Jet Set

Above, CJ and Annabelle check out the cockpit of a Boeing 727

GOING TO BOEING: On Monday we finally knocked one item off our 'to do' list. We took a tour of the mammoth Boeing jet assembly facility and Payne Field in Mulkiteo, WA, about 25 miles north of Seattle.

 The facility is home to the 747, 767, 777 and 787 Dreamliner production lines.

Our tour was at 2, but we got on site about an hour early. That allowed us time to wander around the gallery in the Future of Flight Aviation Center and check out some displays.

A couple of enormous engines got our attention right away.

If I'm not mistaken, this is the front side of a Rolls Royce engine. RRs are installed on many a Boeing jet.

The side of the engine had a neat-o high tech peek inside, so we could get an idea of what's going on inside the engine's metal housing. Rolls Royce also has an educational, interactive "build your own engine" feature on their Web site: http://www.rolls-royce.com/interactive_games/build/flash.html and a "Journey through a jet engine" feature: http://www.rolls-royce.com/interactive_games/journey02/flash.html

 There was also a pretty Peugeot engine on site.

A few minutes before 2, we wound our way to the tour entrance tunnel. While we waited, we sat (in decommissioned first class seats and watched some video about Boeing's history. At about 10 until 2, they started taking tickets.

We started off in a posh theater in the Future of Flight building where we viewed an 8-minute movie about - you guessed it - Boeing!  Then, we boarded a bus. First, we wheeled around Paine Field for a bit. There we saw jets ready for delivery to dozens of airlines from around the world, everything from China to Cambodia, Japan to Poland.

Next, we crossed the highway and went to the aircraft assembly building.

photo: Maurice King - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Boeing_Everett_Plant.jpg

When you drive by it at highway speeds, you think, "Damn, that's big," but when you're actually inside it you think "Damn, that's HUGE!!!" I've been inside the mammoth Vehicle Assembly Building at Kennedy Space Center, but that place is absolutely dwarfed by the Boeing facility. Our tour guide told us that it's the largest building (by volume) in the world, but Wikipedia says that it's 5th largest. Hmm. ... The Guinness Book of World Records gives it the number one spot, though, so that's good enough for me (472 million cubic feed or 13.3 million cubic meters).  Our tour guide said Disneyland and 12 acres of parking would fit inside the Boeing Everett plant. Or, picture  75 football fields fitting on its 98-acre footprint.

It's definitely like its own city, complete with a fire department and security force, plus on site electrical substations and a water treatment plant, as well as a medical clinic. There are 2.33 miles or 3.7 kilometers of pedestrian tunnels running below the factory. We walked in them to get from one production line to another.

Anywho, the facility opened in 1967, to produce the historic 747 jumbo jet and it has expanded several times since then. Today, it has and I think we were told it has over 30,000 employees, six Tully's coffee stands, and 11 restaurants or cafes, as well as an on site daycare and athletic club.


I wish I had pictures to show you from the tour, but photography of any kind is verboten, darn it!

The tour lasted about 90 minutes. 

We deboarded the buses and exited  through the gift shop (of course!). Before leaving the Future of Flight building, we went back down to the gallery as the kids wanted to try out something our tour guide had told us about - software that would allow them to design their own plane and have it printed out at the gift shop. Bet you can figure out which plane was designed by whom.

FROM ON HIGH: Sept. 11 will forever be a day of remembrance in the United States. Everyone alive then no doubt recalls where they were when the terrorists attacked. Astronaut Frank Culbertson was on the International Space Station as the events unfolded. Here's a photo that captured the aftermath at the Twin Towers.

At the time Culbertson said, "It's horrible to see smoke pouring from wounds in your own country from such a fantastic vantage point. The dichotomy of being on a spacecraft dedicated to improving life on the earth and watching life being destroyed by such willful, terrible acts is jolting to the psyche, no matter who you are."

Of course, we talked lots about 9/11 and CJ conducted some of his own, independent research online. And last night, we watched a documentary about the second plane to slam into the World Trade Center. Damn hard to watch. Eleven years hasn't softened the blow much, if at all.