Boeing 787 Dreamliner

Seattle’s Museum of Flight gets a Dreamliner

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It’s still so new – but the 787 Dreamliner is already a museum piece.

On Saturday, Nov. 8, the Boeing Company will officially donate Dreamliner “Number 3” to Seattle’s Museum of Flight.

If you’re in town, you’ll be able to see the plane in the museum’s East Parking Lot all weekend and tour it from noon to 5 p.m. Saturday, and all day Sunday, Nov. 9.

The plane will then be relocated and closed to the public from Nov. 10 until the 21st while it gets prepped for permanent exhibition starting Nov. 22.

What’s the big deal about this airplane?

This 787 – ZA003 – was the third Dreamliner built. It first flew on March 14, 2010 and, in addition to its role in the flight test and certification program, Boeing flew this plane to almost two dozen countries to show it off as part of a “Dream Tour.”

Party for Air New Zealand’s new 787-9

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Air New Zealand and Boeing had a party Tuesday night at the Future of Flight in Everett, WA in advance of the official physical delivery of the first 787-9 Dreamliner, painted with a striking black livery, scheduled on Wednesday morning July 9.

Here are a few snaps from Tuesday evening’s event, which was attended by special guests and perhaps 1000 of the Boeing employees who worked on the airplane.

P1030541

After speeches and gift-giving, curtains opened to reveal black T-shirt clad Boeing employees and – behind the smoke – the new airplane.

ANZ

Here’s a closer look at the tail end of the new plane:

ANZ TAIL

And, for country music fans, here’s a photo of the evening’s surprise entertainment: The Band Perry.

BAND PERRY

More photos tomorrow – when I get to go inside the plane.

A Norwegian view of Aviation Geekfest 2013

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More than 200 people from around the region – and around the world – recently attended Aviation Geekfest 2013 in Seattle.

Over the past few years this annual event has grown tremendously in scope and attendance and this year offered aviation fans a chance to visit the Museum of Flight in Seattle, Boeing’s Renton 737 factory and, up near Paine Field in Everett, the Future of Flight, Boeing’s Dreamliner Gallery, the Museum of Flight Restoration Center, the Historic Flight Foundation, the Flying Heritage Collection, and the Boeing Factory Tour.

David Parker Brown, the key event organizer, has a full report – and loads of photos – on his blog, Airline Reporter.com, but I wanted to share the report filed by 12 year-old Eskil Skute, who traveled from Norway with his dad, Per, just to attend the Aviation Geekfest – and check out Seattle.

GEEKFEST NORWAY REPS

Eskil and his dad at Aviation GeekFest. All the way from Norway! Courtesy Boeing

 

I wasn’t able to attend Aviation Geekfest this year, but did stop by for the closing session and sat down next to Eskil and his dad. They filled me in on all the activities and I told Eskil that if he ended up writing a report of his adventure, I’d be happy to include it on StuckatTheAirport.com.

Eskil sent this to me a week or so back. English is not his first language and I toyed with editing this to smooth it out, but have decided that his enthusiasm comes through just fine as is. So all I did was shorten it a bit.

Thanks, Eskil, for sharing your story!

“My trip to Seattle was totaly awesome!!! We started leaving from our town Sarpsborg and drived to Oslo airport hotel. … At 04:00 at morning we took a shuttle buss up to the airport and took the airplane from Gardermoen to schipol. Then we whaited 2 hours to the 9hours trip ahead of us. When we landed i was whery tired.we also lost our luggage:

We where a lot at the future of flight. We where a lot up on the roof and watched planes land and take off. We saw the Dreamlifter take off. That whas very cool:) next day we where going to the boeing 737 factory. We where first at the museum of flight. I loved museum of flight. The sr-71blackbird and mig 21fishbed and more…

When we comed to the boeing factory we where taked up to a Big room with three Big tv’s. We where not allowed to take pictures inside. When i comed out to where They builded boeing 737 i where like woow. It was huge. I saw a lot of airplanes in Lines ahead. I saw sas, westjet, hainan airlines,northwest airlines and united. It was hot inside.

That was the first time in history that They had lett anobody inside where They builded boeing 737. 

Next day i buyed me a model aircraft. It was a boeing 737 800 star allaince. The airline was air nippon(ANA).

Then we went shopping some new clothes beacause we have lost our luggage. The next day we where going to the dreamliner gallery and the main factory for boeing. The dreamliner gallery was pretty cool. We saw things and colors They wanted to have in the plane.

Then we whent to the main factory. I just said wow when i comed in. This plase wasent huge…IT WAS LARGE. We saw the boeing 747,777,787. We saw the first boeing 787dreamliner for Norwegian. The boeing factory is the biggest building in volum in the WORLD.

I had a great time inside the boeing factory. The coolest thing was the 737 ofcourse;). Next day it was back to seatle. We went to pike plase market in seatle. They throwed fish and that was funny:). Then we went to spaceneedle. It was tall and i could see the museum of flight:). We also saw the k5news helicopter take off from the roof:) that was very cool. We saw it from spaceneedle:).

Next day was our last day in seatle. We went on the tallest skyscraper in seatle it was abaout 70-80 floors. On 40th floor the talest starbucks in the world was.

The next day we had to leave. I buyed togheter 6model aircraft and i was happy. When i comed home i was tired. I miss seatle.

Eskil

787 Dreamliner delivery

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Here are some fun photos from a day spent at Boeing’s Everett campus, learning about and touring the 787 Dreamliner and wandering around the 787 factory floor in preparation for Monday’s long-awaited delivery celebration for the first Dreamliner delivery to ANA.

A bit mystifying... No smoking, yet the FAA requires an ashtray.

787 Dreamliner cockpit

More 787s in the pipeline at Boeing factory in Everett

Saving money? Note masking tape fix to turn 777 to 787.

Signing books at Future of Flight Aviation Center

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If you’re in the Seattle area today (Friday, August 6, 2010) and can skip work for a while, please join me at the Future of Flight Aviation Center – co-located with the Boeing Tour – in Mukilteo, about 30 miles north of Seattle.

The big attraction there, of course, is the tour of the Boeing airplane plant and the interactive displays in the Future of Flight center, but I’ll be there today as well, chatting with visitors about some of the offbeat and iconic Washington State places in my Washington Curiosities and Washington Icons books.

I’m bringing along photos of some of my favorite Northwest things – including the World’s Largest Egg, the Aeroplane, and the drive-through stump – and the Future of Flight store has scheduled an all-day wine-tasting event (with serious discounts on some Washington Wines) so it could turn into quite a party.

Details: 10 am – 3:30 pm at the  Future of Flight Aviation Center. (Directions)

See you there!

8-year-old teaches Boeing a lesson

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I had a chance to tag along with 8-year old Harry Winsor, his brother Charlie and their parents today on a VIP visit to the Future of Flight Aviation Center and the Boeing Factory Tour in Mukilteo,Wa.

Winsors in the airplane engine

Harry and his family were getting the royal treatment in part to make up for the fact that, back in March, Boeing sent young Harry a terse form letter in response to his letter containing a picture of a jet airplane he’d designed.

The form letter, which Harry’s dad, John, posted on his blog, said the giant aerospace company does not accept unsolicited ideas and so disposed of his “message” and “retained no copies.”  Word got out and the universal response of aviation geeks, bloggers and aerospace engineers who’d once been kids was “Not cool. Not cool at all.”

Luckily for Harry – and for Boeing – just a few weeks before Harry got his “Thanks, but no thanks” letter from Boeing, the corporate communications folks at Boeing got their Twitter accounts. And Todd Blecher, Boeing’s Corporate Communications Director, was paying attention.  As documented on the Airline Reporter blog and elsewhere, Blecher Tweeted a response that said, “….For kids we can do better. We’ll work on it.”

And it certainly appears that they are. Blecher flew to Seattle this week to be on hand while Harry and his family got a VIP tour of the Boeing Factory and the non-profit Future of Flight center next door. And Blecher explained that the company is working on a better letter to send out to enthusiastic kids like Harry who send in letters and pictures.  The first letter they drafted was too dry and formal.  The next version they wrote up read too much like a recruitment letter, “It said, ‘Study science and come work for Boeing,’ ” says Blecher, “So we tried again. My boss took the letter home and had his five kids take a look at it.”

In the meantime, today Harry and Charlie got to see where their favorite airplanes get made.  They got a bagful of cool Boeing airplane swag.  And they got to to see their drawings exhibited alongside a few dozen other imaginative airplane drawings by children and adults from around the world in the Future of Flight’s Harry Winsor Design Your Own Aircraft Show .

And, already a Well-Mannered Traveler, Harry didn’t come empty handed.  He presented Boeing and the Future of Flight with a framed drawing he’d made especially for the occasion.

I’ll post a gallery of some of the airplane artwork tomorrow, but in the meantime, see aerospace reporter Aubrey Cohen’s great photo gallery and article about Harry and Charlie’s day.

Build your own 787 Dreamliner

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A few months back I toured Boeing’s Dreamliner Gallery.  That’s the 54,000 square foot shopping center near the company’s Everett, Wa. plant where airlines go to pick out the carpeting, the seats and the interior elements of their new 787 airplanes.

I brought along photographer Jerome Tso to take pictures, and yesterday my story about that visit – with a 17-photo slide-show of Jerome’s photos – posted on USA TODAY, on the first day of the roll-out of their re-designed on-line travel section.

I encourage you to read the full article and click through the slide-show accompanying my Build your own Dreamliner story.   But in the meantime – here are a few photos of the Dreamliner features I’m looking forward to.

First  – the windows:

As you can see in this Dreamliner Gallery display panel – which compares the size of the Dreamliner windows to the size of the windows on a competitor’s plane – the 787 is going to have windows much larger than the windows we’re used to seeing on airplanes.  These shade-less, smart (electrochromic), glass windows will be the largest in the industry – and you’ll be able to dim them with the push of a button.

I’m also looking forward to the Dreamliner bathrooms.Don’t laugh. These little lavs will have both touchless faucets and touchless flushers. The flushers also automatically close the lid before flushing the toilet. And for anyone who’s ever tried to change into fresh clothes in an airplane bathroom, the Dreamliner bathrooms will have this simple but brilliant fold down step – so you can avoid having to put your feet on the sticky floors.

To see the full article, and Jerome Tso’s photos, please see Build your own Dreamliner on USATODAY.com.

Can you build a better airplane? The Future of Flight wants your design

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Here’s a great lemons to lemonade story.

8 year old Harry Winsor really loves to draw airplanes. So his dad, a savvy advertising executive – with a blog – sent one of Harry’s pictures to the folks at Boeing.  But rather than send Harry a thank-you note, the giant company sent Harry a form letter letting him know that – like every other idea or suggestion that comes in over the transom – they were legally required to shred the  drawing; not even look at it – lest young Harry someday accuse the company of stealing his ideas.

That didn’t sit right with his dad, who wrote about the incident on his blog and, – as this Advertising Age article explains, here’s where the lemonade started getting made.  Someone at Boeing with a new Twitter account got wind of the snafu  and:

“In no time, the brand reached out and took responsibility for its mistake. It called young Harry and invited him to visit Boeing’s facilities. On its corporate Twitter site, it wrote things such as, “This is on-the-job social-media training for us” and “We’re expert at airplanes but novices in social media. We’re learning as we go.”

Other companies and organizations jumped in as well.  Alaska Airlines sent Harry a model airplane. And now the Future of Flight Aviation Center – which is co-located with the Boeing Tour in Mukilteo, Wa. – has created a design your own aircraft show in Harry’s honor.

Kids – of all ages – are invited to submit their airplane designs to The Harry Winsor Design Your Own Aircraft Show by June 7th, 2010.  Designs will then be on display at the Future of Flight from June 15, 2010  through July 30, 2010.

Everyone who enters will not only have their artwork put on display; they’ll receive a special badge for their efforts.

Here’s what I’m sending in.

It’s a drawing of the 787 Dreamliner I smuggled out of the factory during a tour organized by Alaska Airlines a few months back.

Got something better?  Then read the guidelines and send your drawing in to the Future of Flight’s Harry Winsor Design Your Own Aircraft Show.