Mike Carriker and Randy Neville were alone on the flight deck of ZA001 when the air stairs were retracted at 10 minutes past 10 on Tuesday, December 15.
The two men read through their final pre-taxi items on the electronic checklist.
“Anti-Ice?” asked Neville.
“On,” replied Carriker.
“Recall?”
“Checked”
“Autobrake?”
“RTO.”
“Flight Controls?”
“Checked.”
“Ground equipment?”
“Clear.”
ZA001 was ready to taxi.
“Boeing 001 Heavy Experimental, ground, taxi runway 16R,” called Paine Ground.
Carriker eased the throttles forward and the twin Rolls-Royce Trent 1000 engines responded with a slow roll forward out of stall 105, where ZA001 had been parked since Saturday morning’s high speed taxi tests. ZA001 turned left and headed toward the north gate of the Boeing flight line. Carriker and Neville ran through the Before Takeoff checklist, setting the aircraft’s flaps to 20.
ZA001 taxied down runway 16R past the crowd of thousands watching along either side of the 9010-foot runway. The slowly taxiing 787 turned off of the runway at taxiway A6 before proceeding further on alpha southbound past the Paine Field Fire Station.
ZA001 was cleared for takeoff before it took to runway 34L as it waited for the chase planes to position for the aircraft’s takeoff roll.
The twin Lockheed T-33 overflew 34L as ZA001 positioned short of 34L.
The twin-engine airliner moved into position on 34L and waited as the engines idled over the numbers of runway. The aircraft had spent 944 days in final assembly in Everett; worked, reworked, rebuilt, redesigned and reinforced. All that was passed now, it was finally time to fly.
This post was originally published to the internet between 2007 and 2012. Links, images, and embedded media from that era may no longer function as intended.
This post originally appeared at Flightglobal.com from 2007 to 2012.