Photos: Behind Boeing’s factory doors

Boeing’s factory in Everett, Wash., is the birthplace of a number of the company’s commercial planes. A 747-400 freighter in the late final assembly building stage is seen from the front left side at the factory on Sept. 14, 2006.

A 747-400 freighter nearing the final stages of construction is seen from directly in front on a second-story mezzanine level at the Boeing factory in Everett, Wash. on Sept. 14, 2006.

Nearing completion, this 747-400 freighter is seen from the left side.

747s, like many of Boeing’s commercial planes, are built in pieces that are then fused together. Here, a 747 top-level cab component sits, awaiting addition to one of the planes.

A 747 wing is an impressive thing, and takes up a large amount of space on the Boeing factory floor in Everett, Wash.

Each major component of a 747 has its own section on the Boeing factory floor. This is the area for section “41,” the front-most area of one of the iconic jumbo jets.

747s are built in the same factory as Boeing 777s and 767s. Boeing is now working on its first new 747 model since 1989, the 747-8 Intercontinental.

For ergonomic reasons, the components of a 747’s fuselage are constructed upside down. When finished, they are lifted into this giant “turn mechanism,” which flips the parts over 180 degrees so that they can be added to the rest of the plane.

When a plane is constructed and ready to be painted, Boeing opens one of the giant doors to its factory and rolls the plane outside, where it is pulled over a bridge to a painting facility on \r\nthe other side of a state highway. This process is done at night to minimize the distraction to drivers of seeing a jumbo jet rolling over the highway.

Many of the individual parts needed for the construction of \r\na 747’s body can be found in the “747 Body Part Supermarket” at the \r\nBoeing factory in Everett, Wash.

In order to move the giant plane components around its factory, Boeing has constructed cranes that slide around near the ceiling of the building.

A nearly-finished 747-400 freighter with its engines already attached awaits final construction at the Boeing factory in Everett, Wash. on Sept. 14, 2006.

The Everett, Wash., Boeing factory is the biggest building in the world by volume.