Boeing hits 767 milestone and preps for second Everett 787 line

At a ceremony Monday inside Boeing's jet plant in Everett, about 100 employees marked the imminent completion of the 1,000th 767 wide-body jet.

The landmark arrives as the fate of the airplane program hangs in the balance, dependent on the outcome of the U.S. Air Force tanker competition.

As soon as this 767 is rolled out, engineers will begin converting the bay to accommodate a new 787 assembly line. This "surge" line is supposed to be temporary, aiding the production ramp-up until the assembly line being built in Charleston, S.C., is fully operational.

However, many Boeing observers, including Machinists union district President Tom Wroblewski, hope the second line in Everett will become permanent.

Thirty years after the first 767 rolled out, the 1,000th jet will go to All Nippon Airways (ANA) of Japan, which ordered nine 767s to cover its needs as the airline waits for its delayed 787 Dreamliners to arrive.

Boeing has 50 orders for the 767 still to deliver, and several hundred people in Everett currently work to assemble the plane.

After those jets roll out, the program will close in less than two years unless the Air Force picks the 767 as its air-to-air refueling tanker.

The decision on that $40 billion contract is likely next month, and some defense-industry analysts predict the competing Airbus A330 tanker will win.

Kim Pastega, vice president and general manager of the 767 program, said at Monday's ceremony that Boeing will offer the Air Force its final price on the tanker work contract "over the next month or so."

Darrel Larson, director of 767 manufacturing, added that his team had "earned our right to build 1,000 units, and we're working to earn our right to build a couple more generations of this aircraft."

Pastega focused her remarks upon the day's remarkable milestone of commercial success and on Boeing's intricate preparations to keep the jet's production going.

"Very few (wide-body) airplanes ever get to 1,000" deliveries, Pastega said.

No Airbus wide-body jet has, nor did any McDonnell Douglas wide-body before that company merged with Boeing.

Boeing's 747 jumbo jet, which launched a dozen years before the 767, is still being built after more than 1,400 deliveries. The other large wide-body program, the 777, has delivered more than 900 just 16 years after that jet first flew.

Even as it awaits word on whether the 767 has a future, Boeing has invested in major changes to the plane's production.

Pastega said the production rate increased from one per month to one-and-a-half per month in the last months of 2010 and is in the process of increasing to two per month.

At the same time, Pastega's team has finalized a complex move of production to a new area at the rear of the assembly plant to make room for an extra 787 Dreamliner line.

A new door has been constructed at the back of the giant building through which the 1001st 767 will exit from the new assembly area onto the Paine Field flight line.

Even before the 767 work moves out of the current assembly bay, the area is already being used for rework on a couple 787 Dreamliners.

In front of the ANA 767 Monday, an Air India 787 was missing its horizontal tail, which had been removed for rework necessitated by poor workmanship in the initial build in Italy.

As Boeing scrambles to make up for all the Dreamliner delays and deliver the 850 planes on order, it could use three production lines if it can get them operational. And once the second Everett line is running well, it would make little sense to close it down.

But first, Boeing has to get its initial 787 line running well.

Among those on hand for the ceremony Monday was Boeing manufacturing engineer Duncan T. Moore, who worked on the first 767 in 1981 and today works on the 787 Dreamliner.

Moore recalled a couple of late glitches on that first 767.

When a fuselage panel failed after a frozen fowl was test-fired at the jet to assess vulnerability to a live bird strike, engineers ordered a retrofit to stiffen the panel in the crown of the fuselage of the jets already built.

Moore helped manage the cascade of out-of-sequence work from that last-minute change and from another decision to standardize the flight crew at two rather than three people.

It worked out fine in the end. The 767 became a favored trans-Atlantic wide-body.

But now those workers building the 787 are overwhelmed with out-of-sequence work.

Does Moore think Boeing is on top of it this time around on the Dreamliner?

"There's work to be done," said Moore. "But it'll be a good airplane, too."

Dominic Gates: 206-464-2963 or dgates@seattletimes.com