Boeing 787 Dreamliner

The 787 Dreamliner isn't coming along quite as quickly as Boeing had initially hoped, but the aerospace giant wants you to know that the aircraft is coming along quite nicely anyway.

At the end of last week, Boeing said that it has completed the Power On sequence of tests for the first of the Dreamliners on the assembly line. That sequence, which started in early June, brought electricity into the airplane so that the electrical systems could be given essential workouts. That's important for any airplane, but especially so in the case of the Dreamliner, in which pneumatic controls are being superseded by electronics.

Several Dreamliners are under construction at Boeing's Everett, Wash., final assembly facility, with assembly of the fourth flight-test plane set to begin in the next week or so. (The one shown here has been designated for fatigue testing.) The first 787 flight test is expected in the fourth quarter, according to Boeing. That's more than a year (and many supply chain delays) later than was expected last summer, when Boeing held a splashy unveiling of the Dreamliner.