The “Everyday Miracle”
The “Everyday Miracle”
Open seven days, Future of Flight mixes design-your-aircraft challenges, the Engineering Zone (hello, Lettuce Lab), and a 747 tribute—before you bus into Boeing’s colossal factory (think 75 football fields). Grab a selfie on the Sky Deck, a bite at Paper Plane Café, and go home looking up.
Experience flight at the Boeing Future of Flight and factory tour
By Richard Porter
Maybe you don’t realize it, but we are living in the future. For millennia, humans have dreamed of the day when they would take to wing and soar skyward, carefree and lighthearted. Perhaps that’s easy to overlook when you’re sitting in a plane several thousand feet above the earth, yet it’s truly an everyday miracle that we live with in the modern era. Cruising along in the clouds while sipping a cocktail? That’s a pretty remarkable happenstance in the scope of human history.
This wonder of being airborne will be restored to you when you visit Boeing Future of Flight and experience the Boeing Everett Factory Tour where the 777 and 777X are assembled. The Gallery exhibits take you, yes, to the future; but they also transport you into the past as you walk through a decommissioned section of the International Space Station and look to the legacy of yesteryear’s Rosies bucking rivets for the Allied war effort during World War II.
Let your imagination take to the skies as you explore the exhibits. There’s no time like now to visit the Future of Flight Gallery. Pro tip: before you get started, be sure to enjoy a cup of gourmet coffee and a snack at the newly opened Paper Plane Café.
Bonus: the Future of Flight is now open seven days a week for the first time since 2020!
Here’s what you can expect.
Boeing Aerospace Adventure Experience
Explore the future of flight through interactive challenges and stories from real Boeing innovators. The Boeing Aerospace Adventure Exhibit invites visitors to design aircraft, tackle sustainability, and glimpse into the world of aerospace careers. It’s an inspiring hands-on journey for curious minds ready to dream big and join the next generation of explorers.
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Sustainable Aviation Fuel Exhibit
Next, discover how Boeing is leading aviation’s push toward decreasing emissions through innovations in sustainable aviation fuel and more. This exhibit explores the promise of sustainable fuels—cutting carbon by up to 80%—and Boeing’s role in research, testing, and scaling global supply. It’s a window into a cleaner, more resilient future for flight, industry… and the planet!
Wisk: Revolutionizing Urban Transportation
This exhibit takes you into the cutting edge of urban transportation. Imagine taking an Uber across the city, only instead of driving on wheels, your vehicle executes a perfect vertical takeoff before zipping through the air to your destination. Also, there’s no driver. This is the realm of autonomous aerial taxis, the future of cross-city transit.
At the Future of Flight, you can get up close to a Wisk Aero craft, which looks like something from a sci-fi movie, but is coming soon to a city near you. This is the only place in the Pacific Northwest where you can experience such a craft in real life.
The Boeing Engineering Zone
This brand-new exhibit offers fun STEM educational opportunities to everybody. Learn about the work of Boeing engineers and how their ingenuity informs (and transforms!) the aerospace industry. “The Lettuce Lab” is geared toward younger kids by positing the question: “What’s it like to grow lettuce in space on a space station?” as a way to think about the future of space farming.
Kids’ Zone
The Future of Flight sparks wonder through their STEAM activities. STEAM – Science, Technology, Engineering, Arts, and Mathematics – are the modern skills needed to help the next generation find quality jobs in the arts and sciences. At the Future of Flight, kids can get hands-on when they build simple robots, create art projects, and explore physics at the Bernoulli table. Be sure to ask the front desk for “exploration guides,” immersive scavenger hunt challenges that will encourage young aerospace enthusiasts to explore the entire facility.
We Can Do It: The Legacy of Rosie the Riveter
The photo archives of Boeing come to life in an exhibit that takes viewers into the history of women in the airplane industry. During World War II, trailblazing women filled Boeing Factories in Seattle and Renton (as well as subassembly plants in Everett). These women donned overalls, aprons, ballcaps and handkerchiefs to hit the assembly lines, keeping airplanes rolling out the door and into Uncle Sam’s arsenal. Their indomitable spirit is on display at the Future of Flight. Prepare to be inspired.
Queen of the Skies: Celebrating the Boeing 747
She’s called the Queen of the Skies. The unique silhouette of the 747 has been seen on air strips around the world for over 50 years. Its double-decker humped front epitomizes the golden age of air travel. Because of its size, Boeing built its famous factory, which is the largest building in the world by volume (more on that building in a bit). The legacy of the 747 is celebrated in this exhibit, as well as the stories of the engineers who took the concept of the plane from drawing board to reality in a mere 16 months.
Sky Deck
After you’ve perused the gallery, take the elevator up to the Sky Deck. You’re in an ideal vantage point to watch the daily flight operations at Paine Field Airport. Glimpse private craft, commercial flights, and even experimental aircraft as they take off or land. The Sky Deck also affords inspiring views of the North Cascade Mountains and the Boeing Everett Factory, making this the perfect place for a selfie.
The Boeing Store
The Boeing flagship store has all the swag. You can buy collectors-edition model airplanes or a Rosie the Riveter baseball t-shirt and many other aerospace-inspired merchandise. You could even, at one point (I’m not making this up) get a Boeing-branded Stratocaster electric guitar with a seafoam green body. You don’t want to leave the Future of Flight without first hitting up the gift shop to represent your love of all things that fly and soar through the air. Paid admission is not required to visit the store.
Hop on a tour bus and discover a building you simply won’t forget.
How big is the Boeing Factory? It can fit 75 football fields. It can hold all of Disneyland. The enormous building even generated its own weather system of clouds and condensation, prompting the installation of state of the art air circulation systems.
The scope of this, the largest building on earth by volume, is hard to convey without resorting to superlatives. You really just have to see it to get a size and extent of this city within a building — complete with restaurants, cafes, medical care, and a video rental store. The planes on the assembly line look like toys below.
Paper Plane Cafe
Grab a bite and a drink at the newly opened Paper Plane Café, featuring premium, all-day offerings, freshly brewed espresso and coffee, and baked treats. The Café has a local flare, serving specialties like Caffé D’arte, Alki Bakery, and Ivar’s signature clam chowder.
Just north of Seattle, visit Boeing Future of Flight in Mukilteo and be sure to book tickets for the Boeing Everett Factory Tour. Check out Boeing Future of Flight online at www.boeingfutureofflight.com
