Boeing planes, old and new, rendezvous in the sky

One of the first Boeing airplanes recently met the company's latest model in the skies near Mount Rainier.

On May 8, Boeing 787 Dreamliner chief test pilot Mike Carriker maneuvered Dreamliner No. 1 to fly in formation at 12,000 feet with a fully restored 1928 vintage Boeing Model 40, the company's first production commercial airplane.

"It really took a lot of work and planning," Carriker said. "When I came alongside the Model 40 against those big puffy clouds it was unbelievable: Here is this 1928 biplane flying with a 2010 airplane side by side. How amazing the history of The Boeing Company is — it was really exciting."

Owned and flown by Addison Pemberton of Spokane, the restored vintage plane is the only flyable Model 40 in the world and the oldest flying Boeing aircraft of any kind.

The Model 40 won the lucrative Oakland-to-Chicago air mail route in 1927. Within two years of winning that contract, Bill Boeing's nascent airplane company had expanded into a nationwide aviation empire called United Aircraft and Transport Corporation (UATC).