Sunday, July 8, 2007 11:03:19 AM

Someone at Boeing has a solid connection with Mother Nature.  With the rest of the country sweltering, Seattle has sunny and 70 degrees with a nice breeze.  Not exactly the kind of weather you think about when Seattle comes to mind. 

The buses came to pick us up at 1PM and we are off to Everett and the main assembly facility.  Boeing has planned 15,000 people largely from the 787 Employee Team but also the partner airlines, manufacturers and financiers. We had very good seating, eight rows back from center stage.  Back to the weather for a moment.  With 15,000 people in this facility and the doors closed the temperature started to come up almost to uncomfortable by the time the show started at 3:30PM.  All of us in the front were required to wear suits which most men quickly took off their coats.  I am not sure what that show would have been like if we had 90+ degree temperatures.

 The show, hosted by Tom Brokaw, went along right on time integrating live presentations from manufacturing partner facilities from around the world. The people from the Italian facility admitted they had been celebrating for several hours which brought a big laugh from the crowd.  At the end of the presentations the leader of the 787 Team came up and invited flight attendants from all of the ordering airlines.  He than asked each of the partner groups to stand to be recognized and then the doors opened and he introduced the plane.  They used a tug to pull the plane up to the facility door.  They pulled the stage out of the way and allowed everyone to go out and look at the plane.  No ability to get on the plane but most people wanted to reach up and touch the composite material that makes up the skin of the plane.  On balance the plane looks a bit shorter and almost stubbier than you might expect.  It will look more balanced when the stretched versions begin production.  The interior sketches would lead you to believe that this will have an interior that will not be like any other airplane in the sky.  It is designed to be wider at the shoulders where typical aircraft are at their widest at the ankles.  Lighting will be curtain lighting and will be capable of creating environments in the cabin which will now have humidity.  No more feeling like a raisin when you get off the plane.  Finishing the pictures will be the 18" tall windows.

Following the rollout they took us back to the hotel to change back into casual cloths and get a new badge to wear that would give us access to the party at the country club.  Now everything about this weekends activities have been planned to perfection and the execution flawless until now.  For whatever reason the bus driver they used had no idea where this country club was once we got in the general area.  There was a housing community around the club that we took a complete tour of before the people on the bus actually figured out how to get to the country club.  You should have seen the looks on the faces of the people out working on their lawns as this over the road bus winds it's way through their neighborhood.  

Boeing had set up a number of food stations around the country club plus three cocktail bars and the required cigar bar.  One of the interesting things they provided were two video games.  One was car racing, four people could compete.  The other was a pretty nice mock cockpit hooked up to Flight Simulator.  They had a yolk and a pretty complete consul with throttles, thrust reversers, flap control and speed brake.  It also had all of the radio controls.  A very nice set up that could be sold to the average guy for probably not much money.  The only draw back was no rudder pedals.  I was the only one to actually get the 787 on the runway.  Most put it in the Sound.  The computer was set to give yo the five mile approach to SeaTac.

The night ended with a laser light show on the back lawn of the club.  The adventure was not over yet though we still had to get back to the hotel.  Yep, that's right, the driver got lost going back to the hotel.  No one was amused, most had 4-5AM wake up calls and it was already 11PM

We finally got back close to 11:30PM.  For the most part it was a really well doe two days.