A Tribute to an Overdue Delivery #4 : Line 1432

A red letter day today, as line 1432 (RC572) HZ-AI4 for Saudi Arabian Cargo delivered. And overdue for delivery she was indeed. She rolled out over two (going on three) years ago and languished for most of that time. But now she has a job, and it's time to get to work.

Here's a lengthy delivery time lapse, which includes shots of Norwegian's first 787 delivery (update: not delivery, just a customer flight) (EI-LNA), and Japan Airlines JA832J taking her first flight.

At the Everett Delivery Center

Taxiing onto the runway.

JAL 787 getting ready for a first flight.

Love that livery.

Norwegian 787 getting ready to deliver.

JAL 787 JA832J first flight.

HZ-AI4 for Saudi Arabian Cargo delivery flight.

Norwegian 787 EI-LNA delivery customer flight.

Some old pics of her:

Refurbishment - getting engines

Land bound

Storage

Storage

This is the fastest she moved over her first two years.

Line 1437 on the move

With the delivery of line 1432, line 1437 remains unloved and alone at KPAE, the last of the "rejected Atlas three" to not find a home. Today she flew to Glasgow Industrial, a private airport where Boeing maintains a flight test facility. I don't know what exactly to make of that, but hopefully something is in the works.

1432's delivery flight was cancelled today, but she should leave for the Middle East tomorrow.

Pending deliveries

Line 1432 (RC572) HZ-AI4 for Saudi Arabian Cargo just went up for a C2 flight, and should deliver any day now.

Lines 1477 (Lufthansa) and 1478 (Cargolux) should both soon be conducting final customer flights too. Other than those two, 748 action has been slow recently. I'm hoping rumors are true and some exciting news comes from the Paris Air Show next week.

100k hour 747-400s

Line 1432 (RC572) HZ-AI4 for Saudi Arabian Cargo went out for a C1 flight today, so delivery should be approaching.

I've been snooping around this FAA database, and it looks like Delta's first ten 747-400s (N6[61-70]us) are all just hitting or about to hit 100,000 service hours. Being that they're all 23-25 years old, this is pretty good utilization. Not "Lufthansa good", but still good. The newer six are in the 50-60,000 hour range.

United's 747-400's are not utilized as well as Delta's. Their oldest are all in or approaching the low 90,000 hour range, with many of the newer frames in the 40,000-60,000+ range. Entries here confirm that some of their early retirement frames (like n195ua and n106ua) were, sure enough, in the low 40,000 hour range, or even lower.

Line 1432, Into the Blue

It's getting routine now, but yet another "old" new frame flies for the first time today. Line 1432 (RC572) HZ-AI4 for Saudi Arabian Cargo took her first flight this morning. A big thanks to Piotrek_ for the shots.

Here she was in long term storage without engines, and then refurbishment where she finally got some (pictures thanks to Matt Cawby).

That leaves one backlog frame that hasn't flown yet: line 1433 for Cathay. Soon, my pretty. Very soon.

Atlas's final frame, line 1476 (RC582) N855GT also flew for the first time on Saturday.

Boeing has lowered the build rate to 1.75 frames a month. This is not a surprise. They likely will lower it to 1.5 frames a month by the end of the year if orders don't pick up.