EVERETT, Wash. -- Boeing held a ceremonial ground breaking in Everett on Tuesday to mark the start of construction of a factory to build the wing for the new 777X.
The reality is over the last three to four months, the ground has already been massively altered. In other words, construction is well underway and is nearly two months ahead of schedule.
On a tour of the nearly 100-acre site, Eric Lindblad, Boeing's Vice President for 777X wing integration, showed where in just the last six days structural steel clearly outlines the western part of a new "chiller building" that will provide air conditioning to the entire Everett site. The old chiller building will be torn down to make room for the huge 777X wing factory.
Another section, a long and deep utility tunnel that will run the width of the building, is going in. To make the site level, 15 to 20 feet of new dirt has been trucked at the rate of 250 to 300 trucks each week, around the clock, seven days a week.
The building will cover 1.3 million square feet, about one-third the size of the building where Boeing builds the 747, 787, 767 and the current model of the 777.
In animation released Tuesday by Boeing and its architectural firm BRPH, the building is divided into two main rooms. In one will go three of the largest, if not the longest, autoclaves in the world. An autoclave is a large oven that bakes a composite parts under pressure.
Like the 787 Dreamliner, the 777X wing will be made from composite, a super strong and lightweight material made from carbon fiber and resin. While the 777X will have wings with folding tips to fit into airport gates, the longest piece of that wing to fit into the autoclave will extend 104 feet. Boeing says it will build the body of the plane out of aluminum, similar to the current 777, with some modifications like larger windows and more inside width. For the 777X to burn less fuel, the wing will be 20% larger than the current 777.
The project is seven weeks ahead of schedule, thanks largely to the City of Everett, which began the permitting process last year when Boeing was shopping the project around to other states. In January, Boeing committed to site the 777X project in Everett, following a highly charged controversial vote that divided the Machinists union to extend their contract by 10 years, after Machinists narrowly agreed to changes in the company's retirement plan.
