montanapilot
Well-Known Member
On Sunday I got to meet Mike and his friend Greg who works in marketing for the 767.
We got to attend Boeing's Family Days up in Everett. Basically family members arent usually allowed to visit workers, however, one day a year they open up the entire plant for friends and family members to look around and see and the nifty stuff. I must say Boeing goes all out for this, posters, a band, freebies galore, free lunch, interior mock-ups of aircraft.
Mike and I helped Greg hand out posters of the 767 and got to stand about 15 away from a 767-300 waiting for it's engines (each worth about 12 million apiece /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif) to be mounted, then it will be off to Turkmenistan.
Boeing is really putting most of its efforts towards the 7E7 and that was their centerpiece of their displays. I must say from what I have seen I am very impressed. The interior is very high tech. There are no passenger comfort controls above your head like conventional aircraft. Everything including the light, air vent, call-buttons, warning lights, oxygen mask, and of course every seat has a TV, are mounted in the seat ahead of you. Very cool. This saves an enormous amount of space for more overhead storage and more headroom for passengers. While I wouldnt classify the 7E7 as revoultionary I do think that it is an amazing aircraft that has some pretty significant technological improvements over existing aircraft out there.
They also had on display a piece of traditional aluminum aircraft skin and the same sized piece of composite. It showed them both being hit with a sledge-hammer and the effects of it. On the aluminum there was a pretty good sized dent but on the composite there was not even a scratch. You could pick them both up and the aluminum was very heavy while the composite felt like you were pickin up a piece of cardboard.
I would have to say the highlight of the day for me was standing feet away from a Air France 777-300ER out there on the ramp.
Just wanted to say thanks to Mpengiun for providing this opportunity and to Doug who makes all this possible through the website.
We got to attend Boeing's Family Days up in Everett. Basically family members arent usually allowed to visit workers, however, one day a year they open up the entire plant for friends and family members to look around and see and the nifty stuff. I must say Boeing goes all out for this, posters, a band, freebies galore, free lunch, interior mock-ups of aircraft.
Mike and I helped Greg hand out posters of the 767 and got to stand about 15 away from a 767-300 waiting for it's engines (each worth about 12 million apiece /ubbthreads/images/graemlins/shocked.gif) to be mounted, then it will be off to Turkmenistan.
Boeing is really putting most of its efforts towards the 7E7 and that was their centerpiece of their displays. I must say from what I have seen I am very impressed. The interior is very high tech. There are no passenger comfort controls above your head like conventional aircraft. Everything including the light, air vent, call-buttons, warning lights, oxygen mask, and of course every seat has a TV, are mounted in the seat ahead of you. Very cool. This saves an enormous amount of space for more overhead storage and more headroom for passengers. While I wouldnt classify the 7E7 as revoultionary I do think that it is an amazing aircraft that has some pretty significant technological improvements over existing aircraft out there.
They also had on display a piece of traditional aluminum aircraft skin and the same sized piece of composite. It showed them both being hit with a sledge-hammer and the effects of it. On the aluminum there was a pretty good sized dent but on the composite there was not even a scratch. You could pick them both up and the aluminum was very heavy while the composite felt like you were pickin up a piece of cardboard.
I would have to say the highlight of the day for me was standing feet away from a Air France 777-300ER out there on the ramp.
Just wanted to say thanks to Mpengiun for providing this opportunity and to Doug who makes all this possible through the website.