Several photographers were on the scene on Friday to capture the move and they've got some pretty wonderful shots of Dreamliner One leaving the factory at sunset, a close up on the wing to body fairing, a peek inside 40-26, ZY998 before and during the move to the flight line, ZA001 at night and backing into her new home. Also, did anyone else notice the China Southern 777F making an appearance too?Photographer Liem Bahneman also captured a Google Maps inspired 32 Megapixel look at Dreamliner One. This is incredibly impressive and is a surefire productivity killer.
Friday's 787 line move made way for Dreamliner Five to begin final assembly once all its remaining structural sections have arrived. With that being said, I went about comparing April's 787 rollout to last Friday's and the results were surprising. It's a game of spot the differences (there are a lot of them).
Looking at excellent 32 Megapixel view, there seems to be a lot of Clekos still on the horizontal stab.
Also, I like the "EXPERIMENTAL" over the forward port door. Until it has an FAA certification, I suppose it is still experimental!
I wonder if it will fly into Oshkosh this summer...
Hey Jon,why don't you ask your buddies at Boeing why they're starting to outsource jobs? Planetechs.com has several jobs for the 737,757,767 and 787. This outsourcing was confirmed yesterday by supervisors. Outsourcing is the main reason that the 787 is such a disaster. Typical stupid Boeing upper management thinking. Or typical lack of thinking.
Just go to planetechs.com,click on "view current openings" or click on "Washington". There are also Boeing jobs listed for Delaware and Florida.
Just Wondering, we get it that you're a machinist working on the 787. This isn't the proper outlet for you to complain about management and oursourcing, and furthermore none of it has anything to do with Mr. Ostrower. Please stop posting useless comments.
One would hope you would still have your foot in your mouth after your multiple (incorrect) flames about last week's line move.
With employees like "just wondering" its little wonder Boeing would be outsourcing work....
Jon, your blog is very informative. More than any other website that I visit for aviation, Boeing information. However, comments by Justwondering are not helpful at all and a big distraction. Please remove his comments and him permanently.
It would be interesting if someone pointed out or enumerated the significance of the changes...what does it indicate?
Boeing is outsourcing jobs to save money just like other companies are doing. Probably just like the company you're working for. Your jobs aren't safe either. The 7-late-7 is hemorrhaging money! You wouldn't believe the amount of rework that is being done on these planes. We start fixing one problem and we find another.The vendors screwed up big time! So many of Boeing's programs are way behind schedule. Yeah,go ahead blame me for that too. As for asking Jon to remove me (or anyone else you don't agree with) is called censorship. My life won't come to an end if I am kicked off this site. EVERYONE has a right to an opinion. If you want to read only one point of view,go to Rush Limpball's website. There have been several people that have posted things on this site that I don't agree with but I would never ask that they be banned because I didn't agree with them or if they're "a big distraction". LOL! By the way,one of the reasons I thought the line move was a crock because Boeing has been saying since August '08 that Dodo 1 was coming over and the fatigue plane was going to flight line. Boeing changes its mind about everything (especially the 7-late-7) every 3 seconds. If any of you who bitch about me work at Boeing (which you don't),you would know just how screwed up the 7-late-7 program is. The stupid decisions by upper management has sunk this program. The workers didn't make the decision to outsource to vendors who had no experience in manufacturing parts for airplanes.
No matter how costly or how delayed the 787 becomes, I don't think it can help but be a huge success. Look at all that's happened so far, all the delays, all the strikes, all the public battles with suppliers over quality control and defective components... and yet look at how many standing orders there are for this airplane! I think it all comes down to this: If the 787 can save half as much as the engineers say it can on operational costs, it will sell like hotcakes. Also remember, Boeing doesn't rely on the up-front sticker price of the aircraft alone... a huge source of income for them is spare parts and maintenance support, and to be able to pump out so many new airplanes in so few years is going to drastically increase the number of aircraft they are providing these services for.
No 'just wondering', no matter how you slice it, Boeing has a winner on their hands. It might look bad when you're as close to things as you claim to be, but take a few steps back, I think you'll be surprised ;)
LizM,The idea of a composite commercial airplane was and is brilliant BUT Boeing screwed it up by outsourcing. Everyone I've talked so far doesn't think there's in hell that first flight will happen in April '09. Some think it won't happen until June '09. Some have said September and some have said it won't fly until next year. I'm guessing June or July. There's work that still needs to be done on the static plane. As for being surprised,I'll be surprised if no other major problems come up.