By Dennis Quick
Senior Staff Writer

Construction of Vought Aircraft Industry’s 380,000-square-foot North Charleston facility where fuselage sections for Boeing’s 787 Dreamliner passenger jet will be made is no more than “a day or two” off schedule, according to Vought’s Newt Newton, the facility’s general manager.

Newton attributes the minor construction lag to rainy weather in late August. “We would have been two weeks ahead of schedule if it hadn’t rained at all,” he says.

Nevertheless, Newton says the Vought facility will be completed on schedule in late March or early April 2006 so that fuselage production can begin in May.

The Vought facility is one of three buildings comprising the $560 million Dreamliner fuselage manufacturing and assembling complex. The other two buildings include a 14,000-square-foot training center already under construction and Global Aeronautica’s soon-to-be-built 280,000-square-foot facility across from the Vought building.

Global Aeronautica is a joint venture between Dallas-based Vought and Alenia Aeronautica of Italy.

Greenville-based Suitt Construction is the general contractor for all three buildings.

Groundbreaking for the complex began in February 2005, and construction began in March after the clearing of 387 wooded acres adjacent to Charleston International Airport.

For the Vought facility, construction workers dug out a foundation that in some places reached a depth of 19 feet. Some 30,000 truckloads of dirt were removed and replaced with about 42,000 truckloads of firmer dirt, Newton explains.

South Carolina Steel Corp., located near Greenville, is providing the facility’s steel beams, the largest of which is 200 feet long and weighs 53 tons. The 82-foot-high facility will contain an autoclave that will pressure cook the carbon graphite material from which the Dreamliner’s lightweight aft fuselage sections will be built.

The autoclave is being assembled onsite in two sections outside the facility’s steel frame. When the sections are completed, they will be attached horizontally. Then the 75-foot unit will be moved inside the facility.

Newton estimates that roughly 400 workers, including subcontractors, are constructing the Vought facility.

The training center’s exterior is largely completed. The building is slated for completion in early October. During that month, equipment will be installed, and training will begin in either late October or early November, says Newton. Training will last 20 to 24 weeks, depending on the training program.

Construction of the Global Aeronautica building will begin in late fall. By early 2007 the facility will receive center fuselage sections built in Italy. The Global Aeronautica facility will integrate the center fuselage sections with the aft fuselage sections produced in the Vought facility. Boeing cargo planes will transport the assembled fuselages from North Charleston to the Puget Sound area of Washington state, where the 787 will be assembled.

The Vought facility will employ approximately 350 workers; the Global Aeronautica facility more than 250 workers. The first 787 Dreamliners are expected to begin service in 2008.

Dennis Quick is senior staff writer for the Business Journal. E-mail him at dquick@charlestonbusiness.com.

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