← Curiosities My favorite commercial airplane

The Boeing 787 Dreamliner

Everyone has a favorite airplane. Mine is the 787, and not because it is the biggest or the fastest. It is because almost everything about it was reconsidered: what the airframe is made of, how the systems are powered, even the air inside the cabin. Here are the parts I find most interesting, and a wing you can bend yourself.

Six things worth knowing

A fuselage made in one piece

The 787 was the first production airliner built from one-piece composite barrel sections, instead of aluminum sheets held together by tens of thousands of fasteners. By weight the airframe is about 50% composite. By volume it is closer to 80%.

Select a number on the drawing

The wing that bends

The carbon wing is the part everyone remembers. In March 2010 Boeing loaded a 787 static test airframe to 150% of the most extreme forces the airplane should ever meet in service. The wingtips flexed roughly 7.6 m upward, and the wing held. Drag the slider.

Applied load

Of limit load 40%

Tip deflection 2.0 m

The drawing is illustrative, not an engineering model. The 7.6 m figure at 150% load comes from Boeing's ultimate-load test in March 2010.

60.1 m Wingspan

62.8 m Length (787-9)

14,010 km Range

296 Seats, two-class