Boeing Field.

ZA003 flew 2 days ago for about a 6 hour flight that took it over Oregon, Utah, California and Nevada before coming back to Seattle. It has some kind of alien looking equipment on her that I will be posting shots of soon.

ZA004 went into the air for about a 8 hour flight. Flew over Montana and back then about 3 quarters of the way down California before returning back to BFI to call it a night. Bird 4 is going to be out all next month as she gets equipped with Package B of the RR Trent 1000 engines that when finalized are expected to be with in 1% of what Boeing has promised customers in terms of fuel burn and efficiency.

ZA005 is still unknown when it will return back to the skies. She is still up at Paine Field in stall 101. She should return to the skies soon though.

Today ZA006 filed for a round trip from BFI to MWH, but we never saw her take to the skies.

New 787 Ad!

A few days ago Boeing released a new 787 ad. I show it to you here in HD. The video shows some air to air video taken from the flight testing over Washington and down the Oregon coast. It jumps between that and showing passengers inside one of the mock up interiors. I can't lie I am a big fan of this video. I would love to see some more of the air to air shooting and the song selection to me fits the video perfectly. I look forward to what Boeing has in store for some future ads! And Boeing, please share some more of the air to air footage!

ZA006 First Flight

Today Boeing celebrates as the sixth flight test aircraft finally got off the ground around 11:45AM PST. The aircraft was originally supposed to join the flight test program back in June but has been plagued with issues that delayed it to today.

The flight was supposed to be 3 hours with a touch and go over in Moses Lake, but just a little after an hour the aircraft diverted to Boeing Field where it was later found out that the aircraft had a maintenance and as a precaution diverted. Unnamed sources with the program are saying it was a liquid cooling leak cut the flight short.

Boeing however is still calling the flight a success. This is the second 787 to join the test program that is powered by General Electric Engines.

787 On it's way to Farnbourough

This afternoon ZA003 departed for the Farnbourough Air Show and snuck under the radar as it was flying with the call sign of BOE 787 instead of it's normal BOE 3. As I type this she is halfway thre and should be landing in about 4 hours midnight PST.

787 to PDX and GTF July 13th and 14th Updated

Photo Copyright Paul Carter PDX.

This morning for the first time the 787 is heading for PDX, as seen in the picture above. Thank you to local spotter Paul Carter for being out to get this shot and allowing the 787 Flight Test Blog to use it! The plane heading down is bird 5 with the General Electric engines. Hope that our PDX spotters are out today to get pictures of this event. Boeing 5 also went to Great Falls Montana yesterday and last sunday spent the day in Colorado springs. It would seem to be the one that has moved around the most.

Also 3 of the 4 aircraft located in Seattle are out flying today. Boeing 1 is the only one to not be out flying and is still having it's vertical stabilizer fixed after the issue that was discovered with them.

Today also marks the first time that bird 3 has taken to the skies again since coming back up from Phoenix Mesa for further inspection and fixing. It is expected that #3 will be departing for Farnbourough on Friday.

Boeing's 5th all new Dreamliner is set to take the skies this morning. UPDATE!

Update!- She finally took off at 14:39PST when weather conditions opened up finally with visibility at 10 miles a few clouds at 900 feet, broken layer at 1600 feet and overcast at 2100 feet. She is due into Moses Lake at 1600 and then expected to head to Boeing Field with a ETA of 1745 PST.

Boeing's 5th all new Dreamliner is set to take the sky's this morning. This will be the first 787 powered by the General Electric GenEx engines. The other 4 787's up to this point have all been powered by Roll's Royce Trent 1000's.

The only thing that could hold off the flight is if the weather doesn't clear up. Not quite at visual flight rules yet as weather conditions as of 11:20AM PST were broken layer at about 400 feet and overcast layer at 1000 feet. As soon as that burns off though the flight should be good to go.

The fifth Dreamliner is painted the same as the third and fourth so it will be a challenge now to tell them apart. If you look on the nose wheel door Number 3 has a 3 painted on it and I believe number 4 does as well so a good way to tell which one you saw is by the door.

To track activities behind today's flight just check out this link from flight tracking website Flight Aware. http://flightaware.com/live/flight/BOE5 She is scheduled to go to Moses Lake first and then make her way home to Boeing Field.

ZA005 Set to fly! Plus a few changes to the site.

I recently changed the outlook to the site the other day and think it looks better now. IAny feed back is appreciated!

Well the day has finally come to see ZA005 fly for the first time with the GenEx engines on it! B-1 flight should be anyday now and then ZA006 should follow soon.

ZA001 the other day got a new set of RR Trent 1000's and that is why she hadn't flown since May 27th but she did finally fly again on Thursday for about 5 hours.

ZA002 has been doing alot of long haul practice around VCV, still not sure when she will be back home as of yet. She is scheduled for a 11 hour flight tomorrow working on some more ETOPS stuff would be my guess.

ZA003 will be the one making it's way to Farnbourough this year to represent the 787's. She recently went out on a 9 hour country tour going as far east as Oklahoma in a diagonal way then south to Texas before heading west then coming back up the coast to Seattle.

ZA004 last flew a IFR flight on May 28th and on the 27th flew a 9 hour flight.

ZA004 Getting Around

Well in this last week of flight testing for the 787 ZA004 has been touring the country it would seem. She of course at this time is being based in Victorville. She flew around to Phoenix-Mesa Gateway. She hung around there for for two days and made a brief appearance at Falcon Field and Deer Valley before she continued on with her adventures. From Phoenix Mesa she then went onto Colorado Springs to do some High Altitude Testing. She spent a few days there and then went back to Victorville where she is stationed again.
ZA003 Made her way in the last week over to Montana again arriving at 07MT around 03:02 GMT and then made her way back to Boeing Field and landed at about 01:30AM PST. Other then that she has been doing the normal BFI-MHW turns that seem so ever popular!
ZA002 spent a few days in the Hanger but is back out and flying again. Flight Aware reported that she had diverted to Walla Walla but must have flown out of there on a VFR plan. I think it might have been an error on Flight Aware's part. Other then that she also following ZA003 just doing the BFI-MHW turns.
ZA001 Really hasn't moved all that much. Been Parked on the ground for the last 3 days now and really nothing more then the BFI-MWH turns. She hasn't really travelled too much out of the state.
ZA005 Still has not seen the sky's yet but hopefully we will see her take to them soon. She is on the Flight Line at PAE but she didn't do a thing when I was there on Monday.

It has been a while

Sorry for the lack of updates, this last month has been a crazy one for me. It started with me losing one of my dogs and that kinda took a hit on me for a little while. Followed by me going down to LAX and then coming back and going straight to the Hospital for a week. I am doing much better now after a rather severe flare up. There was fear of me having to go into surgery at one point to fix this thing called a fistula. It is a chamber that get crated between you rectum and bladder and is very bad. Basically it starts mixing stuff up and that is not a good thing. But now to updates on the 787 program since I have been out.

The program took a few weeks off and 2 of the 787's were in the Hangar here in SEA while #4 flew to Victorville and #3 was out in Florida and Texas for cold testing and heat testing.

ZA001 has been flying around and staying local. She seems to be doing these morning half hour hops to MWH and then coming back that evening with another short flight. In fact Mondays 4 hour flight was the longest we have seen out of her in a while.

ZA002 has received a nose job with the addition of a new gold tube on it and also some new sensors in the back. She has been going up for some longer flights though. Also they added 002 to the front gear door!

ZA003 spent some time in the Hangar after coming back but is back out again and flying. She tends to be a night owl and likes to come back in around 2330 when she does go out. It was perfect last night as I was able to catch her landing at BFI. When she comes in that late I can just jump down there in about 5 minutes from work at SeaTac. Not any "Great" shots but some ok ones for the conditions.

ZA004 has been in Victorville the last few weeks now and was captured with a ramp shot by my friend Keith. Look up RightStuffPhotography on Flickr and you can see his shot of her from down there. She has been starting to do long flight testing now as she was out on an 11 hour test the other day. Many of the flights are VCV to VCV. So hopefully this means the ETOPS process is going well with her.

ZA005 had it's first engine start the other day with the new GeNex engines! Still no word on an official flight day yet but should be rather soon and hoping to make it up to Paine for that flight!

Other news updates on the aircraft are-
ANA pilots took to the controls for the first time a few days ago. They were out on ZA001 and did a few touch and goes over in MWH.

ZA002 is coming to an airport near you soon! She has been getting around as she was the first to VCV and then last week she was in Billing Montana. One of my friends Terry Barnett who works over there was able to capture the image with this post over there. I would just like to personally thank Terry once again for the image as it is something new and historic! The last night for the first time she flew to Colorado Springs. Landed and then took off a few hours later did a touch and go and then came back home to BFI. So look for her coming to an airport near you soon!

The Boeing 787 production line has been put on hold at this point with Aircraft 23 just starting to get produced. There is another issue with lack of parts from manufacturer. However Boeing is hoping to continue production again though starting a few weeks into June. They are taking this short break to allow the manufacturer to catch back up and hopefully get ahead so there are not any more halts on the line again.

Boeing also selected Charleston to be the city where it makes it's 2nd line of seats for the aircraft. Everett was not happy with this outcome but honestly it makes the most sense seeing as the 2nd production line is going to be over there as well.

The first non Boeing test paint and ANA colors rolled out of the paint hanger recently. RAM Royal Air Maroc is out now and look very nice. However the aircraft lacks a registration at this point so we will see what ends up getting painted on it. I am hoping to head up to Paine on Monday and get a shot of this bird.

And Finally Boeing is running out of room on there ramp with the number of 787's that are fully configured at this point. So they struck a deal with Everett to start using some more static parking areas away from there ramp and should make for some nice photo ops with other aircraft then just the 6 test ones.

For more pictures of the 787 Flight test program just follow this link to my 787 photo section!
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13497349@N04/sets/72157623814122375/

Picture #3 on A.Net!

This time it is of N7874's Trent 1000-
http://www.airliners.net/photo/Boeing/Boeing-787-8-Dreamliner/1687956/L/

ZA003 Heading to Florida

Just got the email alert from FlightAware that ZA003 is heading for Florida (KVPS) for cold soak testing. This is where they put the aircraft into a hanger and put the temperature to extremely cold temps that it will/can experience at cruise altitude.

Should be back to BFI in about a week from what I heard. She is scheduled to depart at 0600 and with it still being early spring there will be no lighting so sadly not going to make it to get her departure shots. This is the next step for the aircraft though to achieve completion of ground testing and get its type certification from the FAA.
Track the flight over here-
http://flightaware.com/live/flight/BOE3

Not Alot going on at the moment

N787BA Boeing Company 787-881 Classic Shot!
Originally uploaded by seahawks7757

The big thing from this week was it flew to Montana for some crosswind testing with ZA001 but that is about it. The rest of them have been on the ground and not moving. Still have yet to see ZA003 out of the hanger after its first flight.

For the 747-8 program 522 had 2 flights this week. Hoping to see some more of her before they take em down to Palmdale soon. 521 has done nothing since it's first flight except for a 5 hour engine run on Tuesday. 501 over in MWH last flew on the 30th of March in several short flights but nothing more then that. So we will see what we can get with them this week. There is still no offical word as of yet if Boeing has figured out a fix for the gear door flap issue and that could be why 501 was doing a bunch of short flights with landings to test out possible solutions.

The Shot above is an edit I did this week giving it that old 40's feel to the picture. I am quite happy with this outcome!

Big Day!

Today the 787 was put into the ultimate test to see if it could withstand a 150% load factor and today I am pround to say it passed and had no issues. At this point they did not follow the 777 Test where they broke the wings but you never know what we may eventually see them do and see what this puppy can really do!

Sorry for the Lack of updates

Been crazy with having this last week from work off spotting everyday for countless hours and oh yeah, having my Crohn's disease flare up on me for about a day and a half. If you don't know what it is here is a good read on it-
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crohns_disease
But after all of that here we are again!

So for the last week and a half ZA001 has been dominating the flying around Seattle. She has completed all flutter testing to this point. She came in on Sunday looking a little tail heavy and on the BA ops frequency sounded like MTX control was talking to them about it. Whatever it was it lead me to believe it was the cause of ZA004's flight getting scrubbed that night. She flew again today but it was 2 short and sweet flights.
Heres a pic of her high strut-


ZA002 Has completed its ground testing and returned today to BFI. She was away for 2 weeks and came back today after the 2 hour flight from VCV with 18 Souls on Board.


ZA003 came in last sunday and has been parked in the hangar since.

ZA004 Finally completed it's 2nd flight on Thursday with a 3 hour flight that brought her back in around 2015 PST or so and made a nice Streak across the sky's-


Her flight did start with gear down and was down as far as the eye could see-


And the 747-8 program has started to do some more flights out of BFI with 522 aircraft N50217. She flew sunday, missed it by a few got a pic from monday though-


Her size is amazing and with how close we can get to her is also great for the people as you get a nice look under the wings-


Today though was one of the best as the lighting was just amazing on her!-


Til Next time Have a Great Night!

787 Update!

Honestly the last few days have been quite. Yesterday no flights and today 1 flight after super Sunday. So not much to report other then the 747-8 Flying today!

ZA003 Welcome to BFI

Boeing Co N787BX
Originally uploaded by Drewski2112

Sadly I missed the landing since it skipped the flag stop in MWH but oh well life goes on. Thank You Drewski for being there and getting this capture.

So she finally flies, lets see when her next one will be though. ZA004 Tommorow! I am excited to finally see her!

ZA004 update

So why hasn't it flown again many people have been asking. Well here's why-
The aircraft has been receiving the v5.5 software and has been on the ramp at BFI working out the last bugs. This is the aircraft that is working on having to most updated and official Flight Module Control systems. The next flight of this bird is expected to be monday where it will be doing extensive testing and then having it fly south to Victorville for extensive engine testing in getting the RR Trent 1000's.

Also the first flight of ZA003 is actually supposed to be tommorow so going to try to get up to Paine for that possibly and then BFI for the landing!

03/12/10 Update

Today ZA001 really got to get the speed racer on. Though only getting to about 28000 ft she was really working on speed today and got up to Mach .98. Could only be the third traditional passenger jet to go greater than Mach 1.

ZA002 might be flying VFR and that is why there is no updates on her.

ZA003 First flight Sunday March 21st.

ZA004 I heard should fly again at the latest on Monday as it has had new equipment installed that I will be updating on here shortly.


Also the 2nd 747-8 should have its first flight on Monday March 15th!

Update on testing 03/11/10

ZA001 Well yesterday they stretched 001's legs out a little bit and got her all the way up to 43,100 ft for a new high altitude, however no free falls yesterday as they only took her up to mach .84.

ZA002 flew to Victorville on Tuesday however it still has yet to take to the skies again since flying down there. So hope fully we will see her going tomorrow.

ZA003 still in Everett with the official date of her first flight now scheduled for 03/21/10. Not sure on a length of time yet but sure we will here soon enough.

ZA004 has moved a little on the ramp to where ZA002 was always sitting at BFI but that is all she has done. Maybe we will see her fly for the first time tomorrow since her initial on 02/24/2010 but we will have to wait and see.

When looking for the stats and info from today's test flight of ZA001 it doesn't have any history besides the fact it flew today and because I had to run to work missed the landing by about 10 minutes of its 3 hour test flight. So if Flight Aware updates later today I'll post another update but that is all for now though til tomorrow.

Also worth noting today also that the 747-8 received its initial airworthiness certificate after 33 hours of flight time and now enginears will be accompining the aircraft during flights and the other 2 should be joining the testing program here soon!

Have a good night everyone!

Some quotes and updates for all the Boeing Programs

I was able to attain a copy of the transcript of the interview that Jim Albaugh had recently.

The first thing I would like to share that I read from the transcripts is that ZA003 IS set to offically have its first flight on March 21, 2010. Although #3 it will actually be the fourth Dreamliner to fly for the program.

For the 747-8F flight test program there should be 2 more added over in MWH by the end of the month. This program is expected to however move down to southern California very soon. The reason it is going to be down there is bacause of the lack or rampspace and personel at BFI to operate 2 flight test programs.

Direct 787 updates/quotes-
"We've got a very aggressive flight-test program in front of us. We're going to have six airplanes flying. We have to fly those airplanes around 90 hours a week."

ZA001 has managed to reach a mach spped of .97 and a crusing altitude of 43,000ft with pressurization still showing at only 6,000ft. The program is about 40% through flutter testing which began on Feb. 14.

"Right now we've got a month, month and a half of contingency in the program against the entry into service date later this fall, early next winter, but I want more contingency. We're working very hard to improve the efficiency of the test program, which means do more test points per flight. And we're also trying to improve the turnaround of the airplane so we can get more hours in the air with the six airplanes we're going to have."

The first delivery off of the Charlston line is expected to be in 2012.

747-8 Updates-
The program has achieved approximently 8 flight for a total air time of about 33 hours.

"We have a third airplane that's coming on line on the 15th of this month and we have another airplane coming online on the 17th."

And my quote of the day from hom on On the Air Force's aerial refueling tanker competition:

"It's the longest running soap opera since Days of our Lives. I'm not sure we've seen the last episode."

Have a good day everyone and thank you Seattle PI for posting the transcripts from this interview!

ZA001 03/09/10 Update

Today ZA001 took off from Boeing Field at about 12:45 and went to the east side of WA state to its personal racetrack. It was airborne today for about 5.25 hours of flight testing. It seemed to hover around 15,200ft for most of its flight. It got up to mach .84 for the day and that was about it. A pretty uneventful testing day as it seems like they were just doing some stall testing.

Possible Hydrolic Issues was inaccurate. Some reason all the doors were down again

Boeing 787 Dreamliner N787EX
Originally uploaded by Code20photog

After seeing this shot from Code20photoq I am begining to wonder if they had another hydrolic issue near the end of the flight again similar to its first flight. There has been no word from Boeing yet but we will have to see. Seems to be ZA002 is going to be Boeing's problem child as it seems to be the one with the most issues as of yet-
Issue 1-Hydrolic Failure on first flight
Issue 2-FOD in fuel tanks lead to cleaning
Issue 3-Fuel tank dumping fuel after landing as seen here-
http://www.flickr.com/photos/13497349@N04/4342541587/in/set-72157623262306317/
Possible Issue 4-Files for 8 hour flight but comes back in after an hour. Still have not heard of a reason but was back out and testing next day
Possible Issue 5-Another Hydrolic failure here landing in Victorville.

Thank you so much to Code20photoq and Bernie Deyo Photography for the photos from Victorville.

UPDATE- There wasn't a hydrolic issue just needed to do an inspection of the interior area of the gear apparently is all.Thank You Randy from Randys Journal for the heads up!

N787EX At Victorville

Tuedsay
Originally uploaded by Bernie Deyo Photography

ZA002 Made it to Victorville Today after a 2 hour and 14 minute test flight from Boeing Field in Seattle. This is the first time that the 787 has landed in a field out of the state of Washington. The flight intially reportidly supposed to be 3 hours was cut short. Not sure if it was done intentionally or if the pilots just wanted to get down there. From the flight log of the flight looks like they just flew a normal commercial type flight with no real testing. Maximum altitude it achieved was 27000 Ft and it seemed to cruise down at that altitude. It also seemed to reach a top speen of mach .8 or abour 532 MPH for those non science geeks :P Will be updating on ZA001's status from today in my next post here shortly. Also ZA004 still no 2nd flight yet so maybe tommorow? We will have to waut and see.


Also Many thanks to Bernie Devo Photography for the pictures from Victorville as well as Code20Photoq for the shots from sunny Southern California.

ZA002 To Victorville and update on ZA003-4

I have heard that as early as tuesday ZA002 may actually land out of the state of WA for the first time down in California. It is expected to be a 3 hour flight that will take it south. Victorville is known as an aircraft boneyard but this time it will be the test site for the 87 as it has the 2nd longest runway in the nation.

I was doing some night time spying around BFI last night after I got off from work and saw that ZA004 has funally come back out of the hangar and means we should see iot flying around the puget sound very shortly. This could be why #2 is heading south now that they will still have at least 2 flying full time around SEA.

I also noticed that the ramp at BFI is getting a little full with 3 787's down there now and the move to Cali for #2 could also be the sign of ZA003 to finally fly as she was expected to have done so by the end of Febuary but is still hanging out at Paine. Also a video came out the other day on Youtube of ZA003 from the inside. This is the one that will be focusing on the ETOPS certification for the aircraft type. It also has 135 seats and crew rest on board and is the first to do so.

Welcome!

Hello, my name is Brandon Farris and I am an aviation nut. I am creating this blog for now to track the 787 Flight test program and bring you the news as stuff happens from BFI. I will also try to post updates on the 747-8 program but this blog is mainly dedicated to the 787. I am there almost any day before work from around 1100 til 1330 or so in a red suburu impreza that says Horizon Air on the back. Most of the time I am on the roof spotting :-P. Feel free to stop by and say hi and also let me know of anything you have heard about the program and if it seems like it is true I will post it on here and put your name as the reporter.

Also I will throw in updates with the latest 737 movements around BFI but as stated above this blog is mainly dedicated to the 787 Program!