Building Boeing’s Last 747: The Nighttime Drama of the Final Big Lift

Jan. 29—On a late September night, three huge sections of the last 747 ever built were brought together to complete the airframe, a key step in the assembly process called "final body join."

In a carefully choreographed feat of aerial ballet, fuselage sections weighing many tons swung overhead inside the vast 747 final assembly bay at Boeing's Everett plant.

For safety, this work is always done at night when only the small team assigned the task are on the floor below. That final time, a handful of journalists got to watch.

At 6:59 p.m., tugs pulled the 53-ton center fuselage with the wings attached slowly forward into position on the factory floor.

The wings left about a foot of clearance from the sidewalls.

That in place, we moved to the rear of the bay, where the jet's forward fuselage — its wiring and ducting newly installed — was enclosed in a fixture.

We walked around the windows of the flight deck and the distinctive 747 hump.

At the open end that would be joined to the center fuselage — just over 21 feet in diameter — I squeezed between my fingers the airplane's aluminum skin, no more than 1/8th-inch thick.

At 8:17 p.m., overhead cranes swung toward us on rails attached to the ceiling.

Each crane can lift up to 34 tons and is controlled by an operator, seated inside what's essentially a moving cage with a chair, above the dangling cables and hooks. The operator peers down through the floor to see what's happening far below.

A small team of six or seven mechanics, using hand signals to communicate with the crane operator high above, attached four hooks dangling from one crane to the front of the forward fuselage, and four more from a second crane to the rear.

At 8:39 p.m., the two crane operators, communicating by radio, moved in unison to lift the forward fuselage slowly and majestically aloft.

With constant honks from the crane warning all to move from underneath the 39-ton load, the fuselage glided sideways then forward until it was positioned in front of the center fuselage on the floor below.

The cranes lowered it slowly into place on jacks and machinists rose on scissor lifts to remove the hooks.

Then it was "lunchtime" on the late shift. On a floor above the assembly bay, four mechanics played table tennis in a break room.

Afterward, the cranes were busy moving 767 fuselages. It was midnight when they moved to pick up the 29-ton rear fuselage of the 747.

As this section swung carefully overhead, we saw that mechanics had affixed playful stickers on the side. There were depictions of Star Wars characters; an American flag and eagle; an elephant (for this jumbo jet); and an inscription: "Farewell to the Queen."

At 1 a.m., the rear fuselage was in place behind the center section. The jet for the first time looked complete from nose to tail, and the night's work was over.

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