Last night we were shuttled out by bus to the Boeing 787-9 that flew us from Johannesburg to Heathrow. A truly magnificent flying machine with two huge Rolls Royce engines glistening in the airport lights, it made an impression on me as a machine, an incredibly accomplished human achievement, perhaps partly from seeing it up close.
Maciej Cegłowski refers to this aircraft in one of his talks, pointing out that it’s not that different from its predecessor the 707 – Boeing’s first jet airliner introduced over 50 years ago: Polish and refinement rather than radical progress as we once imagined it.