Today was our only full day in Seattle so we tried to fit in as much as possible. We started with a tour of the Boeing Assembly Plant. The Boeing Company occupy a huge amount of land about 35mins out of Seattle. On the way out, our bus driver told us the story of Bill Boeing. He started an engineering degree at Yale before leaving in his final year to try and make his fortune in the logging industry. He was very successful at that before his interest in aviation was revived after attending an air show in LA. He ordered his own plane but rather than building it, he studied every piece & decided he could make a better one.
Boeing began building planes & then thought about how planes could be used to transport freight around the world. He flew to Vancouver & brought a bag of mail back to the States to show how successful it could be. It was the first international mail delivery. He then moved into passenger planes. Eventually Boeing had a successful passenger airline, air freight business and the aircraft design business. The government of the time thought he might have a monopoly so called him to Washington DC to investigate. They decided he did have a monopoly so he divided his business into 3 parts. The passenger service became United Airlines, the freight service was United Freight and the design company was the Boeing Company. Bill Boeing always prided himself on being an honest businessman & was so disgusted that he had been questioned by the government that he gave up all holdings in all 3 companies. He never went back yet all these years later the company still bears his name. Boeing only had 1 child, a son, who is not associated with the Boeing Company apart from sitting on the board of the Future of Flight Museum.
We were not allowed to take anything with us on the tour - no cameras, phones, handbags. We started by watching a short video about what goes on in the assembly plant. We then boarded a bus which took us to the assembly plant. This is the largest building in the world. You could fit the whole of Disneyland in there & still have 12 acres left over. The first area we went to was the assembly of the 747s. We stood on the observation deck above the area the planes were being assembled. They are put together section by section before being joined to form a complete plane. There was room for 2 planes to be assembled side by side. Overhead there were cranes running the entire length which lifted the parts to the appropriate area. A 747 leaves the building every 14 days. This is the productivity required to meet current orders. All electronics are tested before the plane leaves the building.
Once they leave the assembly area, the plane goes to the paint building where the green skin which has been protecting it from corrosion is washed off. The graphic is then projected onto the plane. 8 artists then use tape & paper to outline the graphic and spray it by hand.
Next it goes to the fuelling area where it is fuelled and the systems are tested. Then it goes to the runway for testing.
Once the testing is complete, the plane goes to the delivery area where it waits for pilots of the purchasing airline to come and pick it up.
We also saw the assembly area for the 777s. These are done on moving assembly lines. However, they only move 2 inches every hour so you can't actually see it moving. On the other side of the 777s was the 787 Dreamliners. These planes are being made of a carbonate rather than aluminium which is making them much stronger but also much lighter. They are also cheaper. The price of a 747 is $350 million but a Dreamliner is only $300 million!
The Dreamliners are being manufactured in conjunction with 70 partnering companies all around the world. The parts are being made & assembled elsewhere before being flown assembled to Seattle on the Dreamlifters. These planes were enormous. The whole back of the Dreamlifter Opens up to accommodate the assembled plane sections. The Dreamliner is then completely assembled at Boeing. A Dreamliner goes out the door every 6 days but they hope to reduce that to one every 3 days next year to meet demand.
After the tour we went back into the museum where there were engines, an interior of a private plane & a flight deck on display. A 747 has 6 million parts but over half are rivets & screws. It was a very interesting tour.
Once we got back to the city, we went to the Seattle Centre where the Space Needle is to see the other things we missed yesterday. We started at the Amory which was the food hall for the 1962 World Fair. Today it is a food court with a conference centre attached. A miniature town complete with a train has been set up for Christmas. There was a lot of detail in it. It was lovely.
Next we went into the Garden of Glass. This was the work of Dale Chihuly who was a pioneer in many of the different techniques used in glass blowing. His work is beautiful and can be found all over the world. The garden included a tree completely made from glass & a glasshouse where the only thing in it is a fabulous display of autumn leaves weaving its way across the ceiling. It is all glass.
There is a monorail going from the Seattle Centre into the main part of the city. It drops you off at a mall. On the other side there was a "Holidays in Seattle" area set up. Firstly we rode on the carousel. We had passed a temperature sign in the monorail that said it was 0. The metal poles attached to the horses on the carousel felt about -10. It was freezing. Once we had been on the carousel, we could have our photo taken in the giant snow globe. This was filled with faux snow which ended up stuck all over us. When we went into Macy's afterwards a couple of people asked us if it was snowing outside.
We walked down a couple of blocks to the Pike Place Markets. These are the most popular markets in Seattle. It seemed to be mostly food stores and you could buy anything from freshly caught seafood to spices by the ounce and bread. A lot of stalls were starting to close up so we didn't stay long. We walked back up into town & caught the monorail back to our side of town. It was really cold walking back to the hotel. We could feel it on our faces but were warm everywhere else. There were a couple of guys on our tour today from San Francisco. One of them said to us 'I'm wearing long johns & I've never had to wear them before'. Same with us.