A Pilot’s Blog
A blog about aviation, aviation news, and space.

As if we couldn’t see this one coming a mile away. Boeing will hold its first public unveiling of the very first 787 airframe off the line on July 8th, 2007. I, for one, can hardly wait. With over 400 firm orders already placed, I can see the 787 easily having 1000 or more by the time Airbus’ A350 is ready to enter service.

Boeing Co. plans to debut its much-anticipated 787 Dreamliner model on July 8 at an event at its assembly plant in Everett, Washington, the plane maker said on Wednesday.

The mid-sized 787 aircraft, which uses lightweight carbon composite material to reduce operating costs, has racked up roughly $70 billion in orders in about three years on the market.

At the event—to be held on 7/8/07, according to American dating conventions—the public will be able to see the aircraft fully assembled for the first time.

I just watched the live simulcast feed of the second launch attempt for SpaceX’s Falcon 1 rocket. This rocket is the “world’s first privately-funded liquid fueled orbital launch vehicle”. The launch appeared to be going as normal until the first stage seemed to scrape against the second-stage bell during separation. Shortly thereafter the rocket began to experience progressively worse oscillations until the feed (and in all likely hood the entire rocket) was lost. Still, the company is calling it “a very good day”.

I think this is just completely amazing. If private companies like SpaceX begin to venture into the space payload launches, like Scaled Composites and Virgin Galactic are moving into the manned space launch/tourism market, we will see some very amazing advances in technology in the not so distant future. Great job SpaceX!

You can watch a video of the launch here and view a “live-blogged” recap of today’s events here.

A company called 3-D Aviation has produced a wonderful animation showing what the soon to be debuted Boeing 787 might look like. The animations are extremely photo-realistic and very well done. I think you’ll enjoy it.

You can download it in both Windows Media and Quicktime formats right here.

Hat tip to Airliners.net for the video.

Tonight was the first lunar eclipse to occur in over three years. It was best viewed over Europe and Africa, however, we here in North America were still treated to a beautiful show. As soon as the moon rose at just about 6:30pm local time, I was ready and waiting with my camera. I’m not too good at taking night shots, especially of the moon, but I took several at different settings and below is the best one I got. It could have been a bit sharper, but I think it came out pretty well.

Today, in a not altogether unexpected move, UPS canceled its order for 10 A380 freighter variants.

PARIS/BOSTON, March 2 (Reuters) - Troubled Airbus suffered its second hammerblow in a week on Friday when the last cargo customer deserted the freight version of its delayed A380 superjumbo, days after the planemaker announced 10,000 job cuts.

United Parcel Service Inc. said it planned to cancel an order for 10 Airbus A380 freighters, worth approximately $3 billion at list prices, joining its rival FedEx which canceled an identical order last year.

Since no other company has ordered the freighter version, this most likely spells the end of any freighter variant of the A380.

Related: More Cancellations Loom? | Fedex Drops A380, Chooses 777 Instead