Boeing's CEO of Commercial Airplanes, Ray Conner issued a "pardon our dust" apology of sorts to Ray Stephanson, the mayor of Everett, Washington last week. While building the new composite wing factory its new 777X, Boeing will dispatch six dump trucks per minute, around the clock, for four straight months.
"Ray, this is going to be a mess, I gotta tell you," Conner said. "Holy smokes, I'd stay away from there." Some quick math tells us that equals roughly 1,036,800 dump truck trips.
Rendering of the 777X (Boeing Images)
Ray Conner also noted the job site will sit on 60 acres, surrounded by two miles of fence, adding:
"We are investing billions of dollars in the future of the company in the region, as we design and develop the 777X and modify the factory to make room for assembly of the 777X wing. With a span of 235 feet, it's the biggest wing we've ever produced in our history, and it's composite."
777 wings waiting to be attached, in Everett Washington. (Boeing Images)
Everett has been the site at which all Boeing widebody jets have been built, beginning in the late 1960s, 747 - the 1,500th of which was delivered on Saturday to Lufthansa Airlines. The Boeing factory at Everett's Paine Field (KPAE) is the world's largest building by volume, and the footprint of the campus will grow larger by an additional 1.2 million square feet as Boeing builds a new facility to fabricate the composite wings for its forthcoming 777X. The factory will house three of the world's largest autoclaves. The wings will also be unique in that they'll feature a hinge which allows the wing tips to be folded up, allowing the plane to park in narrower spaces.
Top image: Current 777 assembly line in Everett, Washington. Boeing Images.
Source: Puget Sound Business Journal