BOEING 787 DREAMLINER FIRST FLIGHT

And there she goes! Congratulations, Boeing.

And now let's see some really ace kits and models please!

BOEING 787 DUE TO FLY TODAY

She’s years late and way over budget, but finally Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner is ready for flight. As planned, the twinjet should take to the air later today from Paine Field Airport, north of Seattle, US.

Taxi tests earlier this week were successful, and Boeing’s big baby even lifted her nose briefly, though not before the test pilot had applied speed brakes to avoid an accidental liftoff. You can see this, and hear the roar of the thrust reversers in the video above. The 787’s a pretty plane by any standards, and while those engines - airlines have a choice of Rolls-Royce or General Electric designs - may be massive, they will be incredibly economical and low on emissions too.

For model fans however, there hasn’t yet been too much activity on the kit front where the 787’s concerned. An exception is Zvezda, a Russian company that already has a neat 1:144 scale 787 in production, and which is slowly filtering into the retail supply chain. As you can see from the component layout pic above, it’s a relatively simple kit of an important aircraft for which Boeing already has some 840 orders, and is well worth adding to any collection of 1:144 scale airliners.

Good luck to the 787 on her first flight today, the second major first flight this last week, after the European A400M airlifter.

Visit Zvezda’s interesting range here.

Zvezda's kit is becoming available at model stores and online suppliers; there's also a much smaller 1:400 Gemini Jets 787 you can see here.

Video courtesy David Parker Brown.

A400M AIRLIFTER MAKES FIRST FLIGHT AT LAST

The European A400M military airlifter, falling roughly midway in size between the 'Fat Albert' Hercules and the jet-powered C-17 has - at long last - made its first flight.

For air-buffs, it's been a race (with betting on some aviation sites) as to whether the A400M or Boeing 787 Dreamliner would be first (or second) into the air. Well today that particular race is over, with the years-late and way over-budget A400M finally turning from a paper project into real aircraft. Boeing meantime, promises a 787 first-flight before the year ends - it could come as early as next Tuesday.

As for us model fans, well we're still waiting too, so come on Revell-Germany - these aircraft have to be right up your street for 2010 release! In 1:144 scale, an A400M would make a good partner for the neat C-17 already available. The same goes for the 787, with rumours indicating we could see a model of this next year too. Once again, there's a bigger kit already out there, in the form of the A380 double-decker, so please let's get that 787 out of the world of dreams and into scale reality!

BIGGEST HORNET KIT YET - WELL ACTUALLY, IT’S THE 1:1 SCALE REAL THING

Academy’s neat 1:72 scale Boeing F/A-18 Hornet (and its hugely bigger 1:32 scale cousin, shown top above) is an example of ongoing product improvement, with extra parts and excellent third-party Cartograf decals. For anyone who has assembled one of these bigger Hornet kits, the time-lapse video above is a reminder of the complexities of putting together the real thing.

Like all big aircraft projects, construction and assembly of the Hornet is an international business, with parts big and small arriving at the assembly hall from thousands of separate suppliers. The final flying machine is a triumph of systems integration.

However, this approach doesn’t always work the first time. For example, on the much-delayed Dreamliner passenger jet, Boeing has had real problems with the supply chain - among other issues, thousands of fasteners had to be replaced. Still, Boeing reckons most of these problems are now solved, and the company aims to have the new jet taking off on its maiden flight later this year.

Visit Academy here, and the Boeing company here.

The video is via Live Leak, here.