After many years of grueling design work and testing, the first Boeing 787 Dreamliner powered by our GEnx-1B engines finally took its maiden flight on Wednesday.
At GE, a big celebration party was held to watch the first flight live via webcam. It was pretty cool, I must admit. There were several large cakes and plenty of drinks, and all of the engineers who worked on the GEnx project also received special "First Flight" mementos such as a commemorative desktop compass from Boeing and also a special chocolate bar. I haven't eaten my chocolate bar yet, but it has been tempting...
Unfortunately, the first flight was supposed to take place at about 1:00pm Cincinnati time, but it was delayed several times due to poor weather at Paine Field and in the Seattle area. By the time the weather broke, it was nearly 5:00pm and most of the folks had long left the party. I finally left around 3:00 and went back to watch the takeoff from my own desk.
It was a pretty great feeling to watch the 787 take to the sky under the power of our engines. This is what I live for. I can't describe the sense of awe and accomplishment I felt at that moment and also just the satisfaction of knowing that all of those long hours that went into the project were worth it, culminating in a successful first flight.
Based on the reports from our on-site test support team, the engines performed flawlessly and the pilots had nothing but compliments and praise for them. In fact, usually on an airplane's first flight, they do nothing more than takeoff, fly around for a few hours, and land. Nothing too risky. But this flight was unusual because the pilots actually performed multiple airstarts and other tests that are typically reserved for later on in the test campaign. So the pilots and test engineers must have felt really comfortable with the engines even prior to the flight.
The cool thing for me is that I was at Paine Field in Everett sitting on this exact airplane (ZA005) about 3 weeks ago. I got to sit inside the airplane at GE's engineering workstation and monitor the engine data while the test team started up the engines and performed ground runs. I just continue to be humbled by the awesome experiences that I am able to be a part of.
Despite the successful first flight, the 787 is far from a final product. Looking ahead, we will probably have a little more than a year of rigorous flight testing on multiple aircraft before it will ever carry passengers in revenue service. So now, as my boss said yesterday, "Now the fun begins."
Check out the full story here on SeattlePI.com:
News Story Link
Also, here is a sweet photo of the takeoff from Paine Field:
(Photo used is also from SeattlePI.com)
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