Thanks, I know that limit is for gear extension but was curious as to what the max operating speed would be with the gear staying down. Mind you flight tracker is not always completely accurate. Thanks

I wondered how much they increase Vr for safety? It's noticeable that the front wheel of the MLG rises prior to rotation (I imagine for two reasons - The wing was ready and also the semi levered landing gear is ready to give it a shove off the ground) it just left me wondering what the margin is?

Even if it's accurate, it won't give you KIAS or KTAS, only groundspeed.

I had read somewhere that there concerns with the added length causing tail strikes and then in another article is was pointed out that the new wing had better lift so perhaps that is why the main gear lifted first.

"You can bet if an engine failure occurred on takeoff they would have raised the gear."

In military test pilot schools, it is taught that you keep the gear down while going through all the other tests that must be done on first flights. As for what to do if you lose an engine on a first flight, they were probably pretty light so they might not pull it up even then. Just my thinking. In any case gear movement is a massive thing. The KISS principle applies. Keep It Simple, Stupid.

Boeing no longer has separate limiting speeds for gear retraction/ extension/ extended as they did in the past


They have standardized on 270/.82 for all three

Have they announced what speed this beauty is going to cruise at yet?

they won’t know for sure until the flight testing programme is complete.

Pretty sure the target is Mach 0.84 - 0.85, but as 3Greens notes, the flight test results will be the final determination.