Today’s final flight of the first Boeing 727 prototype jet ever produced was one of the shortest trips it’s made in its 53-year history: a 15-minute jaunt from a restoration hangar at Everett’s Paine Field to Seattle’s Boeing Field and the Museum of Flight.
But in another sense, it took decades to make the journey.
The three-engine jet was used as a test prototype when Boeing started flying the 727s in 1963, and was delivered to United Airlines in 1964. The plane put in nearly 65,000 hours of service with United, and made more than 48,000 takeoffs and landings.
The three-engine jet made its last commercial voyage in 1991, and then United donated it to the Museum of Flight. At the time, the museum couldn’t accommodate the plane in Seattle, so it was put into storage in Everett. Some of its parts were scavenged for other planes.
For 25 years, a volunteer team toiled to raise money, acquire spare parts (mostly donated by FedEx) and refurbish the plane for one more flight. Once the plane was judged airworthy, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a special permit to clear the way for today’s takeoff under visual flight rules.
Pilot Tim Powell, co-pilot Mike Scott and flight engineer Ralph Pascale – all with long experience on 727s – made up the flight crew for the final journey. Retired Boeing engineer Bob Bogash rode along. It was Bogash who led the effort to get the plane donated and refurbished, starting back in the 1980s.
“This journey with this airplane here, to me, is 32 years long,” Bogash told a crowd of hundreds who turned out to see the plane’s last landing. “Even today, in her senior years, she’s still the belle of the ball.”
The jet is painted in the same colors it wore at delivery, with the registration number N7001U emblazoned on its engines. It will be put on temporary display in the Museum of Flight’s Airpark, and this summer it will take its permanent place alongside prototype 737 and 747 jets in a brand-new Aviation Pavilion.
Doug King, the museum’s president and CEO, said the 727 was “the airplane that brought flight to the masses.”
“We’re really proud to have room for this,” King said.
The plane figures prominently in “Growing Up Boeing,” a book written by Rebecca Wallick, the daughter of Boeing test pilot Lew Wallick. The elder Wallick, who passed away in 2009 at the age of 85, was the pilot for the 727 prototype’s first flight.
“It was always his favorite airplane,” Rebecca Wallick told GeekWire at the museum. “For it to be restored to flying condition, to bring it home – it just brings the story full circle. My dad would have loved it.”
Boeing halted production of the 727 in 1984 after building 1,832 of the planes, but some 727s are still in service. Today’s flight served as a reunion for the pilots and airplane workers and family members who had a connection to the 727 line.
Retired pilot George Johnson, who flew for United from 1964 to 2001, showed up in the “brownie” uniform that he wore in the early years. He said almost half of his flight time was spent in the cockpit of a 727. “13,113 hours, but who’s counting?” he told GeekWire.
The VIPs also included Kayle Shulenberger – whose father, M.K. Shulenberger, was the flight engineer for the 727’s first flight from Boeing’s Renton plant to Paine Field in 1963. (For the record, Dix Loesch was the co-pilot.)
“We have lifetime friendships because of this,” Kayle Shulenberger told GeekWire. “All of our dads were celebrities in Seattle for a while.”
And today, they were honored as celebrities once more.
Rebecca Wallick will tell the story behind “Growing Up Boeing” and sign copies of her book from 2 to 3:30 p.m. Saturday during an appearance at the Museum of Flight.
