Published December 2005

Aviation center
Taking Flight
$22.5 million facility offers glimpse of future technology

Illustration courtesy of the Future of Flight Center and Boeing Tour This computer-generated view of the Plaza of Planes gallery in the Future of Flight Center shows the tail of a 747 among the displays of high-tech developments in the airliner industry.

By John Wolcott
SCBJ Editor

The new Future of Flight Center and Boeing Tour facility that opens Dec. 17 at Paine Field will be a one-of-a-kind, world-class attraction for tourists, aviation fans and aerospace companies, attracting an anticipated 250,000 visitors a year and adding $3.5 million annually to the local economy.

Once envisioned as an aviation museum reviewing past accomplishments of powered flight, the concept for the $22.5 million, 73,000-square-foot Future of Flight Center has evolved into honoring the past, celebrating the present and glimpsing the future of aviation technology.

“We’re inviting people here to share the wonder of commercial aviation,” said Executive Director Barry Smith. “But it’s a celebration of the wonder of commercial aviation innovation, of the unique ability of human beings on this planet to craft tools in such a way that we continually exceed each prior day’s design standards.”

Visually, the Future of Flight Center’s exhibits will remind people more of an aircraft factory than of an aviation museum. Historic for its innovation and breakthroughs, the aviation technology displayed at the center is linked more to the future than the past, exhibits of things to come rather than of what already has been. Older historic displays, such as a jet engine from the world’s first jet airliner, the British Comet, are there primarily to contrast with a display of today’s modern 777 airliner engines.

Snohomish County Business Journal/JOHN WOLCOTT Future of Flight Center Executive Director Barry Smith and a Boeing executive examine a 777 airliner engine that will be on display when the center opens Dec. 17.

Among the exhibits will be a barrel-shaped section of the yet-to-be-built 787 fuselage, a rare opportunity for visitors to touch and view a test-section of the world’s first predominantly composite airliner, where riveted aluminum skins give way to smooth, compacted materials that can last up to 80 years compared to today’s 25-year life span for modern airliners.

Visitors will be able to design their own aircraft on a series of video screens, using software based on the same Catia software that Boeing engineers use for actual aircraft designs. They can take a jet flight in the XJ5 simulator and enjoy the awesome view of a four-story-high tail of a 747 Jumbo Jet that will be the largest exhibit on display.

The facility, operated by the nonprofit Future of Flight Foundation, is a public and private venture by Snohomish County, the Snohomish County Public Facilities District, the Future of Flight Foundation and the Boeing Co.

It’s the only place in the world where visitors can tour 360 days a year a manufacturing plant for commercial airliners and also see many of the latest technological developments in aircraft, engines, avionics and materials that will become a part of the public’s flying experience aboard worldwide airlines.

Previously, tours of Boeing’s 747, 767 and 777 aircraft assembly plant in Everett, at the north end of the Paine Field runway, drew more than 100,000 visitors a year despite being closed on weekends and holidays. That made it the most popular destination tourism attraction in the county and the Puget Sound area.

With the opening of the center, more than 250,000 people a year are expected to tour the center and the Boeing plant, where the new 787 airliner will begin production in 2006. The Boeing tour schedule now is expanded to include weekends, with hours that match those of the new aviation center. Both attractions will be closed only Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s days.

Much of the multipurpose building is devoted to the 268-foot-long Gallery exhibit area, but it also will provide room for convention and banquet facilities, serving up to 700 guests. The events will be catered by the adjacent new Hilton Garden Inn.

Plus, there will be a covered 9,000-square-foot outdoor observation deck on top of the center with room for up to 500 people who will have stunning views of the Boeing plant, the Cascades and flying activity at Paine Field. The center actually sits at the edge of the runway-controlled space zone, allowing visitors the closest possible view of an active runway in North America.

There’s also a cafe, a Boeing gift shop, a duty-free Future of Flight store with international currency exchange and shelves of Pacific Northwest salmon and tourism keepsakes.

In the exhibit area, displays by leading aerospace companies will rotate regularly to bring the latest available examples of the world’s changing airline industry, said Smith, who has traveled thousands of miles to meet with businesses who want to display their futuristic materials and technology at the center.

“I found so much excitement for this project and so much enthusiasm in the aerospace and tourism industries, that it just amazed me,” he said. “They are sending their latest developments here, to be seen months or even years before the flying public will see them as they travel. It’s a really different place that celebrates not only aviation but mankind’s innovative abilities and the quantum leaps in technology that are making major changes in today’s commercial airliners.”

Related: Visit by Russian officials a sign of things to come for center

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