Volume 8 Number (Journal 668) May, 2015 in this issue

May, 2015 RUPANEWS 
near-cross-section view of an airplane that very few people have ever seen stripped of ceiling panels, 
bulkheads, luggage bins and other interior finery. “What gets most people is how big it is inside,” Schumaker 
says. “You can see the entire length of the airplane, and look up and see all that stuff in the ceiling. A lot of 
people are impressed by how complicated it all is.” 
But restoring the plane to that test-bed configuration — complete with racks of manned electronic gadgetry 
and water barrels for ballast — has presented its own challenges. None of the original 75,000 design 
drawings created by Sutter’s team have been provided by Boeing; the 747, after some 1,500 planes delivered 
and nearly 6 billion passengers flown, is, for now still an active product line. For fine details, restorers have 
turned to old test-flight photographs to see how the main cabin was arranged. Some similar electronic gear 
has been found and reinstalled in test stations that at least look period-authentic. The greatest challenge has 
been finding exterior engine and engine-strut pieces for the plane’s four Pratt & Whitney JT-9D engines. RA
-001 not only is one of a kind, it also is among the last surviving 747-100s still in one piece. Most of the 
other 250 planes of its class, all built in Everett, have long since retired from service; most have been 
scrapped. Mining the network of global airplane salvage companies has become an ongoing adventure for 
Dhein, who worked for Boeing Commercial Airplanes for 27 years. “I listed tires as something we’d need to 
replace,” he says. “I thought, ‘Oh my God, how am I going to get tires?’ ” Plenty of them existed for 747-
400s, many of which still fly. But they’re a slightly different size. Dhein put out the word on the airplane-
restorer and subcontractor wire. “We were lucky,” he says. “It turned out that the (Museum of Flight) 
Restoration Center at Paine Field in Everett had four of them. They were even mounted on wheels. Then I 
wound up getting two donated from an aviation company in Moses Lake.” The Grant County connection led 
to a tip about another model 100 that was being scrapped in New Mexico, where a salvage-company 
employee told Dhein: “I’ve got nine tires I’ll donate. All you have to do is pay the shipping.” Dhein, not 
wanting the tires to get away, sprung for the $600 shipping cost himself. “We don’t have much of a budget to 
work with,” he says. “So that was my donation to the museum for the year.” The team now has accumulated 
15 tires — almost enough for new rubber all around. Installation will wait until the plane is permanently 
settled under the new museum airpark roof, at which point old Number One will roll to a final, dignified 
stop. 
That roof might prove to be the plane’s salvation. Much of the completed repair work would be for naught if 
the 747, its old, riveted aluminum shell a magnet for seepage, remained exposed to the Seattle rain. Even 
after all the seams they’ve sealed, crew members continue to play Whac-A-Mole with leaks. Not for long. 
The airpark roof project, which will span the space between the museum’s Charles Simonyi Space Gallery 
and Aviation High School to the north, is scheduled to be complete sometime next year. And Number One 
will be displayed beneath it with a new, gleaming exterior, thanks to a unique paint job completed last 
summer on-site by Global Jet Painting of Ojai, Calif. The company, more accustomed to painting jetliners 
privately owned by rich people, was one of few equipped for this unusual job — repainting a jumbo jet 
outside, with foam rollers instead of spray equipment. Its crew, 
Dhein said, quickly embraced his own workers’ passion for the 
plane, putting extra effort and pride into a job they knew would be 
for posterity. The result is striking; the plane appears much as it 
did when it first rolled out of the Everett plant 47 years ago. “The 
first morning after they’d finished, I walked out of the building 
and I swear to God the airplane looked like she was standing 
taller,” Hagedorn recalls. 
When the roof is complete, visitors will be able to climb the steps 
into a piece of aviation history: The plane many credit with 
“democratizing” global travel, looking very much like it did when 
pilot Jack Waddell, co-pilot Brien Wygle and flight engineer Jesse 
Wallick first guided it into flight at Paine Field on Feb. 9, 1969. 
Most visitors won’t get to the flight deck, because the spiral 
staircase, even restored, won’t handle the museum’s half-million 

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May, 2015 RUPANEWS 
annual visitors. But the refurbished plane is likely to be a museum draw for decades, showing, among other 
things, how rapidly technology has advanced since that first flight. 
“I have to admit . . . we’re surprised at what we accomplished in two years,” Dhein says. “In a way, it was 
almost scary when the museum took notice of what we had done and started promoting the airplane, wanting 
to open it up.” During limited public openings last year, Dhein and his friends got a glimpse into the plane’s 
future: Scores of visitors, ranging from international tourists to Boeing employees who worked on the 
Everett production line, were “tickled pink,” Dhein says, to be able to finally stroll through the plane that 
revolutionized modern air travel. Among the most visibly moved were former pilots and line workers from 
the 747 program. 
Like its original builders, the small, dedicated crew still working to make the plane a showpiece is a 
testament to the Puget Sound region’s still-active love affair with making big machines fly, Hagedorn 
believes. “They love that airplane; that’s what sets them apart,” he says of the 747 crew. “They’re worth 
their weight in gold.”