Newcastle for the Dreamliner
Quite a crowd had turned up under the
Newcastle runway 25 approach on Thursday 9th August to see the
well publicised arrival of a British Airways Dreamliner on a
training and publicity flight into Newcastle. The news was
put out on the local morning television and radio, this helped
to swell the numbers no doubt. With about a hundred people at
the roadside it was a bit cramped for photography and gave
only a side shot of aircraft appearing quickly over a boundary
hedge, so a position farther to the east was found to take some
video at leisure. While we waited a smart Cessna 750 Citation X G-CEDK
and KLM ERJ190 PH-EZK arrived and
that allowed the video to be set up for the main event.
The Dreamliners arrival was due at
1005 but this was delayed a bit when planefinder showed it to be
orbiting in the vicinity of Nottingham at about 15-20,000 feet
before performing an overshoot alongside a Rolls Royce owned
Spitfire. Eventually it headed north up over the Humber
inbound to runway 25 for a long approach from the coast at 1025
in clear blue sky conditions as "Speedbird 787"
G-ZBJA - the same aircraft we had seen decending into
Heathrow over Turweston on 30 June on its delivery flight. Its
size close up was unexpectedly small as has been noted elswhere,
pitching in somewhere between an A330 and B777 but it made a
fine sight with its long wing span and upturned flexing
wings. It stayed on the ground for about 3 hours and as it
taxied out for take off past the control tower two RAF Tutors
G-CGKL+KM flew overhead at 5000 ft heading south - must have
been a great picture. The B787 took off at 1313 and climbed out
westwards heading to Talla and then a descent into Edinburgh
airport. It left there later in the afternoon on a tourist and
business VIP jolly over the Highlands and Islands and routed
over Aberdeen and the Moray Firth before returning to Edinburgh
via Perth at about 1800.
The attached photos are stills taken
from a video and although of low pixel quality they do give a
flavour of another notable first in the introduction of a new
generation of aircraft and "passenger experience" according to
the Boeing marketing people.