5 Things You Probably Didn’t Know About Boeing

by Adam

Pretty cool list from Rich Smith over at The Motley Fool:

1. Look up in the air! That’s not Superman. That’s a Boeing 737!
Take that 737, for example. You’ve probably heard that it’s the “best-selling commercial aircraft in aviation history,” right? More than 11,500 orders placed? More than 7,700 planes delivered? What you may not know is what those numbers mean in practice. As a result of its immense sales success, there are now so many 737s in service around the globe that, on average, a 737 airplane takes off or lands somewhere around the globe once every two seconds. And any given moment, 2,000 of Boeing’s 737 workhorses are probably airborne. So yes, if you “look! Up in the sky!” — chances are that thing you see with the sunlight glinting off it is neither a bird, nor a Superman, but a Boeing 737.

2. Boeing’s come a long way (baby)
How did Boeing get so big, and so good at what it does? In part because the company’s a high-tech wonder. We tend to take airplanes for granted. But did you ever wonder how they get made — or where they get made? Seventy-five percent of the commercial aircraft in use today were built by Boeing. Statistically speaking, most of the airplanes you’ve ever flown on probably got put together at Boeing’s Everett Factory, just north of Seattle. By volume, Boeing’s Everett factory is the largest building ever constructed. Bigger than the Pentagon. Bigger than the Mall of America. It’s so big that at one point, Boeing’s engineers were worried that clouds might form inside, near the ceiling. So they put in an air circulation system to prevent cloud formation. (How many companies have that problem?) Meet the world’s biggest building — brought to you by Boeing. Source: Wikimedia Commons.

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Check out the remainder of the list over at The Motley Fool.

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1 comment

DaninSTL December 3, 2013 - 5:23 am

One way Boeing got bigger was buying McDonnell Douglas which helped it expand greatly in the defense business with long term successful fighter jets like the F-15 not to mention planes like the MD-80’s and other MD models.

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