Boeing Tour

A foggy start to the day but as the Wells Fargo clerk told me, as I cashed a Travellers Cheque after breakfast, the fog is usually a good sign for better weather later. As planned, I drove up to the town of Everett (about 25 mins) to go on the Boeing plant tour. (http://www.futureofflight.org/) There was about 40 minutes to wait for the next tour so had time to look around the exhibits in the visitor centre. This had displays on the history of jet airliners and the principles of flight. To be fair to Boeing they gave plenty of space to the Airbus airliners and the developments they had made as well as featuring the Boeing line up.
The tour itself goes through the assembly lines for the 747, 777 and 787 planes. All going on in one building – the largest building in the world, by volume. As a result of the great access to the assembly lines there are no cameras, cell phones or electrical devices allowed on the tour. The guide gave lots of information about the plant and planes. He was proud of Boeing and finished with a recommendation to check which aircraft our future flight bookings use; “if it ain’t Boeing, I ain’t going”.
The development is quite striking as the assembly time for the new 787 will be three days, once fully up to speed, compared to over 5 weeks for a 747. This is mainly due to collaboration with partner companies that make parts of the 787 and fly them in on specially made cargo planes.
Had lunch at the visitor centre then on for a walk at Spencer Island Park, a nature reserve a little further North of Everett. Not much about during the afternoon apart from a couple of osprey’s and an eagle!
And the Wells Fargo clerk was right, the weather had picked up the afternoon was really warm and sunny.

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