The Boeing Everett Factory Tour

* The photos are reproduced from the tour brochure.

To see the largest passenger planes being assembled !

PART 1

Wow!.... On a lazy saturday, Nikhil, Shiv and myself decided to take the tour.

http://www.boeing.com/companyoffices/aboutus/tours/

Umm, the new age kids...you ask them, 'Where do we get milk from?' .. their answer most probably, would be ' The refrigerator!' (No offence meant to anyone, any generation!) . Well, my answer to a question 'Where do the planes come from' would be similar to some degree. Yes, I know they are built in huge spaces, by robots and robotic men and women, but did I ever imagine of visiting the worlds largest factory (by volume the largest building in the world!) to see this.....a big NO!
Thanks to the opportunity of being in Seattle, we were off. Not too far from our place (30 miles, I guess).

We didnt bother to book online. It was easy, as ticket booking at any counter is, in the US. We were among the 10 folks who took the 10:30 Am tour. The group had representation from India (thats us and another Indian family), folks from Korea, China, and some locals ( Americans from different states) .

As we sat in the auditorium, with bated breath, a lady emerged from the shadows and introduced her self as the tour guide. She seemed to be a veteran in this. Carefully chosen words, to explain the rules and regulations of the tour, and doing her best to be as succinctly informative as possible! 'No cameras or any gadgets in the tour', she warned! Looking at our curious faces, she went on to explain the rationale. Apparently, few tours ago, an excited teenager, frantically taking snaps of the assembly process below (the tour walk is at quite a height so that we can observe the interesting stuff below), accidentally dropped the camera. It hit one of the air - plane parts being assembled and one thing led to another and there were damages worth over a couple of million ! Hearing this, i guess, each one of us immediately calculated the number of years we would have to be on this planet to repay the debt from our meagre earnings, and some of us, even didnt bother taking the effort....A couple quickly got up to hand over all items at the reception.

After this initial and most important clarification, we were told to sit back and relax, and watch two short video clips - first about the BOEING history and then on the assembly process of a giant 747 !

Both were remarkable. Power packed! Watching the planes, I couldnt help but marvel the ingenuity of the Wright brothers and William Boeing and their respective dreams. Looking at the assembly video gave me goosebumps. How efficiently and laboriously (lot of automation, and a much larger manual labour) are these flying machines built! We were getting impatient. We wanted to quickly get to the place where all the action is....

Sensing this, the tour operator (TO) asked us to board a tour bus waiting outside. Ironically in this hi-tech complex, the bus microphone was not working ! Our tour guide, banged the box, cursed the microphone and after many such futile attempts, gave up and cleared her throat. She had a pleasant voice and all of us could hear her clearly. As the bus got on its way, she pointed to our right, and we could see the test fields! Here, all the assembled planes, were ready to be taken for a test flight (untill now my world was restricted to test drives. I was in the process of buying a used car and was busy taking test drives at user car dealers, prospective private sellers!) by the customers. We saw planes ordered by Singapore Airlines, Angola Airlines (they fly!!!??), and others waiting for their turn. That field itself, was bigger than the Mumbai Airport!

The TO added: ' The planes are test flown by the customers' pilots and if all is well, they fly it to their own hangars. BOEING does not ship the planes'.

Slowly the bus was on a road bridge, and this one was on top of a free way! A private brigde on a free way! This was meant for the planes to be taken out of the hangar and then park them in the fields for the test drive, oops, flight. Untill a few years ago, this was done in the day and it used to cause mayhem below on the freeway. Startled and pleasantly surprised folks got out of their cars abruptly to take a quick snap before the gigantic 747 dissappeard. Confusion and a few accidents later, the BOEING management decided to do this only in the night !

After crossing the bridge, we were confronted with the largest building in the world. Not tallest, but the largest in terms of volume. I strained my neck to make a quick grasp of the expanse and almost pulled a muscle!

PART 2

We slowly entered the building and were made to walk in a single line, behind our leading lady. Staff, taking a break, walked by us. They were dressed in casuals, one just too casual, in a sweat sogging half shirt and a almost fully torn, faded pair of cut jeans. Wanted the extra ventilation, I guess.

The TG was sharing some interesting trivia. Some of the introductory ones were,

a. It can take more than a year (nowadays its getting shorter) from a time a customer places an order until the airplane is ready to be delivered. About half the time is needed to get the parts, a 747 has just 6 million for example. These are sent to this factory to be assembled from hundreds of suppliers spread across the globe.

b. Talking about suppliers and supplies, the costliest ones, guess.....the engines, are procured from GE, Pratt and Whitney, and Rolls Royce.

c. We all know US exports comprise mainly of arms (to maintain peace around the world, if I may put it) and wings! In 2004, Washington state accounted for 17 billion US dollars of them, just by exports of Aircraft, Spacecraft and Parts. Chunk of that comes from factories such as these!

At the viewing section on the top, specially built for the tour. We could see the giants below, slowly being built with precision, looking so bare without the fancy paint and the finishing. Believe me, building a plane is laborious. Yes, theres the technology to make life easier, friendly robots and all, but for example each of those window moulds have to be installed manually. Each row of seats need to be fixed firmly, and tested multiple times. On so on...takes almost 6 months to assemble a 747. For a moment all this didnt seem too interesting or challenging. Planes are passe ! And building them seems no longer a hearty challenge. I dont want to be in the shoes of one of those technicians, diligently playing god, with the responsibilty of assembling the pieces together with six sigma perfection.

The next moment, it seems fascinating..designing new flying machines to take the skies, always striving to make aviation cheaper, faster, less risky and of course to make it more profitable (isnt that the goal of any business!).....the skys no limit, literally. The 787 dreamliner by Boeing is one small step. This jet is expected to rule the skies in 2008. About half of it, is constructed of composite materials, making it about 40,000 pounds lighter than other similar airplanes. They claim of it being 20 % more fuel efficient and shorter by 20 % in fuel emissions. And yes, it is also meant to be more comfortable to passengers.

We were enamoured to say the least. As the TG took us down again, we thought something else is in store. Unfortunately, an hour for the tour makes it feel like an abrupt end to a fantasy. We were just getting into the mood, to probably go down and pat on the back of those technicians, encouraging them to keep up the good work!, but sadly none of this was on the cards. We were made to board the waiting tour bus, the lady driver, definitely sensing our discomfort on being grounded so soon, greeting us warmly with a beautiful smile!

As we returned to the base, to a new entrance, no prizes for guessing what was on the other side of it. The gift and souvenir shop! Caps, miniature models, key chains, cards, all with neatly marked price tags. Each one, enticing on its own right! I bought a key chain! I felt that was good enough to remind of me of the short, but enriching tour of something that I had least expected to see, ever!

On our way out, I played the flying captain in one of the dummy cockpits out there.

As I switched a few buttons on and off, I couldnt help looking for the rear view mirror !!