The coverline on this week's Flight International (27 September) proclaims DELIVERANCE, with a picture of the first 787 in ANA colours being shone on from the heavens.
Marking the delivery of the long-delayed airliner, the cover is also an allusion to the big question now surrounding the Dreamliner: does the hand-over to the Japanese carrier mark the end of Boeing's well-catalogued problems with the 787 and the start of a long-lived and highly-profitable aircraft (like the 737, 747 or 777) - or is it merely the latest development in a seemingly never ending struggle to balance the books on a disastrously mismanaged programme?
In a news focus, Jon Ostrower, who has followed the programme almost since its birth, examines the history and the prospects now for Boeing's Dreamliner.
Also in the issue, in our commercial engines special feature: why Rolls-Royce is turning to composites after traditionally relying on metalic fan blades. And, in an era of rising oil prices, where next for the turboprop? Has a technology deemed almost obsolete for passenger airliners a decade or more ago gained a new lease of life, and will we yet see new larger turboprop airliners?
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