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.
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.
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