The Boeing Museum and Everett Plant Tour

December, 2024.

We drove down to the Boeing Museum one morning from Anacortes for an early afternoon tour. This time the one-hour trip took only an hour and a half, it was a Saturday.

The Boeing Museum was interesting. I thought we would see more historic Boeing planes, I guess there is another museum for that. This one was more about evolving technologies – aerospace, space, and manufacturing. No pictures allowed.

The Everett Plant Tour started in an auditorium with some discussion of what we would see and the rules: no pictures and no specific questions requiring proprietary answers.

The original plant was built to assemble 747 aircraft. We got on a bus for a short ride over to the assembly building where there are now 8 immense assembly bays. They are building 767 and 777 aircraft here now. The bus took us to the 7th assembly bay. We walked down a set of stairs, through an underground passageway, and up in elevators to an observation platform overlooking the assembly areas in bays 7 and 8.

In bay 8 they were working on the 777X, a new 777 with more new composite wings with folding wingtips so that it fits in existing airports and more efficient, bigger GE engines. With lighter-weight wings and more efficient engines, aircraft fuel consumption will go down by about 15%. This aircraft is going through the final certification process. Deliveries are scheduled for 2026. More than 500 have been sold.

In bay 7 they were assembling 767s. There were 6 aircraft in the bay at various stages. As I recall each aircraft spent 5 days being assembled.

The two ends of the aircraft started side by side with the nose and tail facing the same way at the near side of the bay at the left end. The cockpit in the front end and the equipment in the aft end started to get installed.

These move to the middle of the near side of the bay for more work.

Then these two sections move to the right end of the near side where the aft end is turned around so that the front and aft sections are lined up as one might expect. From somewhere else the horizontal and vertical tail surfaces are ferried in by overhead cranes which move from building to building. All of these tail parts are attached while the aircraft is in this section of the assembly bay.

They move those sections to the other side of the bay and a giant overhead crane brings in the center section from another building. Two big saddle frames hold the three sections together in alignment and robotic machines put in 8 rivets in a line across each joint about every two inches around the entire fuselage.

Then this assembled fuselage moves down to the middle of the opposite side. More big cranes bring in the wings (built-in another building where they just make wings). The wings are attached to each side of the fuselage. No one asked how many bolts. This is where the rest of the interior of the plane is installed.

And finally, the nearly complete aircraft moves to the left end of the opposite side of the bay where the fuselage and wings are lifted so that the landing gear and the engines can be installed. The landing gear goes up and down several times, all of the aircraft systems are tested. After five days a 767 is towed out of the assembly bay.

Think about it, there are 6 767 aircraft in this assembly bay (one of 8). These assembly bays are in one building that covers 5.5 million square feet, almost 100 acres. The building is 120 feet tall and encloses about 500 million cubic feet. These assembly bays could hold 75 NFL football fields. Big is the word and the plant continues to expand.

Once the plane is towed out of the assembly building it goes across a very heavy-duty bridge crossing Interstate 5 to one of three paint buildings and then on to a final assembly and testing facility where it gets more tests and final finishing touches.

Finally, Boeing test pilots fly each plane two or three times. The buyer’s test pilots fly it a couple of times and then when everyone is happy and the aircraft has been fueled, they have a delivery party, hand over the keys, and presumably some money, and the plane departs flown by the buyer’s flight crew.

Someone asked how much an airplane costs. The tour guide wouldn’t say exactly but said they cost about $1 million per seat. A common configuration for a 767 is 400 seats so about $400 million. But wait, that doesn’t include engines or seats. The 2 engines cost $42 million each and they usually buy 3, sometimes 4. Cheap seats are $5,000. The fancy seats that sell more tickets are closer to $10,000. So add in another $4 million for seats and $130 to $170 million for engines and spares and each plane is $530 to $570 million and change. It is like buying a car, everyone wants a deal. And deals get made so what the planes actually cost is anyone’s guess.

It was interesting to see the assembly line, hear the facts and details as far as they would tell us and just see the scale of it all. I wanted and hoped for more. What do you expect for a discounted senior ticket? ($33 each)

At the end of the tour like with all good museums, you are routed through the gift shop. We bought a few memorabilia things.

More Later, Much Love

Susan, Maggie, and Roger