The autoclave won’t be the only huge machine in that facility. Spirit also has a four-story-high “Electroimpact” automated fiber placement machine that creates the Dreamliner’s airplane’s cockpit and forward cabin section by laying strips of carbon fiber on tooling in the shape of the Dreamliner’s fuselage section.
Spirit has also been busy with production of parts for the Boeing 737. According to a recent article on Kansas.com, by early 2017 the company will be manufacturing 47 parts of the Boeing 737 per month – the highest rate since the company was founded 11 years ago. The article adds that Boeing’s unfilled orders for the 737 — including its current Next Generation and new Max variants — stand at 4,385. At 47 airplanes a month, that figures to nearly eight years of building 737s.
