Boeing and Flying Heritage Collection

8/25 Patrick, Tom and I went down to the Boeing plant in Everett, WA to take a tour. We were not allowed cell phones or cameras in the plant but the workers all had them. We got a private tour, because I'm gimpy, with a nice retired woman who used to tutor engineers on how to write precise directions. She told Patrick that to be an engineer he needed to be good in math, sciences and be an excellent writer. Glad he hears it from someone other than mom and dad.
We toured the building you see to the left in the picture below. There are several large plants and Boeing claims the largest building in the world by volume. They produce about thirty planes per month. 

 The plant has its own airport and all the planes in the picture are new planes awaiting testing and delivery. There is a turquoise plane in the picture below that was being delivered to the customer on the day we were there.

 More buildings under the watchful eye of Mt. Baker.

 The Dream lifter brings parts from Italy, Japan, Kansas and South Carolina to build the 787. There are 4 Dream lifters. When we first saw this one, it had its cargo hatch open. They transport sections of the body and the wings from the other plants to Everett to be assembled.

 After the tour, we looked around the future of flight exibit.

This is a rivet gun that runs of the flex track to make sure that the rivets and precisely placed on the plane.

From Boeing, we circled the runway and went to the Flying Heritage Collection. It is a collection of vintage WWII fighters and aircraft that are still operational and are flown periodically. Some of the aircraft are the only ones left from the war and are not flown but maintained in a state that would allow them to fly.

 Paul Allen, the co-founder of Microsoft established this collection many years ago. His name is all over the Seattle area dealing with philanthropy and business interests.

We got to see them fire up this Sherman tank and run it around the outside of the hanger, bring it in and park it. Pretty neat to see something I have read a lot about. They also have several anti tank and flack guns that they said they shoot off several times a year.

The P-51 Mustang. It was reunited with its pilot after 58 years.

This Zero was found abandoned, beat up and decayed. It will not be restored but many of the planes in the hanger were in this shape when they came to the FHC or to another collector that restored them to their former glory.

 This beautiful B-17 fired up and took off right after we got the the museum. It had come from Mesa, AZ to the museum as a part of a show that the Travel Channel was filming at the FHC. It was quite an impressive site to watch this plane fire up and take off. I kept trying to envision hundreds of them taking off at once to fly bombing raids over Germany.

 This group of people were from the Travel Channel and the young lady straddling the barricade was the media liaison for the museum. We spent several minutes talking to her and getting some inside information about Paul Allen's collection.