MUKILTEO— At the Boeing Future of Flight Museum and tour, guests have the opportunity to explore Boeing’s storied legacy as an aerospace pioneer, and its tremendous impact on the Pacific Northwest Economy, through interactive exhibits, educational storytelling, and even touring the airplane assembly line where they can watch Boeing manufacturers, hard at work, piecing together the next generation of commercial, and cargo, aircrafts.
This tour is the only way the public can access the Boeing assembly line. The Boeing facility in Everett, specifically, holds the Guiness Book of World Records for the world’s largest building at 427,370,319 cubic feet of volume, 399,480 square meters of floor area, and spans 1,025 acres. The manufacturing facility is so large, in fact, that Disneyland could fit inside. It even has its very own weather system and is larger than some cities.
The roughly 80-minute tour begins at the Future of Flight Museum in Mukilteo where guests are given a brief presentation before watching a quick video on Boeing’s 100-year-old history.
Tourgoers are then transported, by way of a charter bus, to the massive manufacturing building in nearby Everett by way of an elaborate tunnel system, which is used to transport materials like compressed air and domestic water throughout the facility. They then take an elevator up to the observation deck where they can watch Boeing employees assemble the iconic 747 “the Queen of the Skies”, 767, 777, and 787 Dreamliner.
Each of these airplanes are assembled using cutting-edge technology including robotics and automation, before undergoing final testing and being guided through American football field-sized doorways for final touches and painting.
In addition to seeing the assembly line, firsthand, knowledgeable tour guides share Boeing’s engineering innovations, commitment to sustainability, and advanced manufacturing techniques.
More than 6 million visitors have embarked on this tour since Boeing first began hosting it in 1968, back when it just consisted of visiting a single trailer alongside the Everett manufacturing facility after production on the 747 began.
The tour has obviously undergone several improvements and modifications since then, with dramatic enhancements implemented within just the last couple of years.
For example, when the Boeing Future of Flight and Tour reopened to the public in October 2023 (after being shut down for two years due to COVID-10 restrictions) it implemented an updated route and refined its tour script.
Additionally, last July, the Boeing Future of Flight Museum and tour moved to daily operations, instead of being closed to the public on Tuesdays and Wednesdays.
“This change came after a careful assessment of the business and our ability to meet continued public demand for visiting Future of Flight and taking the factory tour,” said Brandon Black, Communications and Marketing Specialist with Boeing.
In conjunction with daily operations and daily tours of the Everett factory, Boeing Future of Flight also opened three new exhibits last summer: Boeing Engineering Zone, Boeing Aerospace Adventure Exhibit, and Sustainable Aviation Fuel, as well as revitalizing the Paper Plane Café, which now features premium all-day offerings and local specialties like Caffé D’arte, Alki Bakery, and Ivar’s signature clam chowder.
“We continue to welcome guests from near and far: Washington State residents, Boeing employees and their families, and visitors from around the world. As one of the region’s most popular attractions, Boeing Future of Flight and the factory tour remain a sought-after, bucket-list experience for visitors,” Black told the Lynnwood Times.
Though the associated tour may grant visitors the opportunity to uniquely experience Boeing manufacturing, firsthand, there’s plenty of things to do, and see, at the Boeing Future of Flight Museum before, and after, the tour.
The 28,000 square foot aviation and aerospace gallery showcases Boeing’s legacy of innovation, where guests can walk aboard a mock-up of the U.S. Laboratory Destiny module, learn about exciting new products and technologies Boeing is exploring like Sustainable Aviation Fuel, space and hypersonic travel, and fully autonomous vehicles. Guests can even put themselves in the shoes of a pilot and navigate, via a hyper-realistic flight simulator, a 787 Dreamliner or a F/A-18 Super Hornet jet, draft up their own airplane designs, and learn about Rosie the Riveter and the incredible women who helped shape Boeing’s future during World War II when most men were in uniform.
Through the museum’s Boeing’s Aerospace Adventure guests can explore the three primary business divisions of the company including Boeing Commercial Airplanes (BCA), Boeing Defense, Space and Security (BDS), and Boeing Global Services (BGS).
In the Engineering Zone, guests can learn about innovative problems to engineering through hands-on activities like drawing on a light table, using magnetic mash-up walls to design solutions, play interactive games to learn how to power and navigate as spacecraft, and play a game in the Lettuce Lab to learn how to grow plants in space.
Upstairs, on the 9,000 square foot observation Sky Deck, guests can enjoy picture-perfect panoramic views of Snohomish County’s Paine Field airport, the Boeing manufacturing facility, and potentially even witness once-in-a-lifetime opportunities like seeing the rare 747 Dreamlifter (of which there are only four in the entire world) take off for test flights.
But that’s not all. No museum, or tour, experience would be complete without a corresponding giftshop and a café that offers both caffeinated inspiration and delicious lunch options to fuel curiosity.
The giftshop offers a variety of authentic, aerospace-inspired gifts and merchandise, collector’s edition models, apparel, STEM toys, and more.
The Boeing Future of Flight Museum and Tour (not to be confused with the Museum of Flight in Tukwilla) is open Monday through Sunday, 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. – closed on certain holidays. Its located at 8415 Paine Field Boulevard in Mukilteo. Tickets for General Admission begin at $14 with the add-on Factory Tour option beginning at $42.
Author: Kienan Briscoe
