[Jeff Higgins]

I both started and ended my career with the 747.

Way back in 1980, we were cranking out 747's on a three day cycle - a new one popped out of Everett every three "M days", or "manufacturing days", of which there are five per week (M-F). We had a pretty good mix of SP's going down the line at the time, which being a shorter airplane, required major adjustments on the body section jigs used to produce them. Essentially, the "end gates" as we called them - big circular structures that held and located the join rings at the ends of the body sections - had to move. It was my job to figure out a better, more efficient way to do that.

My last job before I retired was to design a boring fixture that would bore the trunnion bushing holes in the main body landing gear beams. These are the pivot trunnions on which the body gear rotate when they retract. At this point in their service life, we were starting to see the bushings that are pressed into the support beams starting to migrate. The original fix was to remove the gear, remove the beam, press the old bushing out, bore the hole on a vertical mill, press the new bushing in, bore it, hone it, and reinstall the beam in the aircraft. Lots of work...

My tooling does all of that in situ on the airplane without removing the beam, right up there in the wheel well. We are boring a 9.5" nominal I.D. hole in 7075-T6 in steps of about .010" over until all corrosion is removed, and holding it within a couple of tenths for diameter, runout, etc. Fun project. I would just now be coming up on my first trips to assist our machinists in its setup and use, if I were still working. They'll spend the next decade wearing out several units of this tool. I kind of wish I could still go with them...

Yeah, what a grand old airplane. Trust me, though, there will still be '47's in the air long after all of us are gone.