First Flight of a Dream(liner)

The day has come, the day Boeing was waiting, the day Aviation industry was dreaming, the day we were desperately waiting to see the reality of the hard work we put in last 5 years. Dec 15 2009 is going to be one of the important day to remember in our life, The Boeing 787 Dreamliner flew for the first time. I am privileged to see the 787 take off live and feel happy to be here in Seattle during this historic event in Aviation.

Boeing 787 Dreamliner


787 is a special airplane, not for one but for many reasons. 787 Dreamliner is a revolution in Commercial Aviation Industry, which happens once in blue moon, this is one such, a plane for Ages. I have listed below some of the features of 787 Dreamliner.

-> 787 is made with less Aluminum and more composite material, generally used in fighter planes. This reduces weight thereby reduces the fuel consumption.
-> Window size of 787 is greater than current planes window size, which gives the passengers good view with auto-dimming feature.
->Increase in Internal air pressure to give more comfort to passengers even in higher altitudes.
-> Better Air quality in air-conditioning system. And lot more, check this link for more details.

For us the excitement started from Monday evening, thinking and talking about the 787. Everything was going as per the plan, Only rain God could play the spoilsport. We were praying God to take care of climate. Boeing has made arrangements to web cast this event, we watched the event in web cast.

Lets move to Paine Field Everett Washington.

@10:00 - Lot of Employees gathered along the runway waving hands towards the lens. There was a Boeing IMAX helicopter is shooting the crowd and the event, Boeing is capturing all the events related to 787. It was said that the flight engines were Turn ON 30 minutes back. Two pilots along with lot of computers were on board for this Historic First Flight.

@10:10 - Final security check was done to ensure a safe flight. There were two military planes to escort 787 and 787 would be following these flights. These military planes had cameras to shoot 787 on fly.

@10:20 - The flight started to move on its own power to the run way, the plane was to fly towards north.

@10:25 - All set to go, Dreamliner was in runway waiting for final clearance from Air traffic control.

@10:27 - There she goes, she started the run for First Flight like Usan Bolt, ran fast, took off smoothly and steered into the sky like Sergey Bubka in pole vault. Awesome.

There She goes


The first flight was planned for 5 1/2 hours. But it was cut short (due to bad weather) and landed in 3 hours @ 1:35PM in Boeing field, King County, the county where we are staying. Boeing promised to have the first flight before this year end and did it like hitting a six in the last ball. The sleepless nights, weekends that we spent in our office to work in the software that supports this flight, came in my mind like a flash. All the hard work from thousands of people across the globe made this happen. This is Boeing's perfect Christmas gift for everyone who helped Boeing to make this mega event a success.

Moments before landing


For a person like me, who few years back, ran to street to see low flying helicopters and planes, it is really a great feeling and pleasure that a new generation flight takes off with my hard work in it, my contribution may be very minute but I feel proud and happy and now whenever I see 787 Dreamliner in sky I got a story to tell to my friends, family, children "Hey, Look at that plane, I have helped this plane to fly."

My Collegues with 787 After landing


Courtesy Bhagath for the photographs (Except the take off pic)

Watch 787 First Flight take off in this link and landing in this link.