Forty-five minutes' drive north of Seattle along I5 is the local county airport, Paine Field, at Everett. But Paine Field is no ordinary county airport. On one side is the Boeing factory that makes 747s and 777s. So Paine Field is used for test flights, and it's from Paine Field that airlines' buyers take delivery of their new jets. On the other side of Paine Field is the Museum of Flight's Restoration Center.
Lots of people visit the Boeing factory at Everett, next door to Paine Field. Not so many get to see the Museum of Flight's Restoration Centre, about 5 minutes' drive from Boeing, on the other side of Paine Field.
I got to do both!
I've wanted to visit the Boeing Factory in Seattle for years. After the MVP Summit, and before my flight home, I had my chance. It's an interesting place to visit, but not a great place for photography, not least because no cameras are allowed on the tour itself.
It's a warehouse, right? Wrong! Don't let the perspective deceive you. See the six big sliding doors? You can drive a 747 through each of them.
The side of the factory from the highway, complete with a huge replica of a stamp bearing a Boeing 747.
A 747 being prepared for delivery. This one is being built for Air France. The silvery coating is a plastic protective colour, which will come off before the aircraft is painted.
The Restoration Center is part of the Museum of Flight, which is located in Seattle itself. Volunteers work at the Restoration Center working on planes of various kinds and ages. Some are to be restored to flying condition. Others, like the Comet below, are being restored suitable for display in the Museum, or what's called 'static display'.
For my money, visiting the Restoration Center was more exciting than visiting the Boeing Factory. The Restoration Center is not set out like a museum, with carefully crafted routes and good signage. It's just a big old hangar, with people actively working. To see the planes, you have to stoop under wings, skirt bits of fuselage, and avoid knocking over buckets of glue or paint.
A major piece of work going on at the the Restoration Center is to restore this old Comet. The Comet was the first commercial jet aircraft, produced by De Havilland in the UK and flown around the world. A design flaw (the plane had square windows) resulted in several crashes, which grounded the entire fleet. While the subsequent re-design may have been safe, it was not commercially successful.
The Restoration Center has been working on a Comet 4C since 1995. This is the interior of the Comet, looking down the aircraft from the cockpit, as it undergoes restoration.
The Comet doesn't fit into the building, so most of it hangs outside.
The partly-restored cockpit of the Comet.
The Boeing 247D. Boeing claims that the 247 was the first 'modern' aeroplane. At the time, Boeing and United Airlines were the one company, so United was the only airline to fly 247s. The competition persuaded another aircraft manufacturer, Douglas Aircraft, to build a plane to compete with the the Boeing/United 247. The result was the DC-3, which quickly became one of the most popular aircraft ever.
Cockpit of the restored Boeing 247D.
Interior of the Boeing 247. It held 10 passengers, who were probably more comfy than the hundreds in steerage on a 747.
Remember 727s? Boeing made 1,832 of them. This 727 is the very first 727. It was made in 1962 and is now on the tarmac outside the Restoration Center.
I had no recollection of what kind of plane this is, but Greg Chapman has filled in the gaps. It's a Chance Vought F7U Cutlass. This one hasn't had its wings re-attached yet. Greg explains that the vertical things that look like the fold-up wings sometimes found on planes for aircraft carriers are actually vertical stabilizers. Greg also provided a link with a picture of the plane as it must once have looked.