Three Hour Flight Was 'Flawless' -- At Least, Until Mother Nature Intervened

For anyone who loves the aviation business, this was a VERY good day. After a number of delays and mis-steps that often accompany those programs that are truly trying to raise the bar and accomplish revolutionary progress, Boeing's B787 Dreamliner took to the skies over a very soggy Northwest Washington state.

This first flight carried only the needed flight test crew... though later flights will be accompanied by a virtual army of flight test engineers. The first Boeing 787 is registered as N787BA and will be under the command of Boeing's Chief Pilot Mike Carriker, and Engineering Test Pilot Randy Neville. The aircraft departed Paine Field's Rwy 34L and returned via a landing at Boeing Field's Rwy 13R a little over three hours later.

While the initial weather forecast didn't look so hot, Boeing went ahead with the flight in conditions that started out with a scattered deck at about 1500 ft, and overcast at 2500 ft, calm to light winds out of the southeast, and a temperature just under 40 degrees -- though rain was ever present as a possible and nearly certain threat.

And eventually, lowering ceilings and roving storms created such a workload and a number of deviations that Pilot Mike Carriker finally called it off after three hours simply because they weren't able to fly the airplane the way that their original plans called for (and in fact, required a fair amount of IFR activity).

Both Carriker and Neville reported no major issues during the flight and were ebullient in their praise for the aircraft and the team that prepared it for flight. The next flight of N787BA will come within a week or so (barring holiday issues... Christmas is right around the corner, after all) after the installation of additional test and telemetry equipment to start some 9 months of AGGRESSIVE flight testing that will eventually involve six flight test vehicles.

ANN extends its sincere Congrats to the team at Boeing for the safe and exciting execution of a flawless first flight!

FMI: www.boeing.com, www.aero-tv.net, www.youtube.com/aerotvnetwork, http://twitter.com/AeroNews