Boeing 727 prototype’s final flight scheduled for Wednesday

EVERETT — You can literally watch history take flight at Paine Field this week — weather permitting.

The very first Boeing 727 is scheduled to make its final flight at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, from Paine Field.

It’s taken about 25 years to return the historic airplane to flying condition. Bob Bogash led the volunteer effort at the Museum of Flight Restoration Center. He says the final flight will be “bittersweet;” airplanes, after all, were meant to fly, not to sit parked on the ground.

All the same, if an airplane is in a museum, Bogash said, “I want to see an airplane that flew in to the museum,” rather than one that was shipped there.

Last week, the flight crew opened the throttle for the plane’s high-speed taxi test. (Click on the following link for video of the Boeing 727’s high-speed taxi test.) The plane’s three Pratt &Whitney JT8D engines roared to life, as the aircraft raced down the runway.

The plan is to fly the plane to Boeing Field International, where the Museum of Flight is located in Seattle. The plane will be on display in the parking lot for several months. Later this year, it will be moved across the street to the museum’s new Aircraft Pavilion.

Though the interior is mostly restored, there are no plans now to open it to the public, but the museum would like to down the road, a spokesman said.

Dan Catchpole: 425-339-3454; dcatchpole@heraldnet.com; Twitter: @dcatchpole.