Sorry, Your Next 787 Dreamliner Flight Won't Include A Vertical Take-Off
Once again, the headlines have been going a little crazy celebrating the latest viral video du jour. This one appears to show Boeing’s latest 787 Dreamliner making a near-vertical take-off from a runway in Washington state in a rehearsal for the jet’s appearance at the Paris Air Show. While the maneuver is impressive, it might not be quite as extreme as it seems, and it’s not likely you’ll ever get to experience it as a passenger.
The video that’s been making the rounds this week was posted to YouTube by Boeing itself on Thursday in advance of the Paris show, but the company has been coy about the actual angle of ascent, choosing not to comment to reporters about the video.
There appears to be a trick of perspective happening with the angle of the camera filming the take-off.
“It looks like the takeoff is at a near vertical 90 degree angle — trust me it’s not,” pilot Patrick Smith of AskThePilot.com told CNN.com.
[video=youtube;KYbM-3E11Qo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYbM-3E11Qo#t=173[/video]
In this earlier video of a 787 performing the same technical maneuver, we get a better view of the takeoff and while it clearly isn’t quite a 90 degree angle, it is still jaw-dropping (and stomach-quaking) to see something that large go steep so quickly.
[video=youtube;EWTK9phKoaE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWTK9phKoaE[/video]
If either of these videos make you a little queasy, don’t fear. This is strictly a stunt; you’ll never take a passenger flight that starts this way because a key part of the maneuver is for this big boy to be light as possible.
“Presumably the plane was very light because it wasn’t carrying any passengers, probably had a very light fuel load, no freight, so it would have been able to perform a steeper than normal ascent,” Smith said.
He says the typical pitch-up for a passenger flight will be under twenty degrees, nothing like what is shown (or appears to be shown) in the video.
Courtesy: Forbes
Once again, the headlines have been going a little crazy celebrating the latest viral video du jour. This one appears to show Boeing’s latest 787 Dreamliner making a near-vertical take-off from a runway in Washington state in a rehearsal for the jet’s appearance at the Paris Air Show. While the maneuver is impressive, it might not be quite as extreme as it seems, and it’s not likely you’ll ever get to experience it as a passenger.
The video that’s been making the rounds this week was posted to YouTube by Boeing itself on Thursday in advance of the Paris show, but the company has been coy about the actual angle of ascent, choosing not to comment to reporters about the video.
There appears to be a trick of perspective happening with the angle of the camera filming the take-off.
“It looks like the takeoff is at a near vertical 90 degree angle — trust me it’s not,” pilot Patrick Smith of AskThePilot.com told CNN.com.
[video=youtube;KYbM-3E11Qo]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KYbM-3E11Qo#t=173[/video]
In this earlier video of a 787 performing the same technical maneuver, we get a better view of the takeoff and while it clearly isn’t quite a 90 degree angle, it is still jaw-dropping (and stomach-quaking) to see something that large go steep so quickly.
[video=youtube;EWTK9phKoaE]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EWTK9phKoaE[/video]
If either of these videos make you a little queasy, don’t fear. This is strictly a stunt; you’ll never take a passenger flight that starts this way because a key part of the maneuver is for this big boy to be light as possible.
“Presumably the plane was very light because it wasn’t carrying any passengers, probably had a very light fuel load, no freight, so it would have been able to perform a steeper than normal ascent,” Smith said.
He says the typical pitch-up for a passenger flight will be under twenty degrees, nothing like what is shown (or appears to be shown) in the video.
Courtesy: Forbes