Like 747, the 787 breaks new ground in aviation

Published 9:00 pm Saturday, December 30, 2006

EVERETT – It’s about evolution.

When the Boeing Co. introduced its Everett-built 747 jumbo jet nearly 40 years ago, it revolutionized the way people around the world interacted, shrinking the globe.

The company’s new 787 Dreamliner won’t do that. But the Dreamliner holds that same groundbreaking potential as did the 747, this time as an improvement in commercial aircraft and how they are produced.

“It’s not going to be done like anything we have ever done before,” Scott Strode, vice president of the 787 airplane development and production program, recently told Boeing employees at a simulated 787 rollout.

That’s why Ross Bogue, who manages the Everett factory where the final assembly for the 787 will occur, calls the Dreamliner evolutionary. With the 787, Boeing is taking commercial plane building to the next level.

Because the Dreamliner will consist of more composite materials rather than traditional aluminum, the plane will be made in an all-new way.

While Boeing depended heavily on workers in Everett to carry the burden of the first 747 on their backs 40 years ago, the company has reduced the role of Everett workers on the Dreamliner.

Boeing will rely on its partners around the world to provide sections of the 787 that are complete enough for Everett workers to eventually assemble in only three days. A modified 747, called the Dreamlifter, will haul parts for the 787 around the globe.

As with the 747, Boeing is taking a gamble on its Dreamliner. Unlike the 747, Boeing won’t be allowed the luxury of being without a competitor for decades with its 787.

European rival Airbus recently confirmed plans to build an A350 Extra Wide Body.

However, as analyst Paul Nisbet pointed out, “It’s going to be five years before there’s going to be a challenger to it (the 787).”

By the time Airbus’s A350 flies, Boeing should have a second production line up and going, Nisbet said. And those five years give Boeing enough time to perfect its Dreamliner and keep an edge for its fastest-selling, “evolutionary” plane.

Though its first flight isn’t until August 2007 and assembly hasn’t begun in Everett, already the 787 has Boeing executives dismissing the old way of building planes, the 747-way.

“I couldn’t imagine doing it the way we used to do it,” Strode said.