Boeing’s donation of the Dreamlifter, touted by Trump, is an empty promise

Last update: April 25, 2020

Boeing offered on March 27 to lend three of its four Boeing Dreamlifter aircraft for transportation of medical supplies. However the aircraft is not suitable for carrying cargo. President Trump in a speech touted the aircraft as being the biggest in the world. That is factual incorrect. None of the aircraft were used for transportation of medical supplies so far. 

The Boeing Dreamlifter is a modified Boeing 747 aircraft. It was designed by Boeing to transport wings and fuselage of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner from factories in Japan and Italy to the final assembly hall in Seattle. The Dreamlifter does not have a large cargodoor on the side of the aircraft like normal Boeing 747 Freighters have. Instead the tailsection can swing open to load and unload cargo from the back of the plane. However to open the tail, a special ground equipment vehicle is needed. This modified Hyster 1050 can be seen in the picture below.

The Hyster 1050 kind of carries the tail when its opens. Without the Hyster supporting the tail while it opens, the tail would probably break off or get severly damaged. The special Hyster 1050 is only availble at the airports where the Dreamlifter operates on, Seattle, Charleston, Wichita, Nagoya and Taranto-Grottaglie.

So on any other airport the main deck cannot be used.

In this video you can see how the Hyster 1050 is used to support the tail during the opening of the fuselage.

There is another reason why the Dreamlifter unsuitable for carrying cargo. Cargo for commercial aircraft is stored in containers or on pallets. These are loaded into the aircraft using floor rollers. These are kind of metal balls which makes it easy to move the container inside the aircraft.

The Dreamlifter does not have such a floor as there is no need to load containers.

In the belly there is place for 7 pallets. That is far too low.

The photo below shows the cargo floor on the main deck of the Dreamlifter. This video has some interesting information of the aircraft.

President Trump announced in a speech the donation of the Dreamlifter. Trump made several mistakes in this speech. He said “it is the largest plane in the world'”. That is incorrect. The Antonov 225 is the largest cargo plane in the world. It is longer, has a larger wingspan and has a payload of 250 tonnes. Twice of the Dreamlifter.

Trump then says “Each plane can carry 63000 pounds of cargo per flight. That is a lot of cargo”. That is wrong as well. Trump probably meant to say the volume is around 63000 cubic feet. Actually it is 65000 cubic feet. The payload is 250,000 lb or pound (113,400 kg). That is four times more than what Trump said.

In this video a pilot who regulary flies the Boeing Dreamlifter explains why the aircraft is not suitable for carrying cargo and has some comments on what Trump said.

Update April 25

At April 25 one of the four Boeing Dreamlifter aircraft (N747BC) landed at Hong Kong airport. Probably to pickup some cargo. However from photos it seems the tail was not opened. A loading vehicle can be seen next to the aircraft. This can load a very limited number of containers.