Boeing 787 Dreamliner
A wide-body aircraft built largely from composite materials, changing the conversation about cabin pressure and humidity.
Overview
The 787 is a wide-body airliner that uses carbon-fibre composite instead of aluminium across much of its primary structure. The material change is not only about weight: composite does not share metal's fatigue and corrosion behaviour.
The consequence inside the cabin is that the fuselage can tolerate a greater pressure difference. Cabin altitude can be set lower in flight and humidity raised — this is the technical ground beneath the debate about fatigue on long flights.
"Wide-body" means a cabin with two aisles. That layout affects evacuation times and ground handling, and this structural choice largely determines which routes the aircraft makes sense on.
Details
- Brand
- Boeing
- Category
- Wide-body Airliner
- Body
- Wide-body
- Propulsion
- turbofan
- Produced
- 2011–