Boeing has announced that the first flight of their newest airliner, the Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental shall fly, for its first time, on March 20, 2011 at earliest 10:00am PST. The Boeing 747-8I is the world's most advanced airliner, it is 15% more fuel-effecient, 15% lower carbon footprint and has a 30% cost to operate than the 747-400 it replaces, whilst having a range of an extra 740nm, can carry 467 passengers in a three-class configuration (51 more than the 747-400) and cruises at Mach .0855 and is the most effecient airliner made by Boeing, and better than Airbus. Plus it has great looks!

Have a happy voyage, and be who you are, the true queen of the skies.

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In my opinion and many people's, the best lookign airliner, and arguably the best looking plane ever made, and much nicer than the A380.

Also like to say that I'd love to see one of these under Captain Sim's colors....

She flew! It was oh, so beautiful...

Arrgh!!! I missed it (assuming there was a webcast)! Is there a recording online anywhere? Thanks for the heads-up, though... of course yesterday I decided to take a break from posting.   ;)

Yes the webcast was there. Saw it live from the site. I was oping the flight would be during my spring break (two weeks from now) to witness it, but it was amazing anyways. Seattle lent SoCal their rain for the day!

I would love to see a Captain Sim 747-8, because another company's isn't the best, but still good.

Did you watch it on the same website as the debut?

I agree, it is a pretty good-looking plane. No offense to airbus fanboys, but the A380 is pretty ugly. It looks like some kind of fish.   ;)

I wouldn't insult fish with the A380. But it does look like a blobfish.

The blobfish is a deep sea creature, and being brought up to sea level cause him to blob even more. notice that the nose resembles the A380.

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701151 wrote on Mar 22^nd, 2011 at 1:52am:

Yes the webcast was there. Saw it live from the site. I was oping the flight would be during my spring break (two weeks from now) to witness it, but it was amazing anyways. Seattle lent SoCal their rain for the day! I would love to see a Captain Sim 747-8, because other's isn't the best, but still good.

The 747 you mentioned is the best available for FSX, and there is a reason that Angle of Attack media has produced training materials for it (hint: it is a very accurate simulation).  The only issue I have with it is that the dome lighting causes some strange effects.   It is a little hard on frame rates, but you have to remember that it is an older product and is extremely complex.  Anyways, since Captain Sim's specialty seems to be steam gauge airliners, I really hope they do the 747 classic someday with one of their famously worn and aged cockpits.

The 757/767 aren't steam guage planes! I don't like it when people call gyros 'steam gauages' they have nothing to do with steam! People just want to make fun of them as being old like a steam locomotive. These gyros are stil great and planes have only been mass produced with glass cockpit for 5 or 6 year now.

701151 wrote on Mar 22^nd, 2011 at 10:49pm:

The 757/767 aren't steam guage planes! I don't like it when people call gyros 'steam gauages' they have nothing to do with steam! People just want to make fun of them as being old like a steam locomotive. These gyros are stil great and planes have only been mass produced with glass cockpit for 5 or 6 year now.

I never called the 757/767 "steam gauge" planes, I simply stated that Captain Sim's specialty seems to be the steam gauge airplanes, and I say this because of the 707,727, 737 (upcoming), C-130, and B52 are all non-glass cockpit aircraft, and in my opinion are their best products.  And the term "steam gauge" is just a slang term for non-glass gauges in aircraft because they look like steam gauges.  And the gyro gauges you refer to only consist of the ADI and HSI in the early Boeings as far as I know, so most of the gauges are not gyro operated.   Glass cockpits have also been mass produced for much longer than 5-6 years.  My stepfather was an engineer for Honeywell and was involved in avionics production for over 30 years, and I know he worked on glass avionics for much longer than 5-6 years.

I do know what audiohavoc means, most of CS's airliners are older (the 767 isn't old, but it's not new, either). I wish they would do some more modern airliners, because CS's level of detail is one-of-a-kind (in a very good way  :)).

Boeing just rolled out their 1,000th Boeing 767 last week for ANA.

Nice! Where are you finding these events? I keep missing them...

Oh, I had heard of the blobfish, and I myself had thought that the A380 bore a resemblance to it... (I really don't mean to insult the A380, I'm just saying it's not everything it's cracked up to be).

Check this out:

http://www.airliners.net/photo/Boeing/Boeing-747-8JK/1886283/L/

Beautiful shot.

There's a link to a pretty nice 787 photo at the bottom of the page if you're interested.  :)

boeing247 wrote on Mar 22^nd, 2011 at 3:38am:

I agree, it is a pretty good-looking plane. No offense to airbus fanboys, but the A380 is pretty ugly. It looks like some kind of fish.   ;)

At first I couldn't work out why the 380 looked wrong and when I saw it in the flesh it's the flightdeck, I know they have their reasons of visibility and too high etc but it looks wrong. It needs to be on the upper level as is the 747.

If you go to the Airbus website and go to the A380 page, you can find plenty of not-so-flattering pictures of the A380.

Though, when I was flying into Paris in November for a transfer flight, I I got to see two of the Air France A380s. In reality, they're actually some impressive-looking planes, but also borderline ridiculous. I'd take a 747 over an A380 any day (Though have you ever sat next to the wing on a 747?!! It is so unbearably loud! You cannot fall asleep!  :P).

The 747-8 solves this :)

Yeah, I saw those noise footprint pictures. Considering I always get placed next to the wing (I don't know why, but it never fails. I'm either right next to the wing or in the very last seat. I don't think I've ever sat anywhere else), the -8 is welcome news.  ;D

Hmmm someday you'll be upstairs.

When the 747 first came out, my mom got to fly on the top story. It was her first plane ride. I'm unbelievably jealous. My first experience on a 747 was a flight from LAX to Amsterdam. I was right next to the engine the entire way and never fell asleep for more than thirty minutes.

Correction: On my mom's first plane ride, she got a tour of the lounge area just shortly before the upper deck was converted to seating. The next time she flew on a 747, she flew on the upper deck.