Patrick: What’s it like to fly a Dreamliner?

Nick Carden: I’ll use two words. It’s absolutely remarkable but also there’s a lot of responsibility and flying a Dreamliner. It is very technologically advanced and very smart. I often joke with a lot of my pilot friends that the Dreamliner is the next step into replacing pilots altogether because the aircraft is just really, really smart.

I often joke too, that I’m a systems manager. I’m really not a pilot. The systems are doing everything that I would normally do in a very less advanced aircraft. The systems are taken care of and it’s just a really smart computer based system. That’s the first thing about the Dreamliner. It’s just really, really smart technologically advanced aircraft.

The second thing that comes with that is, it’s quiet. It’s actually a really quiet plane. To be this big, it is quiet and comfortable and that’s a really cool thing for a plane this size.

Then the third thing, it smells like a new car. It’s the first time I get a flight brand new. But I’ll say all of that reminds me of my responsibility as a test pilot, that we produce a very technological, challenging plane, that it is my responsibility to ensure the quality is a hundred percent and we never sacrifice the quality that we’re giving our customers and the safety that they rely on from us. So it is an immense responsibility because of that, because it’s such a remarkable plane.