First Flight for HL7624

Line 1488 (RC549) HL7624 for Korean Air Cargo finally got up in the air today for a first flight. Meanwhile older frame line 1481 (RC548) HL7623, also for Korean Air Cargo sits unpainted and without engines at the tower apron for over six months now. Fair? No! Line 1488 should deliver before year's end.

Photo by Matt Cawby

Bonus pictures of 787 line 26 VT-ANB returning from her first flight after sitting over three years from rollout off the FAL. And as you guys may know by now, that just floats my boat.

Certifiable

Thanks to 747Classic over at airliners.net, we now know that the new 747-8 (including all airframe and engine modifications) has been certified by the FAA on December 10th, 2013. This is excellent, if overdue news. Most importantly it means Boeing can start delivering their backlog of new frames, and the first ones up should be three for Cathay and one for Korean Air Cargo. The other two frames slated for delivery this month to ABC and NCA are using the older engine/airframe combos, as far as I know.

Read the certification here.

Happy 1/10th Birthday, Line 1416

Some good pictures of line 1416 LX-ECV for Cargolux in action have popped up at Widebodies. She's one tenth of a year old (at least in in-service years) now. Not much of a livery but at least there's something. Even if they park her again after three months, I can die knowing the frame wasn't totally wasted.

Pic 1

Pic 2 

And here just last week in Brazil.

Video of takeoff from Afonso Pena International Airport. (ruined by youtube's smoothing algorithm but better than nothing).

Paine Field activity isn't exactly electrifying right now. Cathay's new triplets are still being tested, but it's getting late for them to really contribute to the holiday rush. Korean Air Cargo's line 1488 (RC549) HL7624 is pending a first flight. It's strange that this frame is in flight test while line 1481 (RC548) also for KAC has been sitting unpainted and un-engined for six months.

Looking Like 23 Deliveries For 2013

Blogger.com is blocked from China, as is a bunch of other stuff. I found a way to keep the chart updated though.

So I missed all the excitement of all three new Cathay frames having B1s over 4 days (and it was almost three consecutive). That would be lines 1483 (RC561) B-LJK, 1484 (RC562) B-LJL, and 1486 (RC563) B-LJM.

It looks like between these three and lines 1479 (RC525) JA15KZ (for NCA) and 1483 (RC605) VQ-BRJ (for ABC), Boeing is really pushing to get them out before the end of the year, which would give us 23 deliveries for 2013.

I scored three 747-400 rides this trip, and it's good to see so much 747 activity at the big airports. It's not what it used to be but there are still a lot of them taxiing around. I flew on RP-C7472 (line 1012 for Philippines from LAX to MNL), B-HUF (line 993 for Cathay from HKG to TPE), and B-18207 (line 1176 for China Airlines from TPE to LAX), with a bonus short hop in an A340 from MNL to HKG on the outgoing, which happens to be my favorite Airbus. It was scheduled for an A330, which is the most boring airliner in existence to me, so the swap was a great surprise. A340-300 RP-C3438 was fresh over from Iberia to Philippines Airlines, still with the old Iberia livery minus branding.

Saw a lot of 747-8s on this trip too. Can't wait to fly in one. They really are the best looking version of the best looking airliner ever made. Here are some pics:

RP-C7472 - don't those engines just give you warm fuzzies?

Upper Deck!

RP-C3438 still wearing old clothes.

Hong Kong - How many 747-8s can you count?

D-ABYF at Hong Kong.

B-HUF ready for a short hop to Taiwan.

There isn't always time for a great pic, but gotta get the tail number. Funny thing was the cute flight attendant listed it off from memory before I took this shot to verify. I'm in love.

Need For (Ground) Speed Baby!!