Tag Archives: Everett

Building But Not Delivering – The KC-46 Story

The tale of the USAF’s quest for a new refueling tanker has been long and drawn out. People went to jail, awards were made and overturned. None of that matters now. The contract is with Boeing to produce a variant of the 767 as the KC-46 Pegasus. The program has not been smooth. Technical and production issues have caused delays. The in service date has slipped and Boeing has incurred a lot of overruns.

While all of this has been going on, the production process has not stopped. Consequently, while testing still continues, there are production airframes coming off the line. If you go to Boeing Field, there are a bunch of test airframes on the flight line. If you go to Paine Field, there are a bunch more that remain to be finished. It appears that Boeing is building the airframes, sealing them up, not fitting high value items like engines, and parking them wherever there is space. A few years ago, Paine Field was covered in undelivered 787s. Now it is as if time has turned back because the Dreamliner’s predecessor is the type parked all over the place.

Cutlass

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When I was a kid, I saw a picture in an aircraft modeling magazine of the Vought Cutlass. The planes caught my imagination at the time but they were already long gone from service so the chances of seeing one in the UK were not good. However, I did come across one much later when visiting the Museum of Flight’s restoration facility in Everett WA. My first visit to the facility was when it was just a location where work was undertaken and you could drop in. More recently, it has been turned into a visitor location with a shop and entry fee.

Nothing has changed with the Cutlass though. It is apparently a bit of a basket case for restoration purposes with a lot of problems in the structure. Consequently, I don’t know what will happen with it or whether it will remain a work in progress indefinitely. However, it is cool to see a Cutlass at all. When thinking about this, I decided to see whether I had ever come across a Cutlass at any museum. However, I couldn’t find an example anywhere in my files so I guess this is the only one I have seen.

Heritage Flight Foundation Visit

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The field trip during the ISAP Symposium was held at Paine Field in Everett. We were hosted by the Heritage Flight Foundation and its owner John Sessions and they were excellent hosts. (I visited once before and you can see that post here.) Aside from the selection of aircraft still in the hangar where we were set up, they had arranged some photo sorties with some of their aircraft. The B-25, Grumpy, was the camera ship for a few photographers and the P-51 Mustang was the target. A T-6 also went up as a second camera ship. Each photo position was a paying ride with the T-6 obviously being the premium slot.

I had decided not to take the ride. It was not cheap although certainly not bad value for money. As the weather was not looking great, I wondered whether I had chosen wisely. As it was, the people who did go up did get some great images. The area certainly can provide some nice backdrops and the light, while flat, did not hurt things. However, even as someone on the ground, the flights seemed over very fast so I imagine for those on board, it was gone all to quickly.

For those of us on the ground, we got treated to the departure and arrivals of the aircraft plus a few passes of the P-51 and T-6 which were a lot of fun. Gloomy skies made it all a little flat looking but still a great sight. Being able to be close to the aircraft during the start up, taxi out and return was certainly worthwhile. The following day they were having a public event and I hope the weather improved for the large numbers they were expecting.

Historic Flight Foundation

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Two down and one to go. A trip across to the other side of Paine Field and you arrive at the Historic Flight Foundation – John Sessions collection of vintage aircraft. Combined with my previous two visits, you really have to think of Everett as a goldmine for the aviation enthusiast. Much like the Flying Heritage Collection, the focus here is on airworthy vintage aircraft. However, they are all allied aircraft and are not all military planes.

The hangar is a lovely spot that is spotless. The aircraft are arrayed around the place and they all look spotless too. One was undergoing its annual so was pulled apart a bit more. There is also a B-25 that was outside when I was visiting. I was welcomed to take a look inside. Flights are available too if you want although my schedule and budget were not going to fit in with that and the weather was rather crappy to be honest.

One of the volunteers was an ex-pat Brit and he showed me around the whole collection. He knew a great deal about the planes having been involved with them for a long time and we had a great time. others were passing by and would join the discussion as well. It was a very friendly environment. John Sessions was also about and said hello but he had a group visiting so was making sure they were having a good time.

As with the other places at Paine Field, I can certainly recommend a visit. It is an interesting collection and if you can time it to coincide with some flying activity, you will have done even better.

Museum of Flight Restoration Facility

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The Museum of Flight has its main building down at Boeing Field in Seattle. However, they have a separate restoration facility located up at Paine Field. I had visited this many years ago. At the time, it was a case of showing up and wandering around. They welcomed any visitors but it was all very informal. Since I was nearby, I thought I would pop by and see how their Cutlass restoration was going.

Things have changed a bit. They have an additional part of the building where they now have a proper entrance and a small store. They have also introduced a small entrance fee. This seems perfectly reasonable to me. Anything that helps with the preservation work the museum does is a good thing. I talked with one of the volunteers about the changes since I had last been there and asked about the Cutlass. Apparently it is a basket case and hasn’t moved on much since I was last there. At least it is being protected, even if it isn’t likely to be in much better shape for a long time.

The facility also has the Comet 4 that they have been making progress on along with the prototype Boeing 727. It also had the prototype JetStar which is configured with twin engines instead of the four of later models. Those who know my fascination with this plane as described here and here will know that was a good one for me to see.

This was a brief visit but a good one all the same. Check them out and help support the work they do. If you ask any questions, you will be warmly welcomed and given lots of freedom to see their work.

Flying Heritage Collection

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The Flying Heritage Collection has a museum facility at Paine Field that was the first thing to trigger in my mind when I was thinking about things to see up there. The collection is owned by Paul Allen and they have got a great collection of vintage warbirds. They also have some newer jets but they aren’t in the museum at the moment. I have been tracking the collection on Facebook so wanted to drop in and see what they had.

The museum was easy enough to find and if you can’t spot it, listen out for the noise of construction. They are building a new facility next door and the crews were hard at work making quite a racket as a result. The current building is an old hangar but it does the trick for the time-being. Since nearly all of the aircraft are flown periodically, the hangar is a working hangar. Work is done on the aircraft where they stand and the barriers are moveable so the planes can be taken outside when it is their turn to fly.

The place is not huge and you are close to the planes which is good from an interest point of view but makes photos a little more difficult. If going back, I would take a wider angle lens. However, it wasn’t too bad and the light was pretty reasonable too. The Axis and Allied aircraft were very interesting but I was particularly keen to see their recent addition, the Ilyushin IL-2 Shturmovik. It had not long been in the collection after delivery from restoration in Russia. I was a touch disappointed when one of the docents told me that, with the flying of the German aircraft they had planned for the coming weekend, Steve Hinton was coming in and was going to take the chance to get the IL-2 up in the air. Missing the flying at the weekend was one of those things but something even more rare in the air just after I left was rather unfortunate!

Putting that aside, it was good to take a look around the collection and I shall endeavor to get back there at some point soon – hopefully next time to see some of the collection up in the air!

Dreamliner Storage

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A recent trip to the Pacific Northwest recently included a free afternoon in which I had a chance to do some exploring. When I first new I was going to be in the area for a couple of hours, I wondered what to do. I was thinking about shooting at Boeing Field or Everett. Everett can have some interesting moves but can also have absolutely nothing happening. Boeing Field can be the same of course. I was still pondering this when on the flight across and then it occurred to me that Everett had some other things I had been meaning to do for a while other than hope for wide-body moves from the Boeing plant.

Paine Field (to give it its proper name) is home to a number of vintage aircraft collections. I shall describe more exploration of them in upcoming posts. However, as an appetizer, I shall mention something that does involve Boeing wide-bodies. The 787 parking lot! I knew that Boeing had produced a bunch of 787 airframes while they were still dealing with the design and production issues and that these were stored awaiting rework for delivery. I had even seem some pictures. However, I guess I had not really thought about it until I got there.

Paine Field is covered in Dreamliners! They are everywhere. Every time you go to a different part of the field, you come across 787s parked up. Some are in areas being worked on prior to delivery. Others are sitting on spare ramp space awaiting their turn in the rework process. Some can be identified either because they are fully painted or parts of them are that allow you to work out where they will go. Others are just white and who knows what awaits them. They have large weights attached to the engine pylons to keep them balanced without forking out huge amounts of cash for the engines. If you are of an accounting bent, you will still marvel at the amount of cash tied up in these airframes that will not be cleared out for at least 18 months. No engines reduces this a bit but they are still expensive things to have lying around. Boeing ran out of their own space so they are renting space from the airport for all of this parking. I guess the airport is happy to have a bunch of cash coming in without having to suffer too much inconvenience!

If you are anywhere near Everett in the coming months, do at least pass by to see just how much is there. Of course there are plenty of new jets being readied for delivery too but that just makes it look even more amazing!