The Boeing 787-9 Dreamliner is very big but it can fly like a paper. The plane holds 280 passengers, has a nearly 200-foot (about 60-meter) wingspan and is over 200 feet in length. It’s smaller than a 747, but you still might expect it to be a lumbering creature, raising itself into the air in a gentle arc.
The Boeing 787-9 is turning out to be the acrobat of the Boeing family. Boeing released a promotional video Thursday that shows off the plane’s chops. The most stunning stunt is a near-vertical takeoff featuring the jet cruising along the runway and then climbing into the sky at a startling angle. It’s the sort of thing that would have passengers clinging to their seat arms.
The Vietnam Airlines-branded plane is in rehearsals for the Paris Air Show, which takes place from June 15-21. The major trade show features a series of flight displays that allow manufacturers to put their latest airplanes through their paces to entice buyers.
The Boeing video goes on to feature some sharp aerial moves with tight turns and sweeping speed, making it seem like the Dreamliner’s daddy might have been a fighter jet. The takeoff remains the star of the show. Chances are pilots won’t need to pull off such a dramatic maneuver in regular service, but it’s fun to know the jet is capable of pushing passengers’ guts into their spines if it wants to.
The video has since amassed nearly 10 million views on YouTube, and now Boeing has released some additional footage to take advantage of a new feature Google’s video site has been testing called “Choose Your View.”
The multiple-view experience, which works best in a desktop or laptop browser, can be found on Boeing’s YouTube channel and allows you to experience that crazy takeoff and the brief flight that follows from three different angles — looking at the Boeing 787-9 from outside, the pilot’s view from the cockpit and a view inside the cockpit itself where you can see the pilots doing their thing.
Boeing said that the multiple-view perspective was created by mounting cameras inside the cockpit and shooting a third view from a chase helicopter. The company says the Boeing 787-9 is 20 feet longer than its predecessor 787-8, but is just as fuel- and emission-efficient. The acrobatic show done by the plane proves that even if there is a huge skyscraper at the end of the runway the airplane can vertically fly over it which is incredible.
