8 July 2012

Drove about 2 1/2 hours over to Everett WA.  Why?  To go to Boeing and do a factory tour.  The tours are run 7 days a week.  We sort of saw the production lines for the current model of the 747, 777 and 787.  By sort of, we saw parts of the planes in the world's largest free standing building, but there wasn't much production going on because the line doesn't run on weekends.  The plant runs 3 shifts 5 days a week, employing over 35,000 people a shift!  A skeleton crew is on site on the weekends.  If there's a need for a troubleshooting team, that kind of work gets done on the weekend.

No cameras, cellphones, or electronic devices are allowed inside the fence of Boeing.  So the pictures below are of the production line hanger (on the left side of the picture) with the painting hangers (on the right side.) 

Paint adds weight, so the paint scheme of an airplane is a very debated subject.  The 787 plane has a carbon composite body and is considerably lighter than other planes currently under construction.  United/Continental is currently the only US carrier under contract, but there are a lot of overseas orders. All the planes we saw under construction were overseas orders.

The planes in the below picture are completed planes waiting for final testing and delivery.

It was decided that we weren't going much further today, because we want to go into Seattle tomorrow.  Roger just finished removing all the splattered bugs off the windshield.  Now I have the sheets and laundry to do.  While the machines are busy doing the hard work, we'll be planning on where to go tomorrow.