Boeings 747-LCF Completes First Testflight

Boeing has today announced that its new 747-400 Large Cargo Freighter has completed its first ever flight. The specially modified jumbos, which can carry an astounding three times more cargo than the standard freighter variants, will be used exclusively to transport major parts of Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner to assembly locations.

The modified 747, known as the LCF, which has an enlarged upper fuselage section so as to accommodate major composite sections of the new 787, took of at 10:38 UTC this morning for a test flight that lasted two hours and forty minutes.

If all goes well with the testing programme, three LCF’s are due to operate from 2007 carrying parts of the Dreamliner between Japan, Italy and Wichita and Charleston in the US to the main Boeing factory in Everett US for final assembly.

For more information, see Boeing’s site here.