After delays and fixes, Dreamliner almost ready to roll

Dominic Gates The Seattle Times 04/23/2009 02:33

The 787 Dreamliner, being assembled at Boeing's Everett plant, is nearing final factory tests. The first of the new jets is slated to move soon to the flight line at Paine Field.

Boeing's Dreamliner is nearly ready to come out — again. Within the next week, one of the huge doors at the Everett plant will open and the first of the new 787 Dreamliners will roll out onto the flight line by the Paine Field runway.

It won't fly until June, but after multiple delays the airplane that briefly left the factory in July two years ago — for a ceremony on 7/8/07 — is at long last within sight of reaching for the sky.

This rollout will not have the pomp and circumstance that surrounded the first: the parade of dozens of brightly dressed flight attendants, the narration by former network newsman Tom Brokaw, the worldwide video simulcast.

But unlike the first rollout, after which the jet was unceremoniously rolled back in so that major pieces of the airframe could be dismantled to fix embarrassing assembly flaws, the innovative airplane should fly within a couple of months.

Ground tests required before the jet can fly are progressing well.

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