Boeing's Prototype 707 Jetliner, The `Dash 80,' Is Welcomed Home

The prototype for the Boeing 707, the first commercial jet transport built in the United States, flew home in triumph yesterday after 18 years in storage.

A couple hundred people, many toting still and video cameras, turned out at Seattle's Boeing Field to welcome back the 36-year-old plane, designated the 367-80 in development and nicknamed the ``Dash 80.''

Aboard the plane on its arrival at the Museum of Flight from Moses Lake were former Boeing employees who played roles in its development, including test pilot Tex Johnson, who turned a barrel roll with the jet before thousands of Seafair hydroplane-race spectators over Lake Washington in 1957.

Johnson, sporting a cowboy hat, led the contingent off the Dash 80 for welcoming ceremonies at the museum. He was greeted with cheers, recorded strains of the theme from ``Star Wars'' and the deafening sounds of a takeoff from a nearby runway.

The jetliner was flown for nearly 20 years after rolling out of the factory in May 1954. It was used to test systems that later were applied to a succession of Boeing jets.

The National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., has owned the plane since 1972, when Boeing completed its tests and donated the plane to the museum. It has been stored at Davis Monthan Air Force Base in Tucson, Ariz.

More than a month of work by 15 Boeing technicians was needed to get the plane ready to fly to the Grant County Airport in Moses Lake on May 7.

Boeing agreed this year to restore the plane to airworthiness, fly it to Seattle and refurbish it as part of Boeing's 75th anniversary celebration.

The Dash 80 is to be at the Museum of Flight until the National Air and Space Museum builds a display hangar for it to be completed by the summer of 1995.