Boeing flies first SC built 787 and Air India will take delivery this month

Boeing has successfully flown the first North Charleston built 787 today (LN 46) for Air India.  The B1 flight flight lasted about 5 hours as it flew off the South Carolina coast.  The plane will later fly to Texas where it will be painted and then return to Charleston for further test flights and delivery to Air India at the end of June.

Here's Boeing's press release:

Boeing Conducts Inaugural Flight of First 787 Built in South Carolina

Dreamliner on track for mid-year delivery to Air India 

NORTH CHARLESTON, S.C., May 23, 2012 /PRNewswire/ -- Boeing (NYSE: BA) today marked another 787 milestone as the first Dreamliner built in South Carolina completed its first flight. Piloted by Tim Berg and Randy Neville, the airplane successfully conducted a five-hour test flight. More than 5,000 Boeing South Carolina employees watched a live broadcast of the airplane as it took off from Charleston International Airport. 

"This is a proud moment for our Boeing South Carolina team and for Boeing," said Jack Jones, vice president/general manager, Boeing South Carolina. "In April, we gathered on the flightline to watch this airplane roll out of final assembly. Today, we watched as this airplane successfully completed its first production flight - one step closer to delivering our first South Carolina-built 787 Dreamliner to our customer." 

Today's production flight test profile tested the airplane's controls and systems in a series of scenarios designed to verify the airplane operates as designed. The tests occurred in all stages of flight beginning prior to taxi, through final landing and taxi. 

During the flight, the crew checked the functionality of onboard systems at high and medium altitudes. They also checked backup and critical safety elements including cabin pressurization, avionics, and navigation and communications systems. In addition, they shut down and re-started each engine during flight. 

"First flight of this South Carolina-built airplane is a significant achievement and our teammates did a great job working together to make this happen," said Berg. "The airplane performed exactly as we expected." 

The airplane will be flown to Ft. Worth, Texas to be painted with Air India's livery before returning to Boeing South Carolina for a mid-2012 delivery.

Speaking of Air India, 787 and delivery...this soap opera couldn't get any weirder.  It was reported (in the Indian press and picked up by the local US press) that the Aviation Minister, Ajit Singh, was not going to travel to the US for the delivery because it was being pushed back two weeks.  Now today Air India says they will take delivery of the first 787 at the end of May and that Singh's cancellation was due to the on going Air India-pilots saga.

Meanwhile as Air India tries to sort out its mess here's a couple of articles of interest:

Inside Boeing’s 787 Factory

Air India to get its first Boeing 787 Dreamliner by May-end  

While we're waiting for more 787 deliveries, here's some more pictures of the Blue Angels here at Long Island:

Blue Angels at Republic Airport

May 21, 2012 Update - The Blues are in town

Boeing teased many people when a flightaware alert went out announcing the first flight or the 1st Charleston produced 787.  ZA237 (LN46) for Air India was supposed to fly at 3pm EST but the flight never went off.  This is possibly due to weather conditions in the area as tropical depression Alberto (first tropical storm of the Atlantic hurricane season) was still lingering off the Georgia coast but was expected to drift to the northeast during the week.

Nonetheless, this indicates that Boeing is ready to proceed with first flight unless there is maintenance issue.

While we're waiting you can enjoy some photos of the Blue Angels that I took on Monday afternoon as they were arriving at Republic Airport in Farmingdale.

Blue Angels Arrival at Republic Airport

Aviation Centers and museums

The former Grumman facilities at Bethpage

Richard Aboulafia wrote a great piece on his web site describing how aviation centers have disappeared and provides a convincing story of how commercial aircarft manufacturing can disappear from the Seattle area.

He uses the Long Island region (where I live) as an example. All that's left from Long Island's aviation tradition are a few museums and dilapidated buildings like the one's in Bethpage, NY. I live a couple miles away from Grumman's former industrial campus (in Bethpage) that and there is another one few miles away at Republic Airport in Farmingdale, NY which was the factory site of Republic Aircraft which built the P-47, F-105 and the A-10. There's a small museum there now. Will the IAM (and SPEEA) turn Everett and Renton into aviation museums. Looks like they've started that process. Read Richard's article here.