The 787 Dream Tour wrapped up its sixth leg this week. While we’ve been able to show you plenty of great photos of the airplane itself, I thought you’d like to see a photo gallery from the inside looking out. With a big thanks to Boeing photographer Ed Turner, enjoy the view from a window in the skies.

The White Cliffs of Dover as seen from the 787 during its UK visit.

An incredible view over Norway.

Arriving at Reagan National Airport in DC.

The Gateway Arch and Busch Stadium in St. Louis.

One of the many water salutes the 787 received— this one at DFW.

A view from the flight deck as the 787 makes its way to toward an excited crowd during a visit with American Airlines.

On the way home to Seattle with our famous volcanoes serving as a beautiful backdrop.

Thanks for a great leg 6. We’ll announce leg 7 of the Dream Tour soon!

ST. LOUIS — I’m here in St. Louis for the annual Boeing investor conference. The 787 paid a visit here over the past couple of days as leg 6 of the Dream Tour wrapped up.

The 787 and the F-15 share a moment during the Dream Tour’s stop in St. Louis. Ed Turner photo.

Now that we’re almost five full months into 2012, I wanted to take a closer look at how the market is fairing so far. We expected 5 percent passenger growth this year, and things certainly seem to be tracking that way. Stability is also starting to come back to the cargo market.

The airlines can take a lot of credit for this year’s success. They’ve been managing their business very well, especially since we’ve seen a lot of risk and uncertainty in the market as well as high fuel prices. First quarter earnings for airlines have also been in line with their expectations.

The strength in the market is also reflected in our own numbers. We currently have 418 net orders for the year with almost 4,000 airplanes in our backlog. Demand continues to come from emerging and developing economies, low cost carriers and the need for replacement aircraft.

Speaking of replacement—here’s a staggering statistic. Every year over the next 20 years, we expect between 2 and 2.5 percent of the world’s fleet will need to be replaced. When you consider there are nearly 20 ,000 airplanes flying today, that becomes a really big number—a key reason we’re moving up our production rates.

It looks to be another exciting year to be in this business. And we look forward to meeting the challenges.

This has been one whirlwind of a week for the 787. The Dream Tour airplane arrived in Washington, DC on Monday. We managed to capture some beautiful photos and video of ZA003 as it flew past the Washington Monument.

The 787 comes in for landing in DC.

After the airplane hosted thousands of guests in DC, the week was capped off last night at the Collier Trophy presentation dinner. The 787 received the prestigious award from the National Aeronautic Association for being the greatest aeronautic achievement in America last year. It’s an award we don’t take lightly and we’re truly honored to receive it.

Jim Albaugh, President & CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, honors the 787 team during the Collier Trophy dinner.

Mike Sinnett (left), 787 vice president and 787 Chief Project Engineer, and Capt. Mike Carriker, the original 787 Chief Pilot, are part of the team that designed and developed the 787.

The events in DC weren’t the only big things happening with the 787 program this week. The first engine run of the first South Carolina-built 787 was completed as we draw ever closer to that airplane’s first flight in the coming days.

The first 787 built in South Carolina during its rollout last month.

And before the Collier Trophy presentation, the 787 was honored with the 2012 Hermes Awards for Innovation Grand Prize. The Hermes Awards, given by the European Institute for Creative Strategies and Innovation, honor innovative ideas and products that help advance society. Finally, the Dreamliner was honored by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics with the AIAA Foundation Award of Excellence.

Great things happen when you build great airplanes. Here’s hoping the rest of 2012 brings even greater things.

=

Our production rate increases will be a key part to our success over the next few years. That’s why I’m always fascinated with the creative ways our employees manage to do their jobs better and faster. That’s not always easy—especially when you’re dealing with something that weighs nearly one ton.

The 777 Freighter on the production line in Everett. Gail Hanusa photo.

The 777 Freighter’s main deck cargo door is the largest and the heaviest cargo door that Boeing installs. Back in 2009 when the first 777 Freighter was built, it took about 20 days to rig the cargo door. Now, it takes only 16 hours.

From left to right, 777 door riggers Kiem Tran, Craig Morgan and Angelette Gambrell open the 777 Freighter’s main deck cargo door. Gail Hanusa photo.

Employees came up with a so called “smart pin” designed and patented by Boeing Tool Design. The smart pin allows mechanics to more easily rig the door, in less time and with improved quality. The team also came up with a new method that allows them to stop the moving line, stabilize the airplane, rig the door, get the necessary approvals to move forward, and return later in the process to tighten and seal the fasteners.

With a 20 percent rate increase for the 777— from seven airplanes per month to 8.3 — beginning this fall, this is just another incredible example of employee ingenuity paying off for our customers as we open the door to better ways of doing things.

We’ve upped the game when it comes to the 737 MAX. Just when you thought we couldn’t further improve the airplane, along comes our new Advanced Technology winglet. While most of the buzz in the media has surrounded its eye catching shape, it’s the performance that will be the difference for our airline customers.

The new winglet will provide airlines with an extra 1.5 percent fuel-burn improvement, depending on range. That’s on top of the 10-12 percent improvement we’re already promising. While our original focus on the MAX centered on engine improvements, this winglet opportunity is something we just couldn’t pass up. It provides our customers a substantial fuel savings with minimum risk to the MAX program on our end. To put this in real numbers, if an airline were to utilize a 737 MAX at the high-end of the range for a year, this would equate to a savings of $160,000 dollars per airplane. For a customer with 100 MAXs in their fleet, well you can do the math, this is huge!

As for the winglet itself, it will be built out of composite and metallic leading edge and will have similar tolerance for ‘ramp rash’ as devices used on today’s airplane. The weight of the new winglet is also similar to today’s. And when we call it the Advanced Technology winglet, we mean it. Boeing aerodynamicists used advanced computational fluid dynamics to combine rake tip technology with a dual feather winglet concept into one advanced treatment for the wings of the 737 MAX - now that’s a mouthful. The concept is more efficient than any other wingtip device in the single-aisle market because the effective wing span increase is balanced uniquely between the upper and lower parts. This moves the center of gravity of the system down minimizing weight penalty while allowing maximum aerodynamic efficiency. To see how it will work, check out this video.

There are a lot of reasons to be excited about the 737 MAX as it spreads its wings— with many more milestones to come.