Boeing Everett Factory Tour:Required Viewing for All Licensed Pilots

(Editor's note: This is part one of two parts.)

I'm not going to mince words here...I've been in love (lust?) with Boeing jet airliners since the first time I watched a 707 depart Fresno Air Terminal (FAT) westbound over my house. It was the 707 that sent me into fence-hanging ecstasy after riding my Schwinn Sting Ray to FAT for an afternoon of planespotting. My first airliner ride was in a 707, SFO to SEA, non-stop, and it was a thrill ride for this 10-year-old.

These days, I follow Boeing about as much as most pilots. I dream about my first ride in the 787 Dreamliner, and still hope to snag a ride in a 747 someday. Like my readers, I watch from afar as Boeing and Airbus continue their years-long cage match, slugging it out with tanker contracts and wide-body sales contests. We begin each week wondering if this will be the week that the 787 makes its first flight. Yes, Boeing is on our minds, and in the case of this pilot, it feels like it's in my soul.

This past week, I escaped for a few days on Washington State's Whidbey Island, which is at the far south end of the San Juan Islands just west of Everett. Yes...that Everett:

After nine hours of fighting holiday traffic from Eugene to the Seattle metro area dodging wrecks in the torrential rain, the last task ahead to get to our beachside cabin was a short ferry ride from Mukilteo across Possession Sound to Clinton. To get to the ferry dock, you have to head west on SR 526, aka the "Boeing Freeway". It's called that because it actually cuts right through the heart of Boeing's gigantic assembly plant. As you pass the plant, the six mammoth doors – decorated by the world's largest digitized graphic image – comes into view on the right. The building is so big, cars parked next to it look like Matchbox cars parked next to a Wal•Mart. To the left are three massive paint hangars, all big enough to house a 747. As I passed the plant, I was blown away that I did not know I would be vacationing just minutes down the road.

As we made our plans for each day of our restful, scenic time on Whidbey, I immediately made reservations to take the Boeing Factory Tour, which runs daily. I jumped on the Internets and read very mixed reviews about the tour, from one star pans to five star gushers. I did notice one thing, all the great reviews I found seemed to have one constant, they were all written by pilots. Like, duh:

I showed up early for my 9A tour, and the very first thing I spot as a drive in the gate was one of Boeing's Dreamlifter cargo planes. The sighting alone was super cool, but was nothing compared to what was yet to come. After a short film in the Boeing Theater, we were bussed across the flight line to the 747/767/777/787 assembly building. On the way, I saw several 787s – most in All Nippon Airways livery – in the ground testing area. Just laying eyes on the 787 for the first time was worth the $15 to get on the tour. The bus parked near a sparkling brand new 747-800 fresh out of the paint hangar. So before I got in the building, I had already met two of Boeing's star attractions.

The walk from the bus to the assembly building is mind-blowing. This facility has been certified by the Guinness Book of World Records as the largest building in the world by volume. It is so large, you could put the entire Disneyland Theme Park in Anaheim inside, and still have 12 acres left over. Once in the door, the fun begins again:

We go down inside pedestrian tunnel C and the first thing you see is that this tunnel is so long, it visually goes off into infinity...the other end is a dot if seen at all. We are all amazed at this when the tour guide points out this tunnel runs the WIDTH of the building. After a short cargo elevator ride to the observation deck, we emerge to overlook the first two assembly bays where the mighty 747 is born. In the first bay, as far as the eye can see left and right are huge yellow jigs, some sized to build wings, others in the shape of the -47's nose section. Below us, a skeleton crew (it was Thanksgiving weekend) is milling around a nearly complete nose section, covered in green vinyl to absorb the impact of a carelessly dropped wrench. In various stages of manufacture are also fuselage sections and horizontal and vertical stabilizers. The scene is a sea of tool boxes, scaffolding, ladders, cranes and parts. It seems like organized madness that somehow produces really large airliners.

We continue the tour by walking across the Observation Deck to Bay #2, where the aforementioned 747 parts and pieces are assembled into actual airplanes. Directly below the Deck you can see a parts room that seems larger than several football fields, stacked with what looks like tens of thousands of parts bins, each marked with it's own part number and that all-important bar code (more on that later). Once at Bay #2, it's again time to be blown away:

Where Bay #1 was a collection of large welding apparatus spitting out gigantic pieces of -47, Bay #2 is where the 747 actually gets its soul, where it is given life. Nose to tail are five -47s, all 747-800s we are told by the guide. After being built in Bay #1, the parts are craned over to this Bay. Here, the wings are mated to the center section, and a large portable curing "oven" is attached around that section for three days at 140 degrees to seal the main center fuel tank and wing tanks. Next, that rig moves to the next station where fuselage sections are attached fore and aft. The nose – which has now been fitted with avionics – as well as the tail section is attached at the next station. At this point, the landing gear is installed, and the -47 becomes a rolling airframe. Before the planes go out the door, they will be fitted with cargo equipment (or passenger interior), environmental systems and 170 miles of wiring.

To look down upon this sea of manufacturing wonderland almost defies description. To the untrained eye, it almost appears cluttered, there is so much STUFF everywhere. But as you will find out in part two of this post, this is one very large, very efficient machine, a incredible system that takes six million parts and puts them together one by one in 16 weeks to produce the world's most storied wide-body aircraft, the incredible Boeing 747.

In part two, I will get into the next two stops of the tour, the moving – yes, I said moving – line where the 777 is built, and the new 787 Dreamliner assembly line, which is nothing like anything else in Boeing's Everett plant. If at this point in the post you are not online buying tickets for this factory tour, I promise part two will seal the deal and have you headed direct Everett as soon as possible.

A Look at the Bright Side of Dark Clouds

Ask just about anyone that doesn't live in my home state of Oregon, and they'll tell you it rains all the time up here. But we locals know that generally is just a myth cooked up years ago to keep the California northbound migration to a minimum. I believe the old timers secretly started the whole "it always rains in Oregon" plotline to scare off those in the "Golden State" who must have their sun and free vitamin D every day.

The truth is, on most years, the weather here in the Southern Willamette Valley is fairly predictable. I am based at KEUG, which is separated from the Pacific ocean by the rolling coast range and about 50 miles by car. So we "normally" get the same weather that the coast gets, only without the daily fog that hugs that coast from Anacortes, WA. south to Tijuana, MX.

But when it comes to flying the Northwest, this instrument pilot is finding out some things this year:

From October, 2007 when I brought 8527W north to Eugene from Whiteman Airport in Pacoima (L.A.), I have been working hard on my instrument rating. I earned that rating in March of 2009, and last spring, only got into one weather-related situation that was not a walk in the park. But as fall turns to winter right now, Mother Nature has been in a crappy mood up here. We've had one front after the other, non-stop, with usually only hours between most systems. You can look on the GOES West satellite and usually see a freight train of fronts stretching up to Sarah Palin's house in Alaska, all riding a powerful Oregon-bound jet stream directly to my hangar.

As a new instrument pilot, I am still a noob when it comes to making go/no-go IFR decisions. To get that advanced rating, you need to know a ton of theory and regulations, but putting this knowledge into practice can be challenging. It's like this:

I know for certain that there are two things that will knock Katy and I out of the sky...icing and thunderstorms. On some days when the Northwest is covered in stable air and showers are widespread and consistent, an IFR pilot can punch up through the deck and get on top, cruise above the soup, and descend on an ILS into the wet but basically still air below. But on almost every front that has passed this way in the past 60 days, the air was moist, unstable and dangerous. Big, nasty towering cumulus clouds have been part of nearly every system, along with extremely heavy rain and gusting winds that have approached hurricane strength along the coast. To say the Northwest has not been friendly skies to fly smaller personal aircraft would be an understatement.

These relentless thunderstorms and nasty fronts are screwing with this pilot's mind:

On a couple of occasions, I have gone out to fly IFR practice approaches, only to watch a 500-foot ceiling with two miles VIS become one-half mile and a 100-foot ceiling with dropping RVR. One evening, I departed rwy 16L on the east side of the KEUG when the field was reporting VFR, and hoped to be vectored north for a couple of practice ILSs into 16R in VFR. But from the time I took off to the time I reached the southbound turn back towards the airport to start my practice approach, 16R RVR had dropped to "one hundred overcast and about 1,000 RVR" according to ATC...below IFR minimums. So I sidestepped back to still VFR 16L and landed just as the the most ominous fogbank ever unleashed on humanity began creeping east to engulf the runway I had just touched down upon.

In the last couple of weeks, Katy has been down for some annoying little mechanical squawks, and my work schedule has been busy. There have not been many times when I looked at the "pre-flight intelligence" on Foreflight 2.4.1 and wished I could get up in the weather. And even if Katy had been up and running during this time, planning any cross country flights with 3,500-foot freezing levels and TCU in all quadrants nearly every day when you live in a valley surrounded by large, hard mountains would be suicide.

So as winter descends upon Western Oregon, I haven't much choice but to sit beside the fire and wait it out. On the bright side, I've had almost no credit card charges in some time for aviation fuel. On the down side, I can almost SEE the rust forming on my new IFR skill set.

Would I trade the serenity, scenery, unpopulated peace and heavy weather of my beautiful home state for the sunny, endless VFR days and clogged roadways of California's Central Valley? Not in a million years...because they get winter weather too in the form of Tule fog that reduces KFAT to zero/zero on some nights each year. But when we have 72 degree spring and summer days with a light breeze, they have 110 degrees in the shade that will bake you in your airplane waiting at the hold short line.

I earned my instrument rating to be able to pop out of or blast down through a little weather. One thing that I am learning is this: If I plan on living long enough to see my granddaughter solo, I will keep the Cherokee parked when these developing cells and Supercooled Liquid Droplets (SLD) is slapping Oregon around.

SR22 Test FLight: Wow!

(note, this is one from the archives, enjoy...)

Today will forever be considered a “milestone day” in the life of this aviator, as myself and one of my best buds in Eugene got to go flying. No news there, but...Oh wait…did I mention we were at the controls of our very own Cirrus SR22 GTS?

Truth be told, it was only ours for about an hour, and a demo pilot from Duluth was in the right seat making sure Matt Moberg and myself didn’t bend (snap?) any really expensive composite airplane materials.

A little background: From the very day I first laid eyes on a Cirrus SR20 years ago at an AOPA Expo, I knew this was THE plane. Something about the Cirrus leaps out at a pilot, grabs hold and refuses to let go. I’ve always been impressed by the Cirrus operation – how they seem to know what pilots want AND need. Maybe that explains why they are cranking out 60 units a month these days.

Maybe it’s the curves of the fuselage, or the way the airframe, ergonomically-perfect interior and avionics suite come together in a symphony of delight that a flyer rarely feels unless they are in the left seat of a true aviation masterpiece.

And now that I’ve actually FLOWN a Cirrus, it seems words cannot possibly do this airplane right, but I will try…

Fit and Finish: Matt flew the northbound demo leg from Eugene’s Mahlon Sweet Field to Corvallis Muni, so I was able to lounge in the back seat and take a good look at the way this plane is built. I shared the back seat with Matt’s wife Carol, and we both had plenty of elbow and knee room. The seats could have been right at home in a high-end Lexus, they were that comfortable. The ANR Bose headsets (not sure if those were standard or just the sets that the demo team used) made the ride as quiet as I have ever experienced, and with the four knot wind and clear and a million weather, being a passenger in a Cirrus was far superior to anything I have ever experienced in GA air travel.

The SR22 GTS just FEELS like a well-built product. Things fit together tight, the doors close solid, and you just know that in 20 years, this will still be an airframe that serves it’s owner well. But the back seat is not where the fun is in a Cirrus, so at CVO we switched places and after years of dreaming, I was finally in the left seat of an SR, with my left hand on the key and my right hand searching for the blue prop lever (there isn't one, propeller pitch is automatically controlled).

Start-up and takeoff: I’ll admit, I was a little apprehensive about actually FLYING the Cirrus…I thought that this might be a demo “ride” only. But our Cirrus pilot, Steve Noldin, basically gave me the plane. He said some planes have problems with “hot starts” but not Cirrus. The engine had only been off about 60 seconds, and all it took for me to coax it back to life – on my very first try ever in this make/model – was one-quarter throttle, full mixture, three blades and POW, three hundred and ten ponies instantly idling at 1,000 RPMs, ready to launch.

Takeoff was sweet. I did not know that the Cirrus family does not have a steerable nose wheel, and after lining up on the centerline, believe me, it was a rush to begin pushing the throttle forward. Like a fine sports car, the SR22 plants you in your seat with gobs of acceleration. But as IAS increased, I noticed we were only about 75% power, so I applied more forward throttle and the GTS leapt forward some more. Now rolling faster, I was STILL only at 85% power. This was mind-blowing. So to hell with it, I shoved it to the forward stops and the Cirrus sped up like a Nissan 300ZX to yet another level.

When those sleek wings decide to grab hold of the air, hang on, because the SR22 loves to fly. It didn’t explode into the sky uncontrollably, but instead was smooth and predictable – this is how an airplane is supposed to feel when it is rigged perfectly and the weight/balance is dead on.

The side stick: Of all the Cirrus features I’ve thought about over the years, the side stick topped the list. Would it be hard to learn? Would it be too sensitive…or not sensitive enough? Well, turns out the side stick is a non-issue…and by the time I was over the numbers at the departure end of the runway, I had already forgotten about the stick. This new-fangled style of controlling an airplane would forever be “the way” it should be done. Case closed.

Avionics: The FlightMax Entegra Primary Flight Display/Flight Director defies description. This panel could probably do your taxes while dragging your butt through the clouds and around thunderstorms as you follow a complex GPS approach inbound. I’m not going to go into long detail about what it does, but I’ll say this…maybe it was because I’ve got a few hours flying this type of PFD in X-Plane, but inside of :30 seconds as PIC, I was able to easily find IAS, altitude, RPMs, everything. Only thing that took a bit of searching for was the old yaw ball, which is now integrated into the PFD. And yes, I still have sloppy feet.

Returning to EUG, Steve let me work the plane through whatever maneuvers I choose. It took me zero minutes to be up to speed on the S-TEC/Meggit integrated autopilot, which is of the quality of what you might expect in a 757...not kidding here. The crisp handling coupled with a quick roll rate made air work nothing more than (a) think it, (b) twitch your wrist on the stick and (c) the airplane turns.

Because I seemed to be easily grasping how to control the Cirrus without really thinking about it, I was able to begin searching for targets on the TCAS – my first time ever with in-cockpit traffic awareness. And when Steve switched the right MFD to monitor the engine, the TCAS data was also shown redundantly on the bottom of the two GNS 430 GPS units. Sweet.

The landing: Entering the pattern, I began to think of a tactful way to let Steve know I was close to wussing out on trying to land an airplane valued well to the north of a quarter million dollars. But then as I descended into right downwind for 34R, I snapped back to reality when I noticed that the Cirrus was beginning to feel like an old pair of favorite gloves – it wrapped around my hands in a way that made controlling it completely intuitive. Yes, this airplane slings itself through the air at 160+ KIAS in cruise, but in the pattern, the SR22 was perfection as I brought the speed to the 100 KIAS mark easily and dropped a notch of flaps. Ninety on base, more flaps, and eighty on final…followed by (bragging here) a landing that felt like I had a thousand hours in the Cirrus…not 18 minutes. This is not because I am some kind of ace, but because this airplane does everything right. Everything.

Conclusion: I knew that flying a Cirrus would be wonderful, but I had no idea to what level of “wonderfulness” this airplane can achieve. After one quick leg, I felt confident that I could go out there right now, jump in the SR22 and make a smooth VFR flight anywhere. This is because Alan Klapmeier and his team of 970 seriously dedicated people have built an airplane that is so well-engineered, it is no wonder this company – and this airplane – are considered by many to be the benchmark for GA airplane manufacturing.

I have never flown a Columbia 400, or an A36 Bonanza, or the new Mooney Acclaim. But after flying a Cirrus SR22 GTS, there is no reason to test fly anything else. Every pilot deserves to own a really fast, beautiful airplane at least once in their lives. And after my demo flight today, you can bet your farm that the “N” number on my “forever” plane just might end with Charlie Delta and be constructed in a state that, um, isn't Kansas.

My Dream Hangar, 2009 Edition

In the past few posts, I've published some great "Dream Hangar" lists from fans of this blog. Every one of these submitted lists has some sort of twist, some surprise that you didn't see coming. That, I believe, is what makes this exercise so enjoyable.

To close out Dream Hangar 2009, I offer my own list, with a few old favorites and a couple of new surprises. I offer this list in ascending order, with my favorite as #1:

(10) Pilatus PC-21 - No, the model number is not a typo. While everyone with a brain including me would love to have Pilatus' groovy cabin-class hauler, I want one of their fast, furious and fun fighters. O.K., maybe technically a trainer, but you can't dispute the fact that flying this much airplane would be like flying a fighter jet.

(9) Piaggio P180 - This twin turboprop pusher replaces the PC-12 on my list this year. Nothing against the aforementioned PC-12, but I have grown to love the Piaggio. Sure, maybe it DOES look like a chubby catfish, but it's a fast, efficient and quiet catfish. I think owning one of these would be like owning some exotic Italian sports car...no matter where you park it, there is never another one around.

(8) Diamond DA42NG Twinstar - The DA42NG is the hottest piston twin out there right now, and with the economics and speed it delivers with its two Austro Engine AE 300 turbocharged injected 2.0 liter diesel engines, I'll be ready for the day when biodiesel aviation fuels are commonplace. I continue to admire the complete Diamond line, and their sleek twin is a star in the sky.

(7) Addiston Pemberton's Boeing 40C - Gotta have one biplane, and this one is the best one in the country today in my opinion. Pemberton's 40C goes so far beyond a "restoration" job, it is more like a flying piece of perfect aviation art. But if I get this one, I think it'll be best to stay away from Canyonville, Ore.

(6) Air Force One - Not one person reading this blog wouldn't mind owning the baddest 747 on the planet. It's got a swank office, serious inflight connectivity, and all that great, um, secret electronic equipment. Go ahead, cut me off in the pattern, cropduster, you'll be vapor with the flick of a switch. First thing I'd do is throw all the press people off and invite all my Tweeples to fly with me in style. And besides, who doesn't like toilet paper emblazoned with the Presidential Seal?

(5) P-51 Mustang - Even Tom Cruise will tell you that flying a P-51 is like snorting testosterone. Fast, powerful, deadly, and it makes the perfect airplane noise when it flies. If only we could have made a modern day version...oh wait, we almost did...

(4) Piper PA-48 Enforcer - The baddest "Piper" ever built is a turboprop powered light close air support/ground-attack aircraft built by Piper Aircraft in 1971. Piper manufactured two Enforcers by heavily modifying two existing Mustang airframes and fitting them with Lycoming YT55-L-9A turboprop engines along with numerous other significant modifications. It cruised at 405 MPH and could climb at 5,000 FPM, but was never mass produced.

(3) HondaJet - Like Pemberton's 40C, some airplanes are works of art, and the HondaJet qualifies in this niche. Forget it's sexy lines and very respectable performance numbers, the fact that it's a quality HONDA product cannot be understated. Just go buy a Honda lawnmower and you'll know what I mean.

(2) Douglas DC-3/C-47 - There are many reasons this wonderful plane continues to tug at my aviator's heart. I'm not really sure why it does, it's not the fastest plane in the sky, and it costs plenty to keep one flying today. But if you believe like I do that airplanes have souls and personalities, you cannot find a more personable flying example of a Douglas DC-3/C-47 then Duggy, the "Smile in the Sky". If you look at Duggy and don't break out in a Cheshire Cat grin, brother, you are not an aviator, you're just a person with a pilot's license.

(1) Piper Cherokee 235 N8527W - Yes, we can dream all we want, play fun games making up lists. But my dream airplane resides right now in my hangar out at KEUG. All through my flying years, I have wanted a nice, low time cross country machine with good avionics. I set my bar on a Cessna 172, never thinking I'd one day own a Cherokee 235. So while I ponder what could be out there in Fantasyland, what is a reality NOW is Katy, my all-time favorite plane and part-time mechanical girlfriend. We can dream all we want, but face it, just look around and see what you have today, it really is quite remarkable.

There it is, my Dream Hangar for 2009. A few surprises? Perhaps. I'll be not everyone who reads this blog knew about the Piper Enforcer.

And now back to our regularly-scheduled programming...

Eclectic Extravagances or Practical Pondering?More Dream Hangers from World of Flying Readers

Oh, baby, the hits just keep on coming! Just when I think I've seen the best Dream hangar submissions, more come in that makes me smile a bit wider. This has been a fun exercise in testing the imagination of my readers, and they have passed that test with Dream Hangar lists like these:

From reader Paul Tomblin:

Spitfire, either a V or something in the XX to XXV range

de Havilland Beaver on amphibious floats

Super Cub on tundra tires

PC-12

XB-70

Space Ship One

White Knight (do those two count as one?)

Some sort of moto-glider, maybe a Diamond?

L-39

The flying sub from Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea

Or this jewel, which has a varied but super groovy assortment of toys and workhorses. It came in from Dean Siracusa who runs transtock.com, a very cool and elegant stock photo site focusing on transportation photos, offers a list that of course includes his current Meyers 200 (shown in photo at top):

Grumman Albatross

Helio Stallion (the larger, turbine version of the Helio Courier)

The Sea Fury known as Dreadnaught

Meyers OTW bi-plane

Gulfstream G-550

A-star helicopter

Boeing C-17

Icon A5

Marchetti SF-260

Aviat Husky A-1C

And the "Dream Hangar" according to Chris Simons:

Boeing Stearman

Extra 300s /W Thunderbolt engine

Turbine DC-3 in classic TWA colors

Cessna Mustang

Shorts Tucano MK1 in digital camo

Sukhoi SU-27 in Russian Knights colors

Piper J-3 Cub

Lockheed Fairchild C-123 /w JATO

New Cessna 182T turbo

One thing this "Dream Hangar" project has shown me is that each pilot has their own idea of what is cool in the sky. While some of these lists leaned heavily towards one area such as military or vintage planes, the constant has been that each list has at least one toy (like Simons' Sukhoi SU-27) or one bizjet grande (like Siracusa's G-550) or one really out there entry such as Tomblin's "flying sub from Voyage To The Bottom Of The Sea".

I will be writing my list soon.

One Reader's "Lottery Fleet"

World of Flying Reader Kent Shook sent in a Dream Hangar list so elaborate, I'm choosing to present it here verbatim. This list really exemplifies the kind of dreaming we all do. And he scored double points with me by having the HondaJet on the list! Enjoy:

10) HondaJet, assuming it actually comes to market. I love to travel, and I love to fly, but there are times where it really is the destination and not the journey that are important - That's why GA pilots, even those who own planes, still travel on the airlines sometimes. I hate the airlines, so I'd want my own jet - But I'm also a big fan of efficient planes. From where I live, the farthest point in the continental US is about 1800nm away; The HondaJet can go anywhere within with one fuel stop and 4.5 flight time, so call it 5.5 hours (or 5 with a quick turn) to go anywhere in the US. Compare the amount of time used vs. fuel burn to a Citation X, and for a ConUS trip I'd be taking 2.5 hours more but burning well under half the amount of fuel.

9) Piper Turbo Twin Comanche (or, if such a beast were ever to come out, a Diamond "DA52 Super TwinStar"). The "Twinkie" is also a "go-places" airplane, but less than half the HondaJet's speed. However, for trips that don't require the speed of a jet, the Twinkie is hard to beat for efficiency at a reasonably fast speed. It'll also allow me to fly to destinations with shorter and/or unpaved runways. In reality, this is one of the planes I would most like to own.

8) P-51 Mustang - There's just something about the P-51 that makes any living, breathing human take notice. It's fast, it's loud, and it helped win WWII and establish the US as a world superpower. Plus, these birds NEED the folks with unlimited funds to keep them flying!

7) Husky A1C - While there are a lot of folks who have a soft spot for the Piper Cub, the Husky (an improved derivative of the Super Cub) has the extra performance to fly in and out of backcountry mountain airstrips, pull floats out of the water, and have an improved fun factor. The controls on the 2005 and later Huskies have been modified so that they are extremely well-harmonized, making this a VERY fun airplane.

6) Extra 300L - Aerobatic hotshot machine with an extra seat so I can turn my friends upside down too.

5) Globe Swift - One of the neatest vintage airplanes IMHO. I'd go for the "Super Swift" modded variety with sticks and a 210hp Continental IO-360 engine for extra fun. This one is also on my real-life buy-someday list, as it can be used for traveling (and it's efficient), it can be used for light aerobatics, and you can fly it with the windows open. :-)

4) DC-3/C-47 - Another one that's probably on every pilot's list to at least fly on someday - It both helped win the war and it was also the first commercially viable airliner.

3) Seawind 300C, again assuming it gets certified. One of the fastest planes that can be landed on water, with a massive cabin and cargo compartment for taking your buddies on that remote fishing vacation, or hauling your family to the cabin on the lake for the weekend.

2) F/A 18F Super Hornet - For when you just feel the need to be a bad-ass and make a lot of money into a lot of noise and go REALLY fast. :-D

1) Cessna 185 - I have a lot of my time in a 182, and it is one of the best airplanes ever produced - While it's not the best at any one thing, it's pretty darn good at EVERYTHING. The 185's extra power and tailwheel configuration would allow for a little better performance at backcountry strips or off water on floats.

I'd have skis and floats for the Husky and the 185, and maybe even the DC-3/C-47. Just because. ;-)

Just Give Every Pilot a DC-3and We'll All Be Good To Go!

Go ahead, ask thy Twitterverse, and thy Twitterverse manifests in the affirmative.

That's what happened on Monday when I put the word out on the "street" to get some of my Tweeples to send me their "Dream Hangar" lists.

I have published my own "Dream Hangar" list each year that I've had this blog, but this year I thought that in the interest of promoting a more socially aware world, I would let the readers take over the blog and publish their top 10 lists. Most of these show the writer's favorite plane as the #1 position, however a few could not, repeat NOT, pin down a favorite.

So, without a drum roll, here are some of the best submissions:

From Mikel, a.k.a Laura Mikel Fitterman, a commercial pilot based in FL who Tweets as @mickyl, we have this great list:

AT-6 Texan

Piper L4

P-51D (of course)

Lockheed Super Constellation

Cessna 402

Stinson L5

Cessna 195

T-34

Cessna T-37

DC-3

Then there's David M. Vanderhoof's list. He's with Airplanegeeks and is Plane Crazy Down Under's Historian in Residence

BF-109E-4

BD-5J

F-117A Stealth

YB-49 Flying Wing

Citation X

KC-130F Hercules - Blue Angels' "FAT ALBERT"!!

DC-3 In Eastern Airlines markings

Lockheed 1049 Connie TWA Markings

707-320 In PAN AM Markings

T-33A Shooting Star

Paul Pilipshen's list is one heavy on military hardware, until you get to the top, when Paul wants to go have some fun upside down:

Pitts S-2C

Pitts S-1-11B

F4U Corsair

B-25 Mitchell

PBY Catalina

P-38 Lightning

F8F Bearcat

B-29 Superfortress

F-82 Twin Mustang

F4 Phantom

Adam Fast, who is known in Twitterland as @adamcanfly and offers "Regularly Scheduled Geekery" at adamfast.com, says he actually keeps a spreadsheet for that special day when his lottery numbers hit:

SR22

Stearman

Quest Kodiak

Texas Sport Cub

Extra 330L

P-51

DC-3

Helio Courier

RV of some kind

Concorde (hey, you said UNLIMITED)

Grant McHerron who is @falcon124 in Twitter sent this great list, and was the only one with a rotorwing in the Dream Hangar:

Antillies Turbo Goose

Yak-52TW

DC-3

Cessna Mustang

T-38 Talon

MD-500 Helicopter

Boeing BBJ

Income T65 X-Wing

Boeing Stearman

Two-seat sail plane (ike a modern version of the Blanik)

And there's this Dream Hanger from Jeremy Martin, Class of 2010, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics at Massachusetts Institute of Technology:

Beechcraft model 2000 StarShip

BAC/Aerospatiale Concorde

North American P51d Mustang

Lancair IV-P

Sukhoi su26m

Terrafugia Transition

Lockheed L-049 Constellation

Rockwell STS Orbiter (Space Shuttle)

Airbus A380, configured as luxury executive transport

Antonov AN-225

And Yes, I AM glad this MIT student added the Terrafugia Transition to his list. Would have been brutal had he left that off.

Next up, I will highlight a very detailed list sent in from Kent Shook, what he calls his "Lottery Fleet". It's a great read. Finally, in part three, I'll present my Dream Hanger for 2009.

Submit your Top 10 Airplanes forDream Hangar 2009!

Each year since starting this blog about 850 posts ago, I have written a "Dream Hangar" post...what would be in my stable if money were not a consideration.

This has always been one of my favorite annual writing assignments, but also one of the toughest, since it is damned hard to select ONLY 10 airplanes for my Dream Hanger.

But why should I have all the fun:

This year, I am opening it up to my readers and asking for submissions about what would be in your Dream Hangar if you could have any 10 flying machines. These can be great airplanes from aviation history, airliners, spacecraft, current GA rides, or even fantasy planes. In this Dream hangar writing assignment, there are no rules. Remember, you have endless money, so you can have them all. But I also like to force an aviator to pick just one favorite as #1 because this is always such a challenge.

O.K., you have your assignment. Please list your "Top 10" airplanes in ascending order, so that #1 is your favorite "gotta have it" ship. I've already got a few submissions through my 1,016 Twitter followers, and it is interesting that the one plane on several of the lists submitted this morning is the DC-3. Certainly would be on my list.

Please email your submissions to me here, or use the yellow "Send me Feedback" button at upper right.

NORDO: New Data on NW188 RevealsMore Questions That Must be Answered

There is so much that does not add up with the bizarro flight of Northwest 188, nobody analyzing this mess knows quite where to start. For those of you that are just emerging from underneath the dark side of a rock, here is the nuts and bolts, with info gleened from the official FAA "Emergency Order of Revocation" letter [pdf here] issued to the flight's two pilots:

On 21, October, 2009, NW188 departed SAN on a non-stop to Minneapolis, MSP. At 7:24P, Denver hands off the flight to Minneapolis Center, but at this point the flight drops off grid and goes NORDO. Minneapolis and Denver Centers continue to try and raise the flight, and Northwest Airlines dispatch goes postal trying without success raising the flight by company radio. About 8P, NW188 slides over the top of MSP at FL370, fat, dumb and happy. About 14 minutes later, the pilots finally plug back in and report they were over Eau Claire, WI, and "got distracted." The flight finally makes MSP and as a result of breaking Sections 91.13(a), 91.123 (a), 91.123 (b) and 91.135 (b), the pilots have been ordered by FAA to surrender their licenses immediately or risk civil penalties of $1,100 a day.

Now along with the obvious questions of what went so terribly wrong on the flight deck of NW188, each pilot I know wants to find out why NORAD's fighters weren't scrambled with the flight being radio silent for 91 minutes. Doesn't anyone remember what happened to this country on 9/11 of 2001? It seems unimaginable that an airliner full of souls could be allowed to wallow through the skies unescorted, with no radio contact.

But in researching this post, I came upon some super-secret NAV data that has yet to be published anywhere. To get this information, I had to leave an envelope of used, unmarked Monopoly money taped underneath a dumpster outside an unnamed ARTCC facility.

The graphic at the top of this post shows the actual Flightaware.com flight path of NW188, with my super-secret NAV data overlaid over the top. A close look at this NAV data reveals a long list of missed fixes that should have informed the pilots they were in the deepest of doo-doo. Let's analyze the data:

NW188 lost radio contact just west of HUHHH, and flew a direct course to OOPSI. The flight continued on what appears to be a 070 heading until OSHIT intersection when the pilots realized they were in serious violation of just about every FAR every published. After regaining contact with ATC, they begin a 270 degree right turn over DUHHH, ending their turn at WTFFF. They realize they are now pointed at Santa's house, and crank a hard left turn so they at least look like they are trying to hit MSP this time. They now head sort of west on a 260 heading to JEEZE when they come to the realization that they again have shot past MSP. They aim the pointy end of their A320 on about a 170 heading back in the general direction of MSP, and again overshoot the field until over OHELL. They finally aim NW188 back north and at 854P make a safe landing at MSP, about 67 minutes late.

Of course, this "scenic routing" most likely came from ATC, and not from the wayward pilots trying to really find MSP. We know this because after they checked back in with ATC and after realizing the severity of their error-filled excursion, you can bet they were following ATC direction to the letter. Regardless of how they got to MSP, they did eventually get there.

Two things could have happened that didn't: (1) The flight could have ran out of fuel and had to be ditched in someone's corn field, with the risk of major loss of life. This had to be a possibility since these two pilots were missing all the bells, whistles, annunciators, flashing lights and radio calls, so it makes perfect sense they were also not managing their fuel. Or (2) NORAD – after 91 minutes of radio silence – finally wakes up and scrambles their welcoming party. And what if the pilots were sitting cross-legged on the floor of the flight deck "on their laptops", and didn't see those important light gun signals? After so much radio silence, the possibility had to exist that air-to-air missiles would have ended this flight before it ended itself in another terrorist attack.

And finally, what would have happened had Northwest 188 encountered another craft that was also not in communication with ATC? What if they were flailing along at FL370 and came across Balloon Boy, up there in the flight levels setting a new altitude record in the Heene family's ridiculous, homebuilt spacecraft?

Yes, this has been a really weird period in U.S. aviation. What else could possibly happen in our skies that is as strange as these two incidents? We should be careful tempting the Gods with that question.

America Can Still be Attracted to Three-Eight Charlie Despite the Box Office of "Amelia"

Regular readers of this blog know I have been pounding the pavement for nine years trying to get Hollywood and the world to notice the huge, monolithic, gargantuan accomplishments of Jerrie Mock, the first woman to fly solo around the world. I've hit plenty of dead ends in this quest, but I have never quit believing in this story and my screenplay about her life and 1964 flight.

In writing the script for "Three-Eight Charlie", I have produced each and every second of this film in my head, right down to the tiny details, including the soundtrack. Yes, the story about Jerrie's flight is based on her 1970 book, but my screenplay came completely out of the creative half of my brain. And because I have "watched" this film one million times at the little Cineplex in my head (always with free popcorn), I can assure anyone reading this post that it is a action-packed, heartfelt and accurate portrayal of Jerrie and her flight.

So being one of the very few people in a position to have an enormous amount of intimate knowledge of Mock's journey, it was with great anticipation that I awaited the release of "Amelia". The film stars Hilary Swank, who should be box office gold in any film. She is a very talented, very capable "A-list" actor, and while I have not seen "Amelia" yet, everything I have read says she pulled off the role well.

I had hoped for a blockbuster opening weekend for "Amelia", so that Hollywood would begin beating my door down for a follow-up story about another soon-to-be-famous female aviator. Yes, I wanted huge box office numbers for "Amelia" to prove that America is interested in strong female protagonists that can fly airplanes. But as Patrick Goldstein of the Los Angeles Times reports, despite a great cast, the movie just flat tanked in its opening:

"I know that all of America was queasily captivated by the bizarre "is it real or isn't it?" Balloon Boy escapade. But here in Hollywood, heads are being scratched over an equally puzzling mystery: How did Fox Searchlight, which has easily the best box-office batting average of any specialty film company in the business, get stuck with a turkey like "Amelia," which earned a disappointing $4 million box office at the film's weekend?"

With a reported $40 million production budget, getting only 10% of that back on opening weekend is pretty sad. As this post is written, the film has been showing for 10 days, and as of 10/30/2009, the film's total reported gross has grown to only $8.3 million.

This lousy showing at the box office can be dissected many ways, but one constant in that dissection seems clear: Reviews of the film have been pretty harsh across the board, with the lone positive review I could find complimenting Swank's portrayal of Earhart as generally believable while tearing down the film as a whole. Which leads me back to "Three-Eight Charlie":

I still believe that the story of Jerrie Mock's success as a aviator in her 1964 flight around the world will come completely out of left field and will be well-received by the public. It will be the fact that she is completely unknown that will pique the ticket buyer's interest - they will HAVE to learn more. Jerrie's story will be one not just about a pilot and her plane, but about a woman's determination to achieve what most said was unachievable.

I have read a few random articles stating that "Amelia" director Mira Nair ran into a very large number of creative hurdles as the film was pushing past green light into developing and on to shooting – that there were too many "creative voices" on the project. If these rumors prove to be true, we may never know what kind of film "Amelia" would have been, and how that film would have been reviewed.

This whole episode teaches me one thing: I have always known that the Hollywood studio system can be brutal when it comes to bureaucracy and can be where good screenwriting and production ideas go to die. I have also always fully expected a major studio to take my screenplay - and Jerrie's story - and re-write it so much, it becomes something else that does not do Jerrie or her accomplishment justice.

My promise to Jerrie Mock when we signed our Life Story Rights Agreement was that I was the one screenwriter on this planet who could look out for her best interests as "Three-Eight Charlie" was being made. But after watching "Amelia" come to market as a pretty "Big Studio" picture that is getting terrible reviews, I know now that the only way to make "Charlie" correctly is to pursue the project as an independent film. It is critical to this creative process that I stay in control to insure the audience that there won't be any bikini scenes, car chases, fighter jet attacks, exploding pyramids or camel races.

Just look at "Paranormal Activity", in theaters for just over a month. With a limited release and a production budget of $15,000 (yes, that IS fifteen thousand dollars, no zeros missing), this film has cashed in big with a total US Gross of $84.7 million. This proves to me that a film does not have to go the traditional big-budget, huge crew, buried-in-quagmire studio production route to make money. Umm, yes, we'll need a tad more than fifteen large to pull this Jerrie Mock flick off, but I'm prepared to sit around and wait for the Universe to put this project together for me.

And when my Prius Stretch Limo – powered by algae-based biofuel of course – pulls up to that red carpet for the world premiere of "Three-Eight Charlie", and when that first opening scene appears and I see a theater full of young future pilots smile as their love affair with aviation begins, every second and dollar I have spent in this quest will be worth it.

Big time.