WICHITA, KS -- Spirit Aerosystems showed off its forward 787 Section 41 today and invited the media onboard Dreamliner Four, the first nose section to be delivered with a 100% completion of assembly. The first photo features, from left to right, Dreamliners Four, Five, Six and Seven.
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on June 12, 2008 11:12 PM | Reply
Thank you, Jon. It's great to see the progress!
on June 13, 2008 6:26 AM | Reply
That is what I call organized progress.
Good job Jon, thanks for sharing man.
on June 13, 2008 1:00 PM | Reply
Great Pics Jon. Thanks for the always great job you do! Keep em' coming!
on June 13, 2008 2:09 PM | Reply
Great shots Jon! I can't wait till the first flight and the first delivery to ANA!
on June 13, 2008 8:43 PM | Reply
That first shot with the Nose section of # 4
#5,#6,and #7 is AWESOME..
I can always count on you to get my 787 fix.
Keep them coming..
on June 13, 2008 11:05 PM | Reply
The first shot is absolutely stunning and reminds me of my visit to Japan and seeing the JR rocket trains on the rails by each other. It's the start of another era in planebuilding. Jon, this first photo achieves to be one of the best from all aviation photos. I admire your talent of representing the information about groundbreaking projects. Thank you.
on June 14, 2008 12:28 AM | Reply
Apologies for putting in a comment here but don’t know how else to put it in.
On the 777 accident in London. It seems to me that the problem is like the old riddle of a man found hanging in the middle of the room and a puddle of water under him, how did he die? Answer the block of ice he was standing on melted.
In my line of work (deepwater drilling) we come across hydrates which are a unusual mixture of water and gas that forms an ice like substance at the seabed. Hydrates can only form within a pressure temperature envelope. We regularly have problems with equipment blocking with hydrates near the seabed in water depths greater than 500m and where the seabed is at about 4 deg C or less ie within the hydrate window. Raise either the temperature or reduce the pressure and the hydrate melts. Any equipment blocked by hydrates mysteriously has no blockage by the time you bring it to surface because the temperature has been raised and the pressure dropped.
The 777 investigators are struggling to explain how a fuel can freeze at a temperature way (-34 deg C) above its freezing point(-57 deg C)? In the case of the 777 crash they had the opposite to my example. Very cold fuel and an increase in pressure as the plane descended. A mixture of very cold fuel and water freezes as the pressure increases and causes the fuel lines to block, the fuel pumps show signs of cavitation indicating some form of fuel starvation. As everyone leaves the plane, the mixture melts and the blockage disappears. The man is left hanging in the room so to speak.
It would be interesting to see if anyone looked for water in the fuel lines rather than the allowable amount in the fuel tanks?
on June 15, 2008 4:39 AM | Reply
Like said before, this is a kicker! It's a funny thing, us plane fanatics, but seeing these pics brightens up the day!
Thanks Jon!
on June 16, 2008 10:33 AM | Reply
Looks like it still has a conventional mechanically steered doppler radar. I'll would have hoped that the Dreamliner will receive an AESA unit with no moving parts.
on June 16, 2008 12:11 PM | Reply
The radar is the Rockwell Collins WXR-2100 multi-scan radar. A pretty nice unit with a lot of smarts. Still some growing pains, but getting better with every software upgrade.