Dreamliners losing familiar green sheen

Published 9:00 pm Sunday, December 24, 2006

EVERETT – Say goodbye to lean and green.

The Boeing Co.’s new 787 Dreamliner may be the most environmentally friendly aircraft built in terms of fuel efficiency, but its exterior color during assembly won’t reflect its “green” status.

For years, Boeing’s commercial jets have rolled off the Everett production line wearing nothing but green. The aluminum aircraft, clothed in a protective green coating, could be spotted crossing the freeway from the factory over to Boeing’s hangars, where the planes are painted to the customer’s liking.

But the major components of Boeing’s 787 won’t be composed of aluminum, so the planes in production won’t have the familiar green coating, said Scott Strode, Boeing’s vice president of 787 airplane development and production, at the Dreamliner’s virtual rollout ceremony in Everett earlier this month.

The 787’s fuselage will be made of composite materials, not the riveted aluminum panels that were used for years in building planes. Therefore, the bare Dreamliner will look a bit different than its 747, 767 and 777 compatriots as it goes through final assembly.

Instead, the 787 will roll along the Everett factory floors in a shade of gray, said Mary Hanson, with 787 communications.

Several components, such as the fuselage, will start out black but will bathed in a coating before being sent to Boeing. The coating, which will give the jets a gray coloring, makes it possible to see any dings or dents in the composite material.

Even after the plane has been completed and painted, its new paint job won’t look like what customers have become accustomed to aluminum planes.

For starters, all 787 Dreamliners will have white wings, regardless of their customer, said Duane Noble, with Boeing, during a tour of the state’s training center for Dreamliner technicians. The wings will be painted white to reduce heat from the wing’s carbon fiber composites. Why is deflecting heat from the wings a concern? An airplane’s wings also store its fuel.

Dreamliner customers can get a sneak peek at the exterior paint job of a 787 at Boeing’s new 54,000-square foot Dreamliner Gallery, at 6200 23rd Drive W.

“When you paint fabric, you get a little different look than you do when you paint aluminum,” said Patty Rhodes, with Boeing’s sales, marketing and service support team.