TAKE FLIGHT

As befits the home of Boeing, the Seattle area has some of the best aviation attractions anywhere.  The faithful will recall that we both enjoy this stuff, having previously visited the Pima Air Museum in Tucson, and more recently on this trip the quaint one in Tillamook, where we geared up with a logo’d coat for Loni and a sleeveless vest for me, both of which have seen good duty.  Our first stop was in Everett, the home to Boeing’s principle assembly factory, where you can go on a tour and see the behemoths being built (oh, the alliteration!).

Unfortunately, they don’t allow pictures to be taken inside the factory, so the photos will be limited to the exteriors and the museum area.  The biggest thing you see outside is the Dream Lifter, a pregnant guppy if ever there was one.  The entire fuselage of Boeing’s new “Dreamliner,” the 787, can fit inside this baby.  As you can see, it’s an engorged modification to a 747.  They have four of these, and they are used exclusively to ferry in the various subcontracted pieces of the 787 from all over the world for final assembly here.  I can’t imagine how that is efficient, but I guess the fabrication costs overseas are sufficiently lower to justify it.  The building with the blue doors (this shot does not take in the entire building) is the largest enclosed space in the world, and is where they put the planes together.  Each of those doors is as big as a football field.  The bottom photo is one of the areas where they stage the planes for final prep before delivery.  

Each one gets three test flights, two with Boeing pilots alone, and the final with the customer’s test pilot (accompanied by Boeing’s).  Boeing sells on the easy three-payment plan:  1/3 on order; 1/3 just before they put the paint scheme on; and 1/3 on delivery.  I think a 747 goes for $270 million, without any engines.  You get your choice of manufacturer for your engines – Rolls Royce, Pratt & Whitney, or GE – but regardless of choice, they cost about $20 million apiece.  We saw one 747 nearing completion on the line.  It was a private plane being built for some sheikh.  Figures.

The enormity of the factory just can’t be described.  You’ll just have to picture a place where the overhead crane operators (which move the huge pieces around for joining) can only work 45 minute shifts before having to come down.  After that their depth perception gets fuzzy and they can’t see properly to position their loads.  Also, it gets to be 110 degrees up there and they can’t have air conditioning because the cab can’t be enclosed.  Reflections from all the lights would make working through a window impossible.  That’s the height.  The acreage is huge, as you would assume for a place where there are multiple 747s being built at the same time, and at the end the wings are attached, still inside!  They have hundreds of bicycles and golf carts for the workers to use in getting around.  A 747 takes about 3 months to complete.  Various pieces are built in discrete areas, then transported by the cranes to be fit together.

We also saw the 777 assembly line, which uses a moving assembly procedure, where the plane moves slowly along (I think about 1 1/2 inches per hour).  These get put together in about 3 weeks.

The speed champ was the 787 Dreamliner.  The various pieces (nose, fuselage, tail, wings, ailerons, landing gear, etc.) are built all over the world, then flown here.  For instance, the nose-cockpit unit comes complete with all electronics installed.  They can assemble a completed 787 in only three days !  The 787 assembly line was thus the shortest of them all.  They have orders for 870 of them, so Boeing will be busy for a while to come.

The tour was great, and we highly recommend it if you are in the area.  It takes 90 minutes.  There’s also a museum that we visited after the tour.  It has a bunch of interesting exhibits, like this 747 tail section being modeled by Loni:

and this huge GE engine:

One of the most unusual displays has a feature that will amuse/shock many in the RV community.  It has to do with this small plane, which was designed for maximum efficiency.  Note the neat landing gear incorporated at the ends of what is a separate, lower wing. 

But that’s not the RV connection.  It lies in this description:

For the uninitiated, Onan makes the generators found in most Class C RV’s.  Given the problems many have with theirs, I’m not sure I’d want to be relying on one to keep me aloft.  And, hell, mine burns a gallon an hour just running the bleepin’ microwave.

No visit to an air museum would be complete without  a sit in a cockpit.  Mayday!  Mayday!

Next stop, although on the next day, was what has to be the premiere air museum anywhere -- and I include the National Air & Space Museum in that pantheon – the Museum of Flight.  It’s located just south of Seattle, on the site of old (but still in use for general aviation) Boeing Field and the original Boeing factory, the Red Barn, which is now incorporated into the Museum.

A word about old Boeing.  He was the son of German immigrants, born in Minnesota, and the heir to his father’s timber fortune.  He came west to make his own fortune in timber, met up with a Navy officer draftsman, and the two of them decided that they could design better airplanes than were then available.  After doing the initial design work, the Navy guy got transferred, sold his interest to Boeing (for a song, no doubt), and missed out on history.  Boeing’s initial stuff was made of wood:

but fairly rapidly evolved to metal craft for air-mail routes

and multi-engine passenger planes.

The main hall is absolutely huge and looks like a time-warp invading air force.

They have everything from an SR-71 Blackbird (high altitude reconnaissance/spying) to the genesis of modern aircraft, the Douglas DC-3:

 

I was partial to the F-4 Phantom, the workhorse plane of the Vietnam (and longer) era that flew off the carriers I was on.

Those ugly beauties could scream at mach 2 and made a hellaceous sound when they’d do flybys and power climbs.

There was another huge section where WWII birds got their due

 

and another where WWI craft were featured.  I particularly liked the Italian effort in the large picture.  Looks like something literally built in the back yard, but it flew!

There was an outdoor area, reached by a nifty bridge.

  When we walked across it, they were piping in music from “2001,” the Zarathustra theme, and then the waltz music from the weightless flight-to-the-moon scene.  It was cool-ly appropriate.  In the field on the other side of the road was where they had three iconic planes of their eras:  a Lockheed Constellation, the last of the piston era passenger giants; the Boeing 707 “Airforce One”, representing the dawn of the jet transport age (OK, the British Comet was first, but this one set the mark), and the SST Concorde, the supersonic one-and-only.

I’m particularly fond of the Constellation as that was the first plane I ever flew in.  I think it was in 1954.  My brother and I flew by ourselves from Chicago to Philadelphia to visit my Dad’s relatives there.  I have a vivid memory of looking out the window and seeing the flames from the engine exhaust, and asking the stewardess if the plane was on fire.  Nope, but she gave me a pair of plastic wings to pin on my sweater.  I still think the triple tail and dolphin body makes it the prettiest aircraft ever made.  I remember being aghast two years later when one of these was involved in the Grand Canyon aircrash.

We couldn’t go on the Connie, but we could go through the Air Force One.  Eisenhower actually inaugurated 707’s, but the one on display here was ordered by Kennedy, and served all presidents from him through Clinton!  747’s started service with Reagan.  Here’s the conference table area:

  

Actually, the interior was pretty mundane throughout, but it reeked with history.  We also went through the

 

which, despite its impressive speed credentials, was narrow and confining.

No, they didn’t hermetically seal the passengers.  The plastic covers are to keep us tourists off the furniture.

We spent over four hours here, and it wasn’t enough.  I wanted to read everything, but we had to keep moving through.  My advice is to get here when they first open, then spend all day.  It’s absolutely worth it.  When we left, there was one final temptation.  Alas, I resisted.