More than two years behind schedule, Boeing's 787 Dreamliner successfully completed its first test flight on Tuesday, becoming the first passenger airliner to take to the air with a fuselage and wings built mostly of advanced composite materials rather than aluminium.

The blue and white, twin-engined plane took off from Boeing's test facility near Everett, Washington, at 10.27 am (1527 GMT) with two veteran test pilots aboard. About three hours later the plane executed a textbook landing at the Boeing field in Seattle.