More on the Dreamliner

Published 10:13 pm Sunday, July 8, 2007

Dreamliner employees far and wide gathered at Boeing’s Everett factory Sunday to see the first 787. Here’s a few comments:

* Tammy Mullady works on Boeing’s Dreamlifter fleet of 747 cargo jets, built to ferry Dreamliner parts around the world to Everett. Stationed in Charleston, she stood on the back of the large cargo freighter as it delivered its first parts.

Standing in front of the Dreamliner, Mullady noted how much smaller and sleeker the Dreamliner looks than its bloated Dreamlifter counterpart.

“It’s phenomenal,” she said. “It’s truly amazing.”

* J. Scott Fleenor, who lives in Snohomish County, only began working at Boeing in January. He completed the screening process and training conducted at the Employment Resource Center — a center the state agreed to help fund to the tune of $10 million when Washington officials were wooing Boeing to assemble its 787 here.

Fleenor brought his son, Cody, to see the result of his father’s work. The manufacturing technician got to watch the first 787 take form in the final assembly bay at the Everett factory.

“It’s incredible,” Fleenor said.

* Hal Smith heads up the engineers who solve problems on the 787. Despite reports of blips in the assembly process, Smith doesn’t view the 787 as any more problematic than other programs. During the month-long assembly of the first Dreamliner, Smith took only one day off.

To be on hand when the painted Dreamliner rolled into the factory, “To me, it’s sort of like the payoff,” Smith said. “This is like a little pay back for all the hard work.”

We’ll have more quotes and insights from the rollout over the next few days.