Switching Blogs!

Hey everyone I am switching to a new blog that is more based on aviation as a whole rather then just one aircraft, so I ask that you all please update your links to this one-
http://brandonsaviationblog.blogspot.com/

I will be doing a better job with updating that one as news comes out and along!

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/