A friend of mine passed along a Boeing presentation called “Boeing 787 Dreamliner Flight Deck Safety, Comfort, Efficiency” (also posted here in PDF format). Most of the information in there isn’t going to get the average traveler excited, but this picture was just too cool to pass up:

As you can imagine, this plane will be packed with all kinds of technology to help improve flight safety including dual heads-up displays (where they project the vital instruments in the window so neither pilot has to look down) and an airport moving map so the pilots can figure out where they on on the airfield. This is especially important when visibility is poor, and it could have helped prevent accidents like the Comair one in Kentucky last year. That aircraft took off on the wrong runway which unfortunately happened to be too short.

There’s a lot more than just that, of course, but you get the idea. They’ve also gone and cleaned up the cockpit layout as compared to the 777. What do I mean by that? Well . . .

As you can see, instead of 22 separate instruments/radios on the main control panel, there are now only 12. The ones that remain have bigger screens to make life easier for the pilots. The plane rolls out in less than three months, and the anticipation is building.

It’s incredible to me that the plane has already surpassed 500 orders from 43 companies and it hasn’t even rolled out yet. Boeing has a habit of beating expectations in terms of performance, and I really hope for their sake that’s the case this time. So far, they say all is good.  This is easily one of the most anticipated aircraft of all time.