My Best Aviation Pix pg 12

My Best Aviation Photos Eye Candy - # 12	Bob Bogash

P-51

BFI

British West Indian 707-138B at Toronto YYZ

KC-135R

Nordair - "Up North"

HS-748 at Nassau, Bahamas

Kenmore Beaver departing Lake Union - Seattle

Boeing Guppy departing Rwy 16R Paine Field (PAE)

Frankfurt

Boeing Everett Flight Line -- May 1971

ex-Horizon Air Fokker F-28 awaiting re-sale at Moses Lake
5 previous owners; 4 new owners yet to come.

What could be purtier than a nice shiny Cessna 140?

Sabreliner - Van Nuys

AN-124 at Paine Field

RAF Herk

Honolulu

Abbottsford, B.C.

Cockpit - Lockheed Jetstar Prototype (a Twin).

A puffy cloud day from my Vans RV-12

Boeing Guppy (Dream Lifter) during flight testing

C-17

Honolulu

Boeing Renton

Orca Bay 727

I sometimes loosely refer to some of the airplanes I work on as being "Mine."
Of course, that's not really true since most of them belong to the Museum of Flight.
Or other institutions that I work with.
But even that's not precisely true, since most U.S. government associated
airplanes are actually still owned by the government - like USAF or NASA.
They are on "long term loan" to the Museum.

But, several airplanes I DID wind up owning personally.
Either before or after the Museum acquired or disposed of them.
And until I could find them new homes.
Including a Comet and several 727s.
Some almost wound up in my garage or back yard!

Here is the story of several, including the above 727-200.

N7270B was an ex-Delta 727 that was owned by Clay Lacy and operated as Orca Bay. It had an all-First Class interior and was used to fly professional sports teams around. (Seattle Supersonics and the Vancouver Canucks.)

In 2005, it was flown on its last flight from Van Nuys to Paine Field and donated to the Museum of Flight to support restoration of our 727 Prototype (N7001U.) Clay flew the flight with Bruce McCaw. After parting out, the airframe was scrapped - but not before I got involved with salvaging several pieces including the cockpit and one wing.

The cockpit was removed and placed on display at the Future of Flight Museum at Paine Field.

It proved to be the most popular exhibit at the FOF, because people could enter, sit in the crew seats of a completely intact cockpit.

Complete cockpit of N7270B

Meanwhile, a hotel in Everett (Navigator Inn) wanted an aviation theme and we moved the left wing to act as the entry breezeway to the hotel. Click here for the whole story.

I HATE this part of my job!

Leaving the poor airplane looking like a Thanksgiving Turkey
3 days after Thanksgiving

My great friend Jeff Akridge of Columbia Pacific in Moses Lake was the contractor who did all the work on parting out and scrapping these airplanes. And much more!

After more than 10 years in the Future of Flight Museum, Boeing decided to close that facility in 2018.
The Museum of Flight had an assortment of artifacts in the Museum - like the Beech Starship - and was told to remove them all. That's when I found out who really owned some of this hardware, as the two items still left turned out to be mine - and I was given a deadline to remove them.

Some of this stuff really is Mine.....
My two pieces - sadly - some of my stuff I have to save twice!
(The B-52 is another one that required two Saves.)

I tried to donate the cockpit to the Museum of Flight - seeing how popular it was at the Future of Flight Museum. I thought it would go well in front of the United #1 727 in the Pavilion. That airplane's cockpit is walled off with Plexiglas. This could allow people to actually climb in and sit down. The Museum declined.

Hey, Bob - get your stuff out of here!

After a lot of fast talking and futile web promotions trying to find them new homes (including the forward fuselage of a FedEx 727 in Eastern markings), (that's my Mission in life - saving old airplanes), my friend Jeff came through (once again) and hauled them over to Moses Lake for temporary storage.

After a number of years in storage at Moses Lake, the pieces finally found new homes in 2023.

Marcella, shown while stored at MWH - ex EAL N8160G; ex-FedEx N124FE

The Orca Bay cockpit was donated to the Tillamook Air Museum in Tillamook, Oregon.
You can visit it there - and sit in the cockpit .... once more.
Click here for the Tillamook website description.

Some More 737 History

As noted last time, the first 8 737s were assembled in Plant II, and then moved to the new factory - the Thompson Site - for completion.

Here's another view of one of the original 8 being moved to the Thompson Site.

Starting with Shipset #9, the fuselages were built in Boeing Wichita and shipped to Seattle via rail.

Here's the first Wichita fuselage arriving at the Thompson Site - 1967.
This forward part is known as the Sections 41 and 43.
The aft part is Section 46 and 48.

Later on, the fuselage was shipped as a complete unit - like here.

The Thompson Site was named, BTW, for a man named Thompson (duh) who was incidentally a Boeing mechanic, and who owned the property that Boeing coveted. After holding out for a long time, he finally sold the parcel to Boeing (and cut himself a fat hog on that, I'm sure!) However, I believe he kept working his Boeing mech job and the money apparently never went to his head.

From September 1966 to January 1967, the Thompson Site was my home. I was a liaison engineer assigned to follow the Number 1 airplane from initial assembly through certification. I was working 10 hours/day, 7 days a week. My work hours were 4:00 PM to 2 AM. My desk was under the RH wingtip of the airplane. The "Big Push" was on to get the airplane out the door and into the air.

As anyone at Boeing knows, a lot of the work goes on outside, and around the clock.

Here's something you won't see every day!

The Thompson Site factory was sized to hold two rows of airplanes - 8 per side.
16 altogether.

After the 737 entered Flight Test in April 1967, an enormous number of engineering changes were generated to fix problems uncovered during the testing. By the Fall of 1967, there were so many of these changes that the factory was having difficulty incorporating them. One position was installing some hardware, and the next position was removing the same hardware due to changes and the next position was installing new hardware that incorporated the changes. In other words, the factory went out of control.

Finally, to resolve this situation, it was decided to stop the Line for several weeks and "Re-manufacture" the airplanes. (A similar situation occurred during WW II when new B-29s built in Wichita were sent to Mod Centers to have changes installed in an operation that became known as "The Battle of Kansas". Click here for the story.

In this case, all the airplanes were rolled out of the factory front doors, rolled around to the back of the factory, and re-inserted to move through the whole production process a second time - this time incorporating the numerous changes. Here you can see the airplanes lined up alongside the Thompson Site on their way to the back door. Bet there aren't too many pictures of this!!!

After the first 400 airplanes, assembly was moved to Renton. Thereafter, the Thompson Site went through many Boeing organizations, was used for storage and ultimately was offered for sale. However, when the Navy P-8 Pegasus program was launched, it was turned back into a 737 factory. P-8s are now flown out of Renton and the airplanes get completed in the Thompson Site - here's a picture of a P-8 on the ramp behind the building.

Thompson Site
In order to get through the alley between the hangars at the top,
the wingtips have to be removed.

After the first airplane (PA099 - NASA 515) was moved to the Flight Line in January 1967, it was prep'd for First Flight.

Sunday, April 9, 1967 was the First Flight date. Employees crowded the parking lots to see the event. Here's the airplane on the Flight Line before taxi-out and take-off on Runway 13R. Start-up was delayed for about half hour to change a balky B-System hydraulic pump.

Airplane in center - dark (green) tail - before taxi-out for First Flight

Take-off was about 1:15 PM.

I have extensive photos of the event - first take-off, first landing, and a complete recording of the air-to-air and air-to-ground radio communications (which I played at Brien Wygle's retirement party and again at the 737 50th FF Anniversary.)

Lot's more 737 History on my 737 webpages - you can start clicking here.

Thanks to my friend Mogu in Tokyo for reminding me - 21 years ago today (Sept 21/2003), we made the Last Flight of this airplane from Moses Lake to Boeing Field - click here for the story.

Changing Partners

St. Louis

....same aircraft at Boeing Field leased to new Air West

Pacific F-27 in California

I caught same aircraft at Boeing Field with new owners.
Aspen Airlines

Boeing Military Ramp - BFI
KC-46s and P-8s

Handley Page Jetstream

Air Atlantic Martin 202A.
Thanks to my friend Stefan Bailis for correcting me, (it's not a 404) and pointing out its rarity.
He's told me it was taken in 1969, likely Nassau.
This airplane and airline are a tough Google search - I'll dig out the original slide.