Altitudes Europe #49

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On an epic scale A tour of the Boeing Everett site Just when you think you’ve seen them all, you find yourself standing inside the Boeing production facility in Everett, north of Seattle, thinking that nothing even comes close.

Any account of this place has to start with size, although it’s almost impossible to imagine its true scale. Even standing inside the actual building and looking over the production lines, it’s hard to get your mind around it: the place is that big. The perimeter of the building is about 3.5 km, while its volume of 13.3 million cubic metres (and yes, they do give you the exact figure) earned it a spot in the Guinness Book of Records as the biggest building in the world.

Today, the production facility in Everett, about half an hour’s drive to the north of Seattle, builds Boeing widebody air-

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craft: the 747, 767, 777, and 787. The first Boeing 747-8, for example, the newest generation of the classic airplane, rolled out of these doors just over a year ago.

And it also started with the Boeing 747, the original Jumbo Jet. Although the company had facilities in Everett as early as World War II, work started big time in 1967, after the 747 had been given the green light by the Boeing board of directors. The original factory was up and running in 1968. Since then, it was expanded a couple of times to house the assembly lines of the 767, 777, and the newest 787.

There seem to be several “classic” stories that Boeing representatives relate to all visitors, whether dignitaries, customers, journalists, or tourists. One is that there is no climate control system in the huge building. It is heated by the machinery in operation, the one million lights shining across the facility, and the people themselves. To cool the place down, they just open one of the doors for a while. The doors are absolutely enormous, too (a 747 must be able to easily pass through) and run on rails.

The second story is that when the factory was first launched, it had its own

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weather: clouds formed beneath the ceilings and it actually rained. A ventilation system had to be put in place to get rid of that problem.

And since size is something that is hard to get away from here (even the planes themselves, although dwarfed by the surroundings, are among the biggest ever built), another impressive figure is the head count. Today, about 17000 specialists are directly involved in building the aircraft, working in three shifts around the clock, no weekends – a truly 24/7 schedule. The Everett site as a whole employs almost 40000 people, so it’s really like a town, with its own fire department, security service, cafes, banks, and all other facilities that are necessary outside of producing aircraft.

Each type of aircraft has its own seg-

So massive are the facilities, they create their own weather system and function like a town.

Some 40,000 people are employed on site, working in 3 shifts, 24/7

ment in the gigantic building, and the processes vary from one production line to the other. What mainly goes on here notwithstanding the type is assembly. Parts arrive from suppliers by land or even by air in the Dreamlifter – a mighty and odd-looking cargo plane based on the Boeing 747. These typically fly whole fuselage sections of the Dreamliner, made of composite materials in Italy, as well as parts from Japan and other countries.

For the 747, 767, and 777, the processes are traditional. There is a lot of activity going on around the planes and their sections, for example, riveting (the 747 has a million holes, as opposed to less than 10,000 on the 787). Unlike production facilities that churn out business jets, here the creation of an airplane is

By Ivan Veretennikov

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Rolling out a 787 Dreamliner takes less time than with a traditional airliner.

The ultimate goal is to put out a new one every three days

almost invisible to the eye and only comes to life on a video that has been sped up. The people on any aircraft look tiny in comparison and do not seem to be making a visible difference at any one time. Even the concept of the moving line is not something one would expect from previous experience: The Boeing 777 (which is made up of three million parts, by the way), is built on a moving line, which was fully launched in January 2010 and resulted in a 24% reduction of build time. It moves at a pace of... less than 5 centimetres per minute! Just to round off the classic lineup with a fact about the 767, there are 201 kilometres of electrical wiring in a 767-400ER. That’s a lot of work to do!

Rolling out a 787 Dreamliner takes a shorter time, while the assembly process involves much less riveting, and there is also an 80% saving on fasteners compared to traditional planes. Whole fuselage sections are flown in, made from composite materials, and put together at the factory, with an ultimate goal of putting out a new 787 once every three days. With the substantial backlog of aircraft that Boeing has accumulated, including aircraft that are destined for VIP conversions, it’s a tar-

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All VIP wide-bodies start their life as green aircraft rolled out of Seattle

get that cannot be hit too soon.

Regarding Boeing Business Jets that our readers are likely most interested in, all of the VIP widebodies start their life as green aircraft that are rolled out from this particular factory. Namely, the first Boeing 747-8 to be built is already undergoing a VIP conversion, while according to Steve Taylor, President of Boeing Business Jets, the first green 787 to become a business liner should be delivered by the end of this year, and a batch of them should come in 2014.

All in all, the Boeing factory in Everett is definitely worth the visit even if a Boeing widebody airliner is not on your shopping list. The scale of the place and the majestic flying machines in their various stages give an impression of an enormous shipyard. Here, as possibly nowhere else, it’s easy to see why aviation uses so many naval terms, measures, and approaches. William Boeing himself started with seaplanes.

It’s the spirit of exploration, the romance, the thrill of adventure that unite sailors and ships of yesterday with pilots and aircraft of today. In our busy world it’s easy to forget just how drastically flight has changed our lives. This giant facility is a great place to appre■ ciate the magic.