B-17 BOEING FACTORY TO BE DEMOLISHED
Jan 14, 2010
[gallery order="DESC"] Located just west of Boeing Field in Seattle, the Boeing B-17 Factory, otherwise known as Plant No2., holds a significant place in the history of the United States. It was here that during WWII thousands of B-17 Bombers, otherwise known as the “Flying Fortress” were made. Production of planes at the plant went from sixty in 1942, to an astounding 362 planes per month by March 1944 — at one point the Seattle plant rolled out 16 planes in 24 hours.
Described by General H. H. Hap Arnold, as the backbone of our worldwide aerial offensive, the B-17 Flying Fortress served in every World War II combat zone. It was the first Boeing military aircraft with a flight deck instead of an open cockpit and was armed with bombs and five .30-caliber machine guns. The plane, which dropped 640,036 bombs on designated targets during WWII, went from design board to flight test in less than 12 months. Boeing plants built a total of 6,981 B-17s in various models, and another 5,745 were built under a nationwide collaborative effort by Douglas and Lockheed. However only a few B-17s survive today; most were scrapped at the end of the war. What remains however is the factory where they were produced. It stands today as white elephant at the Boeing complex. Four buildings cover 1.6 million square feet, about 36 acres. The main building was designed to accommodate nine fully assembled B-17s. At the height of the war the factory building was camouflaged to prevent air attack. With burlap houses and chicken-wire lawns and trees, from the air, the bomber manufacturing plant looked like a quiet suburb. Fake trees made of board and mesh were fastened to the roof with wires. Clapboard homes were painted with rectangles for windows. A fake rooftop corner street sign said, "Synthetic St. & Burlap Blvd." Boeing is set to demolish Plant 2 in the next few months. Boeing spokesman Chris Villiers said a demolition schedule has not been finalized, but the company has told the Museum of Flight to remove several old airplanes stored there within the next four months.
