Transports of Delight : Going Boeing

Seattle  is home to 2 of the world’s largest corporations; Microsoft and Boeing. Microsoft are predictably unfriendly to tourists, but Boeing run public tours of their Everett complex. Costs $15, 9-5, on the hour, every hour, every day (except Christmas day). Problem is getting there. Boeing is 32 miles north of Seattle and while public transport is possible, no one seems to know how. Locals just don’t  travel that way.  The only practical option is to hire a car, which adds $120 to the price of the tour (and only if we return the SUV to AVIS before 4.45 the same day). But you do these things right?

The traffic was surprisingly heavy for Saturday morning - we later learned that it was a long weekend (President’s Day on Monday 15^th) and everyone is travelling to Seattle for the holiday. Driving in the US is alarming if you are not used to driving on the “other” side of the road and is horryifyingly surreal if you have jet lag. But the trip was quick and we were at Boeing in 35 minutes. Photography is banned in the factory, in fact you have to hire a locker and leave all your personal belongings outside before the tour starts. To fulfill the tourist need for photography, Boeing have put together the “Future of Flight" a gallery of aircraft parts and distrbing facts which you can browse before the tour:

In the Future of Flight gallery:

• Alarming videos of engines disintegrating
• Alarming footage of bird strike testing
• Alarming push button simulation of a jet engine at take off
• Alarming middle aged men in leather flying jackets
• Exremely alarming cross section of the new latest Boeing 778
  The fuselage of the "Dreamliner" is made up of super thin carbon fiber (picture below)

The tour;

• 6 minute film (the projetor displayed an overheat warning throughout - Boeing say it is too expensive to fix so we should just ignore the message - alarming!)
• Bus ride to the factory
• Short walk through the tunnels under the factory
• Freight elevator (held all 52 of us) to the third floor viewing platform over the factory. Amazing - it is not enclosed or roped off, you can just peer over the top at the 747-8's being assembled
• Second bus trip to see the 778 Dreamliners being assembled

A few Boeing facts:

• The Boeing factory is the largest building in the world (it is in the Guiness Book of World's Records (they have several entries in there)
• 5 stories high, bigger than Disneyland, would hold 9,000 basketball courts
• World's largest mural painted on the front of the building
• World's largest private fire service
• 30,000 employees
• 13,000 bicycles for riding from one end of the building to the other
• Sections of the plane are made in different countries through the world and flown to Seattle for assembly
• Some of the parts are so huge that Boeing had to design a new cargo plane, the Dreamlifter
• The planes are put together on an assembly line and are moved around the floor from station to station
• It takes 3 days to assemble a complete 747
• Boeing has orders for the Dreamliner 778 until 2018 
• Each 778 costs around $300,000,000 each
• Total take off weight is 975,000,000lbs
• Paint adds an extra 2000-10,000lbs to the weight
• Boeing exports more than any other US company
• The factory does not operate 24/7. Standard work hours are Monday-Friday 9-5. People do work at weekends but it is voluntary (for 1.5, 2x salary, though)
• The factory has it's own restaurants and cafes; including a Tully's Coffee outlet which sells more than any other outlet in the US

Amazing. Alarming.Recommended

Edited to add: Yes,I know I had typed in 774 instead of 747. I did try to fix it (several times) but there was a problem with the style sheet which I have only just managed to nut out. Put it down to jet lag!