Estimate: 6% of Boeing's Dreamlifter capacity utilized for PPE in first COVID-19 relief flight

Boeing

The White House raised the eyebrows of aviation enthusiasts on March 27 when the president announced Boeing would be donating the use of three of its four Dreamlifters to help transport relief supplies for COVID-19 relief. These aircraft are designed to carry wings and fuselage components between suppliers and Boeing's assembly plants - in fact, its cavernous main cargo area, which is accessed by swinging the massive tail of the aircraft out of the way, can only be accessed with special ground equipment located at three airports across the United States: CHS (Charleston, SC), IAB (Wichita, KS), and PAE (Seattle, WA).

In the month since the announcement, enthusiasts have been keeping close tabs on the Dreamlifter fleet to see if the promise to do additional flights would bear fruit; a month later, on April 25, the first flight with relief supplies has been flown to Greenville-Spartanburg International Airport utilized, by my estimate, less than 6% of its capacity. Video from Fox Carolina shows a pallets with 1.5 million surgical masks being unloaded from the belly, the only part of the aircraft that's efficiently accessibly outside by equipment found at most airports. The aircraft was met on the ground by Senator Lindsey Graham, one of the president's most adamant supporters.

Using specifications for bulk surgical masks, and the Dreamlifter's capabilities, I performed the quick analysis shown below. Using these numbers, I estimate the first relief flight utilized about 6% of the Dreamlifters weight capacity, and about 3% of its volume, for PPE.

Update 1: Boeing has since published this image, showing seven pallets of masks, which is the full pallet capacity of the Dreamlifter's belly.

Boeing

Update 2: Boeing reached out to clarify that this mission was flown in conjunction with its regular Dreamlifter operations, transporting 787 components from factories in Japan to Boeing’s facilities in Charleston, SC. Previous references to the aircraft being 94% empty were inaccurate; this story has been updated to correctly indicate roughy 6% of Dreamlifter capacity was utilized for COVID-19 relief. We regret the error.

Nick Benson

Nick lives in Burnsville, Minnesota with his wife and three children. He grooves on railroad and aviation photography, politics, geography, weather, and LEGO. He started JetTip's smart flight alert service in 2017, and is now a full-time avgeek. He can frequently be found atop a step ladder at MSP's Aircraft Viewing Area.