Snippets from the Brodies: Boeing Factory, Mukilteo

When we headed south from Vancouver, we were aiming for a 3pm ‘Future of Flight’ tour at the Boeing Factory in Mukilteo, near Everett – but we managed to run a little late with the heavy traffic and the border crossing, so had to reschedule… Had our first taste of

America

’s gigantic RVs (massive doesn’t even start to describe!), and felt a little small in our normal sized van! Had a great first night’s sleep in the van, then headed off to the Boeing Factory tour.

We’d heard that this was fantastic, and it sure was! We learnt so many things (many of which I have since forgotten, in all of 2 days…) and it was really cool to see the massive planes (767, 747 and the new 787) on the production line! We weren’t allowed to take any cameras or phones on the tour with us, when we were actually in the factory, but we could while in the gallery, where there are various bits of planes from now and back in the day.

Crossing the border into the USA

Looking out at the Boeing Factory

Some of the things I found pretty interesting:

The Boeing factory at Everett is the biggest building in the world by volume – it’s around 98 hectares in area, which is over 75 American football fields, and 911 basketball courts.
The 6 doors on the building are each 96m long by 24m high, to allow the planes to get through them for flight testing and painting (seriously massive!)
There are over 6 million parts that make up a 747-8 (the latest 747 model)
It takes around 4 months to build a 747-8 plane
The top of the tail on a 747-8 is 6 stories high
To buy a 747-8, WITHOUT any seats or other fitout, or even any engines, it would set you back $350 million (I assume $USD) – for a 737, the 3 and 3 seat configuration single aisle smaller Boeing planes, at would cost around $90 million.
The 787 Dreamliner plane now in production and in use by a few airlines around the world (we saw the first in production for Qantas/Jetstar) has engines that are 60% quieter than the previous model (can’t remember if this was replacing the 767 or the 737)
The 787 is made of a composite material which is stronger than steel but lighter than aluminium, and therefore it can fly further using less fuel, allowing for longer flights without stopovers (opening up new flight paths around the world)
Because of the strength of the material that the plane is made from, more humidity is allowed in the cabin when flying, so less drying out when on long flights
The windows are 65% bigger than on other Boeing planes (which is a LOT bigger – they had a demo size window, and it’d sure be great to have a window seat!!)
They built a special plane to transport the components of the 787 Dreamliner – this is called the DreamLifter, and the factory in Everett has 4 of these – a supersized 747 which is really tall and round to be able to fit the whole fuselage of the 787 inside it!

747-8 Cargo plane before being painted - at the wall where they test the engines, so the cars on the freeway behind and in the carpark aren't blown away.