Quote:
Originally Posted by flatbutt
I wonder how much of the tooling used on a 747 can be used elsewhere?
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Essentially none of it. The tooling for these aircraft is pretty much model specific. They will keep some of it just so they can continue to support the fleet, but the rest of it will just get scrapped.
I see now that they are planning on manufacturing the 737 Max in Everett, utilizing the space once occupied by the 747 line. They currently manufacture the Max about 30 or 40 miles south of Everett, in the old Renton plant. They have been significantly down sizing the Renton plant for almost 20 years now, with much of its old footprint now occupied by apartments and retail space. I said over ten years ago that they would eventually close Renton. Look for that next.
So, pretty melancholy news for me, obviously. I spent 35 years of my life in that Everett plant. I started out as a backfill on the 747 for the folks going over to support the new airplane, the 767.
I eventually worked on every aircraft coming out of Everett, initially designing the forming tooling on which many of the composite parts were manufactured. Mainly interiors, with some aero surfaces thrown in to keep it interesting, like the wing to body fairing, control surfaces, etc.
While in the Interiors division, my specialty was the forming of the contoured interior panels. Ceiling, window, stow bin, etc - anything that wasn't flat. I actually did much of the surface development for those panels in CATIA while I was designing the forming tools. The last design I helped with was the 787, missing out on the Max, the 747 Intercontinental, and the 777X. Up through those models, however, I'm proud to say that on every Boeing aircraft currently in service, every contoured interior panel you can see from the comfort of your seat is still manufactured on "my" tooling, with contours I translated into CATIA from our design consultant's sketches.
The last 20 years of my career were, however, my most enjoyable. I managed to join the AOG - "Aircraft on Ground" group, who are tasked with the repair and maintenance of the fleet around the world. We fixed things that our customers were incapable of fixing themselves. Everything from crash damage to heavy maintenance to "service bulletin" work (essentially equivalent to a recall in the automotive world). What was kind of fun for me was that while in AOG, during some of the down time we had at home, I was still the go-to guy that Interiors leaned on for the surface modeling required for their contoured panels. That always served to fill my time when things got quiet in AOG.
I not only had the privilege of designing the tools and equipment we used to affect those repairs but, even better, they flew me around the world to assist either our own mechanics, or the airline, or the MRO's (Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul facility) mechanics and engineers. What a glorious job for a guy like me. The 747 was, of course, a large part of that.