The planes will be fine, Boeing's workforce will see to that. But I hope the PR challenge serves the most-excellent purpose of throwing a huge enough scare into Boeing's Chicago tower-of-suits that they treat outsourcing like a hot stove for a few decades to come.

I recently flew the 787 on Japan’s All Nippon Airways from Japan to Seattle. To the best of my recollection we did not crash. Plus it has pretty lights and bigger windows inside.

That's a lot flight. Did you sleep? It might have crashed while you were sleeping.

The 787 is primarily designed for intercontinental flight, isn't it? I know that you go to Europe sometimes, but if I'm correct, you're pretty unlikely to fly one in your regular cross-country travels.

Also, I'd like to add I was on a brand new 737-800 NYC to Seattle this summer, and, man, it was fantastic. Super thin seats means more leg room and 6'3" me was comfy comfy.

I spent this past weekend in Dayton, Ohio. The Wright Brothers' first gliders sucked, too.

what @1 said, * 1000.

I just hope hackers can't bring down these new planes.

@8 don't give them ideas.

@4: At one point I thought there was a short range 787 model. It doesn't appear than anybody put in any orders for it, so I guess it was cancelled. The planes that are being delivered are essentially designed for long range. The 787-9 model appears to have a range of around 15,000 km. To put that in context, a great circle on the Earth is 40,000 km, which means that the 787-9 is only 5,000 km short of being able to fly from any point to another on the planet, assuming that you are allowed to fly over water and your route falls within the ETOPS time. Boeing is trying for 330 minutes (how long you can be away from an airport to make an emergency landing).

ETOPS:

Engines
Turn
Or
Passengers
Swim

thankyouthankyouthankyou for letting me know Patrick Smith is writing again after salon kicked him off. I just wish he'd put dates on his articles.

After the tail cone fell off an American Airlines A300 and the plane crashed into a neighborhood in Queens (killing everyone on board and some on the ground) a decade ago here in NYC, I haven't been too big on composites for airliners. Let's hope they get the bugs out of the 787. The flight path for landing at one of NY's major airports runs right overhead.