Ecotourism is for wimps. Hiking, birding, spelunking - these things pale compared with watching robot arms face off against angle grinders inside factories the size of cities. Manufacturing sites all over the US open their doors to mechanically minded looky-loos. These mechatourists get to see the real action of the industrial age - professionals welding, riveting, and cutting stuff with lasers. Who needs nature trails when you've got assembly lines?
BOEING AIRCRAFT
Everett, Washington
Makes: Jets, as in 747s, 767s, and 777s
Mechatourist attraction: World's largest factory, at 98.3 acres - or 74 football fields.
Highlight: Follow a 747 through the assembly of its 6 million parts, including 3 million bolts and rivets.
If you go: Design your own airplane at the visitor's center, and take the blueprints home. Make sure to count how many football fields will fit in your backyard before finalizing the specs.
BMW US
Spartanburg, South Carolina
Makes: Models Z4 and X5
Mechatourist attraction: Giant robot arms. With lasers. Does it really matter what they do? They're giant robot arms with lasers.
Highlight: The Hurricane Booth. At the end of the assembly line, cars get sprayed with more than 1,300 gallons of water in eight minutes.
If you go: Don't miss the Zentrum Museum next door, which has famous BMWs from Bond films and Formula 1 races on display.
E-ONE
Ocala, Florida
Makes: Fire trucks
Mechatourist attraction: See how they build the cabs, attach the ladders, and install the onboard computers.
Highlight: Articulating booms extending 130 feet into the air.
If you go: Take advantage of travel deals to boring old Walt Disney World and Universal Studios. E-One is only an hour north.
JET PROPULSION LABORATORY
Pasadena, California
Makes: Spaceships
Mechatourist attraction: The spacecraft assembly facility, where NASA builds the probes that go to other planets.
Highlight: The precautions against Earth microbe contamination, from a giant clean room to the engineers' lab coats, hats, and surgical masks.
If you go: When no one is working in the assembly facility, tour the Mars Yard, a mock-up of the Martian surface, where the Spirit and Opportunity rovers rehearsed.
ROTORWAY INTERNATIONAL
Chandler, Arizona
Makes: Kit helicopters
Mechatourist attraction: Production of the parts shipped to do-it-yourselfers, including stuff like the engine, airframe, and rotor blades.
Highlight: The quality control room measures tolerances up to 0.0001 inch.
If you go: Take a $185 test flight with a RotorWay pilot. The company will subtract the cost from the price of a new kit. That means you'll have to pay only $67,565 to make up the difference.
SALLY
Jacksonville, Florida
Makes: Animatronics and dark rides
Mechatourist attraction: Scenery, props, and black-light design for theme park robots and rides.
Highlight: The skeleton-like armatures inside ghosts and dinosaurs, and a life-size T. rex. Spooky!
If you go: Ask a guide to lead you to the electronics room, where workers wire the circuit boards that control the rides.
- Erin Biba
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