787 no. 1 will be leaving the final assembly hall for the last time for a spot in the 767 final assembly hall for about a month or so of assembly tasks and fastener repalcement tasks. Currently it is out of buidling 40-26 waiting for the the spot in 40-24 to open up (a 777 and the 787 fatigue test frame are also being moved). ZY998 will move to the flight line prior to being moved to the fatigue test area.
Also with on the card for tonight's move is the move of LN 2, LN 3, and LN4 to the spots forward of where they are. This will mean that position 1 in the 787 final assembly building (the big bang) will be free for the next 787 to enter final assembly, LN 5, or the GEnx test airframe.
I hope to link to pictures on other sites that document tonight's activities.
See here and here for Matt Cawby's pictures. She still is missings bits and pieces here and there.
Here's a FLICKR page with a lot of great pics from last night's move. And here's a video that Jon Ostrower also posted on his blog. Great details of the 787 here.
Dreamliner One Line Move from Liz Matzelle on Vimeo.
By the way, the other three 787s in building 40-26 were moved down one spot each as well. None have their engines hung as of yet.
Thanks for the nice pictures. Something jumps right out at me! The engines of the 787 are much too close to the wing. The landing gear should have been longer like 757 allowing more separation of the engine nacelle flow from the wing flow. This will disturb the wing lift forcing a higher cruise alpha and cause more cruise drag than expected. The result will be an aircraft that has more cruise drag and less efficiency than aircraft already flying, even though the engines are more efficient. Why did Boeing make the landing gear so short? The savings in landing gear weight will be offset by higher drag in cruise.
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