Ferry flight

I NOW know there’s something better than the new-car smell, and that’s the new-plane smell.

When my little band of VIP travellers climbed aboard Tamworth this morning, the newest 737-800 to join the Qantas fleet, we took a few deep breaths and filled our noses with the intoxicating smell of a brand new jet.

There are 13 of us today, a collection of Flying Kangaroo staffers accompanies by aviation and travel journalists, and we’re doing what’s known in the industry as a “ferry flight”.

It happens when a new aircraft has to be collected from a factory in a far-away land – on this occasion it’s the Boeing factory in Seattle on America’s north-west coast – and fly the shiny vehicle home to start carrying passengers around the friendly skies.

Normally it’s just a couple of pilots, with no paying customers occupying the seats in the back, but this is a special occasion so Qantas has invited a few folks from the media to make the trip and capture the golden years of flying by taking two days to get home with a couple of stops along the way.

Our journey, which will include stops in Hawaii and Fiji, started this morning at Boeing Field just south of Seattle city where a bit of a fuss was made as Tamworth was handed over to Qantas with documents signed and ribbons cut.

This delivery is special because it’s the 175^th narrow-body or single-aisle jet to leave the Boeing Factory in Renton and join the Qantas fleet since the first 707 came across the Pacific to Australia in the 1970s.

Last night there was a celebration dinner, with peaches made and gifts exchanges, and this morning there were lots of photographs taken as Tamworth officially became Qantas property.

Then it was time for the ferry flight passengers to climb aboard and start the journey home.

Some travellers took a seat in business class, while others elected to occupy a row in economy and lift the armrest as soon as the seatbelt sign was switched off then stretch out after putting their feet up.

Boeing packed a feast for us and soon after our wheels left the tarmac our flight attendants Kath and Michelle started serving lunch – there was fresh seafood, crab chowder and steak – with the meal service taking a couple of hours.

Then some passengers retrieved laptops to work, others watched a movie on the personal seatback IFE systems that are now standard in the Qantas 737, or stretch out to enjoy a snooze with the sun streaming in the port windows.

I was tired from the night before, and with big plans to make the most of my short stay in Hawaii, so I stretched out for a sleep with three economy seats making a comfortable bed, and just as I was about to drift off to sleep I felt cotton brush against my face with Kath placing a first-class quilt over me.

I snoozed until the top of descent and woke just as our pilots Mark, Paul and Andrew pointed the nose gently towards the runway for our landing in Hawaii, with the approach taking us over the tourist strip at Waikiki Beach.

We’re here for the night – we had dinner with the crew at a beachside restaurant after hitting the ships at Ala Moana – and tomorrow we are up at sparrow’s for an early departure.

Then we have two legs to get home, with a stop in Fiji to top up the tanks, and this wonderful journey will be over by the time the sun is setting on Sydney tomorrow evening.

Yankee doodle

YOU know you’re in America when...

*The flight attendant on your Alaskan Airlines flight to Seattle is named Corky.

* There are no life jackets under the seats on your domestic flight, just seat cushions that will help you float should your aircraft crash into a large body of water.

* It takes longer to get through immigration at LAX than it does to buy something at Myer during the Boxing Day sales.

*There’s a big yellow school bus parked next to you at the traffic lights.

*The padlock on your suitcase has been smashed by a security guard at LAX.

*There are three channels showing live baseball games, another two broadcasting college football matches, and one covering the women’s basketball all at the same time.

*Gap...with the sale racks at the back of the store settling stuff for less than $20.

* Coming home from a jaunt to the shops carrying a stack of Gap, J Crew, Banana Republic, Old Navy, Macy's, Ann Taylor and Barnes & Noble bags.

* Signs in English and Spanish.

* People who think they are clever when they return your "good morning" with an enthusiastic "g'day mate".

* There are lots of as on the TV for prescription medication, and most of them include five-minute warnings about the side effects.

* Most of those commercials are advertising drugs that assist men with some form of erectile dysfunction.

@ Seattle Public Market

Boeing, Boeing

ANOTHER day, another Boeing factory.

Today we spent a couple of hours watching brand new 737-800s roll off the line at the manufacturer's Renton factory - and I do mean roll.

Renton is home to Boeing's famed rolling production line, where the aircraft move through the massive factory attached to a line that pulls the fuselage past different stations where staffers perform the roles important to getting one of these machines up, up and away.

The basic bodies are manufactured in another part of the US, and brought to Washington State on railways cars, where they are moved into one corner of the factory to have the wings attached.

Once those vital features are in place the new aircraft takes a spot on the moving line, sneaking forward at 5cm an hour during the day shift pulled by an electric tug attached to the nose wheel.

It takes a dozen days to build one of the Next Generation 737-800s, the planes currently being integrated into the Qantas fleet to replace the Classic 737-400 that has been the workhorse of the Flying Kangaroo's domestic fleet for years.

We are in Seattle to pick up the airline's newest 737-800, which is a special vehicle because it will be the 175th narrow-body or single-aisle jet to join the Qantas fleet since the first 707 went to Australia in the 1970s.

We will collect Tamworth tomorrow, to start the long journey home, but today we saw another jet that is destined to join the Qantas fleet still on the Renton line, and it is special because it is the for 737 to feature the new revolutionary Boeing Sky Interiour.

This new look will feature overhead lockers capable of storing more rolling luggage with handles that make opening the bins less of a chellange, a new lighting system, and wider windows.

The Renton factory is where Boeing make the narrow-body or single-aisle jets, with the larger wide-body or dual-aisle craft made at the Everett complex, but the building first went up in the 1940s so the company could build B-29s for the war effort.

Boeing boasts this was the home of Rosie the Riveter, the civilian women that joined the workforce during WW2 to build the planes needed to feed the military machine in the Pacific and European theatres.

The first 707s rolled off the line in 1957, with the first 727s leaving the factory in 1967, and soon one 737-800 will leave each of the production lines every day.

That's two compete 737s rolling out the big doors at the far end of the Renton factory every 24 hours.

Now that's the way to build an airplane.

- Posted from my iPad

Take me out to the ball game

ANOTHER highlight tonight, in an itinerary just packed with highlights.

After our big day touring Boeing's Everett factory it was off the the baseball, to watch the Seattle Mariners take on the New York Yankees at Safeco Field.

The Yankees are in town for a three-game road trip against the local boys, and things are getting serious now it's nearing the pointy end of the season.

But it was no ordinary seat for me tonight, I was sitting in the Boeing super box right behind home plate with the other journalists and Qantas officials in my little VIP travelling group.

My belly was starting to rumble as game time approached but as soon as I opened the door to the Boeing box I saw there was a typical baseball feast waiting for me with pizza, nachos, popcorn and hotdogs so I loaded up my plate and took a spot in the exclusive seats just outside the window to watch the game.

Seattle is home to some big businesses - Microsoft, Starbucks and Amazon are just three of the mega organisations that call Washington State home - and Boeing has to be happy with the second-best box at Safeco Field.

Microsoft has the prime real estate, right behind home plate in the top corner of the stands, but Boeing is just next door.

I thought the spot was pretty good and from my perch I could see both dugouts, the players warming up on the sidelines and in the bullpen, as well as having a perfect view of what was happening on the field.

It was a great game, with four players breaking their bats slugging at the ball and a host of big hits, and I was lucky enough to see Yankees legend Derek Jeter do his thing in several innings.

And, just for the record, the Yankees won.


- Posted from my iPad

Building the big ones

TODAY was one of those special days where I got to do something that money just can’t buy.

I’m in Seattle with Qantas and Boeing, here to watch the Flying Kangaroo take possession of the 175^th narrow-body or single-aisle jet to join the fleet since the first 707 came to Australia in the 1970s, and this morning we had a guided tour around the famous aircraft manufacture’s iconic Everett factory.

Boeing builds the wide-body or double-aisle aircraft at Everett – 747s, 777s, 787s and a few special 767s for the military – and during my visit I got to wander across the factory floor and around planes that were in various stages of completion.

The Everett facility is the largest building in the world by volume – more than 32,000 staff work in a structure that occupies 40ha with 13 million cubic metres of space under the enormous roof – and every one of the doors on either side of the factory is as big as an America football field.

Just to put that size into perspective Disneyland could fit inside the building, so could 911 basketball courts.

Just think about the last time you caught a Virgin Blue flight, and walked across the tarmac to climb the back stairs to find you seat in the back half of the plane – remember how big the aircraft looked when you were walking beside the wing?

Now consider the fact that Virgin flies planes that are considerable smaller than those built at the Everett factory, and then think that there are dozens of aircraft in that building being prepared for flight.

That is one massive structure.

We started our walking tour by strolling across the section of factory where the brand new 747-800 Intercontinental is being built.

 

The 747-800 – the big brother of the Jumbos that Qantas on its international routes – is Boeing’s answer to the Airbus A380, and is longer to accommodate the extra passengers airlines need to make routes profitable.

The planes you see in the photographs are covered in a green film that protects the skin while the aircraft is in the factory, and it’s washed off before the plane rolls into the paint shop to have a particular airline’s corporate colours applied.

Next we walked through the bay where the 777s are put together.

Boeing staffers can produce this sleek aircraft in just 18 days and they start with the front and back sections sitting side-by-side, join the pieces in the back corner of the bay once the tail has been put in place and all the wiring threaded through the fuselage, and then move it towards the doors as it gets closer to being finished.

Our next vantage point was on an observation platform between the 777 and 787 bays where we could get an elevated view of the operation.

The 787 Dreamliner is the hottest thing in commercial aviation at the moment, so it was a treat to see this part of the factory.

Boeing is preparing to deliver its first 787 Dreamliner in just a few days – the first of this revolutionary aircraft will be delivered to Japanese airline ANA a week after our Seattle visit – and we watched as Boeing staff worked on the 43^rd, 44^th, 45^th and 46^th planes to roll through the factory.

The Dreamliner is going to change the way we travel, or at least the way we feel after a long-haul journey with a number of features included that will reduce the effect that extended flights have on the body, and it was fascinating to see this new aircraft coming to life in the Everett factory.

The plane that's sitting closest to the doors is almost finished, and a banner on the side of the fuselage told me it was going to join the China Southern fleet.

Qantas has an order for 100 Dreamliners, but a delay in production means we won’t get our first 787 for a couple more years and it will probably join the Jetstar fleet and only come across to the Flying Kangaroo once the last 767 is retired.

From this high spot I also got a better view of the 777 line and could see the two halves sitting together, the sling that holds the parts as they are joined, and the planes that were almost ready to fly.