EVERETT, Wash. — Boeing’s new 787 jetliner finally got airborne Tuesday, the long-delayed inaugural flight of the world’s first commercial plane constructed with half its components made from lightweight composite materials.
The sleek jet lifted off from Everett’s Paine Field on a flight over Washington state, beginning an extensive nine-month testing program needed to obtain Federal Aviation Administration certification.
“It’s very historical. I can’t think of a thing about it that I’m not impressed with,” said Joe Bierce, a flight instructor for Delta Connection in Jacksonville, Fla., who was among the 25,000 people gathered to watch the takeoff.
The two-member crew performed a variety of basic system checks, including testing the landing gear and the flaps, before landing at Seattle’s Boeing Field about three hours later. Deteriorating weather brought the plane back to earth about an hour earlier than planned.
“The airplane responded just as we expected,” said Randy Neville, one of the two pilots. “It was a joy to fly.”
Chicago-based Boeing, which has orders for 840 of the jets, plans to make the first delivery to Japan’s All Nippon Airways late next year.
The 787 is a radical departure in aircraft design. Where other passenger jets are made mostly from aluminum and titanium, about half of the 787 is made of lightweight composite materials such as carbon fiber. Those materials have long been used on individual parts such as rudders, and on military planes, but the 787 is the most ambitious use of the technology aboard a passenger plane. Boeing says the aircraft will be quieter, produce lower emissions and use 20 percent less fuel than comparable planes, while giving passengers a more comfortable cabin with better air quality and larger windows.
Tuesday’s flight “was very mundane on takeoff and very mundane on the landing, and that’s exactly what you want on the first flight of an experimental airplane,” said analyst Scott Hamilton of Leeham Co., an aviation consulting firm in Issaquah, Wash.
“Boring is good in aviation,” he said.
