I missed the first flight of one of the the two fledgling storks. I was just in time to see his tail as he left the nest.It seemed more as though he had fallen out of the nest rather than flown off, but I knew he could fly when he flew into the nest from off camera a few minutes later.
Since then he has been away from the nest for a while every evening.
The other stork seems very agitated when he is left alone and I wondered why he didn't do as his sibling and go joy-flying around.
This morning, my time, evening his time, he flew. I don't know if it was his first flight, but it was an exciting moment for me.
I will let the following sequence of pictures tell the story:
It is a thrilling, even poetic moment when a brand new aircraft leaps from the ground and soars for the first time into its element, the air. It is even more so when that airplane is the first of its kind.
This was such a moment today when the first Boeing 787 took to the air for the first time from the Boeing plant about a 30 minute drive from where I live.
The first Boeing 787 at the moment it left the ground for the first time.
I was excited when I learned that after flight-testing for some hours it would be landing at Boeing Field about the same distance south of my home because planes on their final approach to that field often fly low right over my house. They fly even lower when the weather is rainy with thick, low, overcast, just as it was today. With luck I would have a good view of that 787 on its first ever final approach to landing.
I was very lucky. It came in from behind the tall cedars, low, slow, huge, and with two small chase jets just feet off each wingtip, flying directly overhead.
This is the plane that our grandchildren will be doing most of their flying in and which this generation of children and grandchildren will be piloting. Much to my envy, my granddaughter was invited to the Boeing Plant to watch the takeoff, then was driven to Boeing Field to watch the landing.
My granddaughter at the Boeing Plant as the 787 taxis to its maiden flight in the background.
Below is a CNET videoclip that captures the elation as Boeing workers who built the plane cheer as it successfully takes off.
