Here’s a puzzler: What do Cascade High School junior prom kids, Chinese President Hu Jintao and members of the 112-year-old Everett Woman’s Book Club have in common?
Not much. But being in one of those categories – easy guess, the book club – I know the answer. All of them have recently visited the dazzling new Future of Flight Aviation Center in Mukilteo.
When this column began in 1997, my first piece after introducing myself was about the Boeing tour. I wanted to rectify the fact that although I’d lived in Everett for 16 years, I had never visited the Boeing plant.
That ‘97 column ended with “Gee-whiz. Everett, a world power.” As naive and silly sounding as that was, it was nevertheless true – then, and more so today.
When the Everett Woman’s Book Club scheduled its annual tea on the canopied deck of the Future of Flight museum, which opened in December, I jumped at the chance to go. This time, I wasn’t waiting 16 years to see a global attraction in my own back yard.
The spectacular $23.5 million building is a joint venture shared by Snohomish County, the Boeing Co. and the private Future of Flight Foundation.
More than interactive displays and a tour center, it’s a popular venue for receptions, meetings and classes for University of Washington aeronautical engineering graduate students.
On May 13, Cascade High School had its junior prom there. A high point since its opening was the April 19 visit by Hu, a guest of honor at a luncheon for 600 people in the spacious exhibit gallery.
“People have always been coming here, but now we have a place for them,” Barry Smith, executive director of the Future of Flight, told book club members on Monday.
Acknowledging that he’d had “a lot of rubber chicken dinners” in his time, Smith said the lobster and prime rib meal for the Chinese president was catered by Seattle’s five-star Fairmont Olympic Hotel. He thinks that was a first for Snohomish County.
Smith said the Future of Flight is on target for an expected 220,000 visitors a year, about double the number the old Boeing tour had annually. About 70 percent of the visitors come from other countries, with about half of those from Asian and Pacific Rim countries, and half from Europe, he said.
Showing us around the gallery, Smith began with the vertical tail fin and rudder from Boeing 747 No. 48. Built in Everett in 1970, the jumbo jet spent 22 years on the London-to-Capetown route.
The tail fin is 331/2 feet tall and weighs 4,200 pounds, Smith said. If I still used “gee-whiz” in print, I’d use it here: Gee-whiz, that thing is big.
Walking across the airy room, where small aircraft hang from the ceiling, Smith explained the showpiece of the Future of Flight.
It’s a pre-production barrel of Boeing’s new 787 Dreamliner. The 787 will be the first commercial jet to have its fuselage and wings made of advanced composite materials.
“It’s not exactly plastic,” Smith said. “It’s like the plastic police wear under their shirts. It’s layers and layers of fabric and gel, baked in an autoclave.”
It’s much thinner and lighter than the metal ribs, rivets and aluminum skins of earlier designs. That 747 tail fin is 4,200 pounds, while the Dreamliner barrel weighs in at a svelte 1,800 pounds.
If Smith has heard any complaints, they’re that the Future of Flight “is not a big enough box of old airplanes.” It’s not meant to be a historical museum, as the Museum of Flight in Seattle is. “The two facilities make wonderful bookends,” Smith said.
The Future of Flight is about just that – the future. Spend enough time with displays and interactive screens, and you’ll learn about holograms, cutting-edge in-flight entertainment systems and how to design a modern aircraft.
“What an interesting time this is,” Smith said.
Watching visitors from the perch of his office a floor above the displays, he’s seen that “10-year-olds know all about it.”
With all the extracurricular activities of prom nights, Smith said it’s common for teens to come late and leave early. “Here, they came early and left late,” he said.
“As a 1962 graduate of Everett High School, it’s hard to believe that we have arrived,” Smith said. “When the president of China comes to this country, where does he come first? Right here.”
Columnist Julie Muhlstein: 425-339-3460 or muhlsteinjulie@heraldnet.com
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