Engine tests for big airplane makers like Boeing are supposed to be a careful and detail-oriented process yet for the Boeing Dreamliner 787 there was something more to it. The American airplane maker was set to conduct an 18-hour engine test on the 787 Dreamliner and to take the boredom out of it, the plane decided to make an outline of a plane along its path for the last 14 hours. And it’s not just any simple outline. As the Dreamliner crossed the sky, it hovered above the United States covering 17 states to make the shape of a plane is its course.
From the Upper Peninsula in the state of Michigan to the tip of Texas, Boeing seems to have made the routine test a more exciting and fun experience not just for its pilots but for other people too who in a normal day wouldn’t be interested a bit about airplane engine tests.
At the time of writing this post, the outline was already complete and the Dreamliner had to make its way back to the city of Seattle. We are not sure whether it will cut across the outline or take a different path but as of now it doesn’t matter because the outline has already caught the attention and the eyes of everyone. Sources say that the tests were more than just a frivolous waste of fuel. Although a lot of the attention was on the outline made, this was an important test for Boeing, the largest airplane maker in the world.
The American company is currently testing a new set of Rolls Royce engines which could be a game changer regarding long flights. Just to give you a clear indication of what this means for Boeing, the flight path that the Dreamliner took kept it in the air for 17 hours and 45 minutes. This covered approximately 9,896 miles of flight which is even longer than the longest commercial route at the moment. The longest route is the one that links Doha in Qatar to the city of Auckland in New Zealand. The flight in this route takes approximately 16 hours and 10 minutes and it covers a distance of about 9,021 miles.
From these latest tests, it seems Boeing is trying to increase the mile coverage in a single flight for its planes and so far, the preliminary results look promising. Although there’s no way of knowing whether there were any challenges along the way, one thing that will remain in our minds is the outline that the plane made over the country. It’s a big statement that indeed Boeing is keen on cementing its place as one of the pioneers of new technology and development in the airplane manufacturing industry. Obviously more is yet to come from this company.
