End of the long road for the 787

Tomorrow, weather permitting, the 787 will end an a very long and painful road to first flight. I'll try to keep tabs tomorrow on progress of the weather as it relates to first flight.

Boeing will stream the 787 first flight live on it's web site as well as the newairplane.com web site. But in the meantime, Randy Tinseth, speaking for Boeing on his blog says:

Let's Go!

Great sentiment that is obviously shared! In the meantime Flightblogger has put up a new post describing, in excellent detail, the taxi tests that occurred on Saturday as well as the progress to date as well as a second post describing the test flight regime that ZA001 will be undertaking over the next few months. ZA001 apparently has been fueled for it's first flight.

Read Flightblogger's reports:

Better Know a Dreamliner - Part One - ZA001

ZA001 stretches its legs

Additionally, ZA002 (Dreamliner 2) is progressing towards it's first flight with gear swing tests.

Liz Matzelle captured some great video of this gear swing test:

ZA002 Gear Swing Tests from Liz Matzelle on Vimeo.

Dreamliner 9 is heading to the paint shop at Everett. LN 10 through LN 13, as far as I know, are still in building 40-26 going through final assembly. ZA003 is also going through preps and I wouldn't be at all surprised to see this airplane flying next month.

Finally, Aviation Week has a whole section devoted to the 787 first flight as well as featured blog post from Guy Norris and Mike Mecham.

Aviation Week's Boeing 787 First Flight Special Report

787 Countdown to first flight (resumed) Part 7

It's official: 787's First Flight is Tuesday

Boeing Sets Long-Awaited 787 First Flight