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Dreamliner jet becomes a canvas for Kung Fu Panda

Dreamliner color scheme
Illustrator Hannah R. Foss’ design won Hainan Airlines’ Dreamliner livery design contest. (Credit: Hainan Airlines / Boeing / DreamWorks)

It makes sense that a professional illustrator would win a contest to design a paint scheme for one of Hainan Airlines’ Boeing 787 Dreamliner jets.

But this isn’t just any paint scheme: The task at hand was to add some Kung Fu Panda razzle-dazzle, using characters from the animated movie series as well as graphic themes from the Chinese carrier.

Looks like Hannah R. Foss, a digital illustrator and CGI modeler at the Geophysical Institute at the University of Alaska at Fairbanks aced it.

“We look forward to seeing your design on one of our Boeing 787-9 Dreamliners, and we can’t wait to have you onboard on your free business-class trip to China,” Hainan Airlines said today in a Facebook post announcing the winner.

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Boeing to convert nine 767 jets for Amazon Air

Amazon Prime Air jet
The first branded Amazon Prime Air jet, operated by Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings under a lease agreement, made its public debut in August. (GeekWire photo by Kevin Lisota)

Boeing says it will convert nine used 767 passenger jets into freighters for Atlas Air Worldwide Holdings, which will use them in its cargo transport operations for Amazon.

Amazon made a splash in August when it unveiled its first branded Prime Air jet and spilled the details about its air cargo ambitions.

New York-based Atlas Air as well as Ohio-based Air Transport Services Group have been flying packages for the online retailing giant for months. By the end of 2018, each of the companies expects to be operating 20 leased 767 jets for Amazon deliveries.

Atlas Air spokeswoman Bonnie Rodney told GeekWire via email that her company is currently using one aircraft – the branded 767 that made its public debut at Seattle’s Seafair festival. But she added that “we have acquired the vast majority of the aircraft that we will need for Amazon … and we have secured all of the conversion slots” for Amazon Prime Air’s jets.

That includes the nine slots announced today.

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Qatar signs on for up to 100 Boeing jets

Qatar Boeing jets
Qatar Airways has put in orders for 40 wide-body Boeing jets and is voicing its intent to order up to 60 737 MAX jets. (Credit: Boeing)

Qatar Airways today sent a strong message to the Boeing Co. – and to Airbus, its European rival – by putting in an order for 40 wide-body Boeing jets and leaving the door open for up to 60 more 737 MAX jets.

The orders for 30 of Boeing’s 787-9 Dreamliners and 10 of the 777-300ERs would be valued at $11.7 billion at list price, Boeing said. The 60 single-aisle 737 MAX jets, covered by a letter of intent, would go for $6.9 billion at list price.

That adds up to $18.6 billion retail, but The Seattle Times’ Dominic Gates cites an estimate from Avitas, an aircraft valuation firm, that sets the value at $8.8 billion after standard industry discounts.

The order provides a huge boost for Boeing’s 777 and 787 programs, and for the company’s operations in Everett, Wash., where the planes are assembled. Qatar Airways currently flies 54 of the 777s and 30 of the 787s, with six 777F freighters and 60 of the next-generation 777X passenger jets on order.

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Spike is still up in the air on supersonic jet factory

Spike Aerospace jet
An artist’s conception shows Spike Aerospace’s S-512 supersonic jet in flight. (Credit: Spike Aerospace)

LYNNWOOD, Wash. – Boston-based Spike Aerospace is moving a bit more slowly than planned on its process to pick the site for a supersonic jet factory, the company’s top executive said today.

Washington state is still in the mix, but so are seven other states, said Vik Kachoria, Spike’s president and CEO.

“We’re not moving to Washington state just yet,” Kachoria said here at the Governor’s Aerospace Summit, presented by the Aerospace Futures Alliance of Washington. “Each region offers something interesting that we want to explore.”

At one time, the company had hoped to start narrowing down the field from Washington, Oregon, California, Texas, Florida, Massachusetts and the Carolinas by the end of this year. But Kachoria told GeekWire that the “down-select” would have to wait until 2017.

He also the schedule for building a subscale supersonic demonstrator would slip from mid-2018 to early 2019.

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Museum of Flight offers VR tours inside planes

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Visitors to Seattle’s Museum of Flight can use smartphones equipped with VR glasses to look into the interior of historic airplanes. (Credit: Microsoft via YouTube)

It’s not easy to crawl through the guts of a World War II bomber, but a new virtual reality project from Microsoft and Seattle’s Museum of Flight turns it into a snap on a screen.

The Aviation Pavilion Virtual Tour is actually a series of VR tours, highlighting interior views of planes ranging from the B-17F Flying Fortress and the B-29 Superfortress to Boeing’s 737 and 747 jets.

“For the first time, visitors – both on site as well as remotely – will be able to ‘step inside’ the cockpits and interiors of these carefully preserved artifacts through high-fidelity 360-degree virtual tours,” the museum says.

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Supersonic jet plant could come to Washington

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An artist’s conception shows Spike Aerospace’s supersonic jet. (Credit: Spike Aerospace)

Washington state is among the candidates for a supersonic jet factory being planned by Boston-based Spike Aerospace, but it’s not the only one.

Seven other states are in the running for what could amount to a $500 million investment over five years, Pete Goldsmith, Spike’s vice president of manufacturing, told GeekWire today.

Goldsmith, who’s based in the Seattle area, is playing a key role in site selection for Spike’s manufacturing facility, which is expected to start taking shape in late 2017 and could be into full production by 2022 or so.

He said the eight states being considered are all aerospace hot spots with a coastal presence. In addition to Washington, there’s Oregon, California, Texas, Florida, North Carolina and South Carolina as well as Massachusetts, where privately held Spike is headquartered.

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Airbus moves ahead with cargo drone project

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Alexey Medvedev’s Zelator drone was among the winners of a design challenge. (Credit: Local Motors)

Amazon isn’t the only big-name company that’s developing a new kind of drone for cargo delivery: Europe’s Airbus Group is moving ahead with Local Motors on a partnership that takes a decidedly different tack.

The two companies have been crowdsourcing a drone design that parallels what Amazon and lots of other commercial ventures have been working on: an unmanned aircraft system that weighs no more than 55 pounds when fully loaded, and is capable of vertical takeoff and landing as well as fixed-wing forward flight.

The Airbus cargo drone could deliver an 11-pound (5-kilogram) payload to destinations within at least 37 miles (60 kilometers), and a 7-pound (3-kilogram) payload to 62 miles (100 kilometers). Top cruising speed? At least 50 mph.

That compares with Amazon’s plan to deliver packages weighing up to 5 pounds in 30 minutes or less. The drones would roam to destinations within in a radius of 10 miles or more, traveling at cruising speeds of 40 to 50 mph.

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U.S. flights to Cuba begin; Alaska Air gets set

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Crew members at the Santa Clara Abel Santamaría International Airport in Cuba welcome JetBlue Flight 387, the first commercial flight to Cuba from the U.S. in 55 years. (Credit: Business Wire)

Seattle-based Alaska Airlines today won the federal government’s formal approval to fly between Los Angeles and Havana, on the same day that JetBlue made a historic flight to Cuba.

JetBlue’s Flight 387 from Fort Lauderdale, Fla., to the central Cuban city of Santa Clara marked the first regularly scheduled commercial flight between the two countries since 1961.

The chill in air travel began after Cuba’s communist revolution, and warmed up last year when a deal was struck to let U.S. carriers make up to 110 daily round-trip flights to Cuban cities. Since then, the Transportation Department and U.S. airlines have been laying the groundwork for service to Cuba.

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R.I.P.: Boeing’s Joe Sutter, ‘Father of the 747’

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Boeing engineer Joe Sutter, the “Father of the 747,” takes a turn in the pilot’s seat. (Credit: Boeing file)

Boeing engineer Joe Sutter, who led the engineering team for the 747 jet in the mid-1960s and played a role in the investigation of the Challenger shuttle disaster in 1986, died this morning at the age of 95.

His passing was announced online by Ray Conner, president and chief executive officer of Boeing Commercial Airplanes. The cause of death was not mentioned.

Sutter’s role in creating Boeing’s biggest passenger jet earned him the title of “Father of the 747.” His 4,500-member team came to be known as “the Incredibles” for putting the plane into production 29 months after it was conceived.

“It remains a staggering achievement and a testament to Joe’s ‘incredible’ determination,” Conner wrote.

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Thousands sign up for drone pilot testing

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The FAA says it’s a new dawn for commercial drone ventures. (Credit: FAA via Twitter)

More than 3,000 people signed up today to get certified as commercial drone pilots under new regulations, and there’ll be more to come, the head of the Federal Aviation Administration said during a kickoff news briefing in Washington, D.C.

FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said his agency already has issued 76 waivers that allow commercial ventures to go beyond the now-standard rules, FAA Administrator Michael Huerta said. Almost all of those waivers give the go-ahead for flying drones at night, he said. CNN has gotten clearance for flying drones over people, while BNSF Railway will be allowed to fly drones beyond an operator’s visual line of sight.

The FAA’s new regulations for small drones, also known as unmanned aircraft systems or UAS, generally rule out night flying, flights over uninvolved people, or flights beyond the line of sight. But Huerta said the ventures that received waivers have laid out extra measures to ensure safe operation under those conditions.

The new regulations, known as Part 107, were issued in June but didn’t take effect until today. They replace a case-by-case regulatory system for drones weighing less than 55 pounds – a system that relied on individually issued Section 333 exemptions.

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