Boeing Announces Final Leg of 787 Dream Tour - Sydney/Darwin

[Brock Little]

To me, the strobes seem similar to those on the Imperial Shuttle used in the Star Wars series

[Jaryd stock]

Originally Posted by Brock Little

To me, the strobes seem similar to those on the Imperial Shuttle used in the Star Wars series

Likes planes and star wars, gee's your a geek.......
Just kidding Brock You kinda asked for it.

[Brock Little]

Originally Posted by Jaryd stock

Likes planes and star wars, gee's your a geek.......
Just kidding Brock You kinda asked for it.

No offence taken Jaryd, geek and proud of it

[Jaryd stock]

Originally Posted by Brock Little

No offence taken Jaryd, geek and proud of it

Same here well said

[Grahame Hutchison]

I thought I would wrap up the Dreamliner visit to Sydney with some images from my visit yesterday. A big thank you to Australian Aviation Magazine and
Boeing for the opportunity to inspect the aircraft, and to Owen Zupp for hosting the tour. After visiting ZA001 back in November, where the interior was
unlined and filled with computers and water tanks, it was great to see what the Dreamliner will look like in commercial operation.

The fixed flush windows and the contoured curve of the nose greatly reduce noise levels in the cockpit. Wipers park in behind the centre window post.


The Business Class cabin with one of eight standard seating options. Some airlines will choose to install their own seating styles.


The pilot crew rest area located above the Business Class cabin. There are two bunks and a seat behind the camera on the left, half way between the
cabin floor and the bunks.


The cockpit has dual HUD and Flight Bags, electronic checklists, and a very clean layout. There is a lot of commonality with the B777, which has a common type rating, and conversion from the B777 only takes 5 days.


The main entry and greeting area on this demonstration aircraft with flat screen TV and a sculptured ceiling (see later images)


One seating style in the Economy Cabin.


A second seating style in rear Economy Cabin.


The rear galley is quite large with the rear exit door on the right.


The Cabin Crew rest located above the rear Economy Cabin. Three bunks towards the back of the aircraft, one on each side and one across the back, and
three towards the front (see next image).




One of the port mid doors.


The forward Economy Cabin from behind, and the overhead lockers are very generous.


The crew demonstrated the "Disco" lighting, with the full range of colours flashing right along the aircraft.

[Grahame Hutchison]

More images above.

The electrochromic window dimming takes about 90 seconds to change fully. They had to reverse the original concept of the design so that the window
was fully clear when all power was lost (sounds easier than is probably was).


Standard IFE in the Economy Cabin with what looked like a USB port on the right.


The Trent 1000 is just an amazing beast - you could walk inside it. Laminar flow nacelles with chevrons at the rear, reduce aircraft noise, and fuel
consumption is 20% lower. Long range cruise speed is Mach 0.85 and GEnx engines are also available.


The Boeing house livery against a blue sky, made to go together.


The brakes are electric, not hydraulic.


The Dreamliner has very clean lines, and all the control surfaces are beautifully fitted to reduce drag.


The wing is a masterpiece in itself, a high aspect design with with raked wing tips, laminar flow nacelles
and a variable camber trailing edge, all reducing drag and lowering fuel consumption. The wing tips flex
six metres.


The Dreamliner really lives up to the dream up close.

[Bernie P]

Great photos Grahame - thanks for sharing them...

A bit of a technical question for those in the know... Now that the B787 is in service, a modification was made to the APU exhaust: -

Natural fuel leaks from the auxiliary power unit (APU) fueling line were supposed to drain harmlessly out the bottom of the structure as designed, though rather than do that, the fuel was pooling into the APU exhaust cone.

The result, when the APU was started back up again, this page is told, the fuel torched out of the back of the tailcone. Naturally, this was a phenomena Boeing and the FAA wanted to avoid. Sources say APU drainage evaluations have been a particular focus of flight test over the past several months.

Source: - APU drainage behind Boeing's 787 tail cone tweak

I would've thought that this modification would have been done to the test fleet? Below is the modification I am talking about...

All Nippon Airways Boeing 787 Dreamliner JA801A ZA101 by Jon Ostrower, on Flickr


All Nippon Airways Boeing 787 Dreamliner JA801A ZA101 by Jon Ostrower, on Flickr

[Grahame Hutchison]

Hi Bernie,

Here is a close up of the APU exhaust, showing the difference in the tail cone design. They probably have not updated this on the test aircraft, as ZA003
will only do a few more test flights before it is assigned to the desert with ZA001.

[Bernie P]

Another one to the desert, already?? Is this because of the cycles/rework that have been done to the 'Test Fleet', or that no-one would want them anyway?? As sad as it is to see anything go to the desert, its particularly so for such a young (age) bird. I wonder how/what they will recycle them given the amount of composite material in them - not good for tinnies...

[Nigel C]

I did suggest they could park this one at Wollongong....not really historical, but I'm sure they'd do their best to keep it flying