It doesn't matter whether you fly every week or once in 6 months, we all remember our 1st time on an airplane. And we all remember our 1st time on a Boeing 747 jumbo jet. But it could be the end of the runway for the iconic humped jetliner as Boeing plans to halve production of the jumbo jets, to 6 a year, with a possibility of stopping production soon.
With that background, I thought we'll take a flight down history lane and reminisce about the world's most recognizable plane.
The 747 was in the skies before the Concorde (remember that plane?) & before man set foot on the moon (The Boeing 747 first flew in February 1969, just five months before Apollo 11 landed on the moon).
Since it's 1st commercial flight on 22nd Jan 1970 (with Pan Am Airlines), over 1,500 of these planes have been built.
Building an airliner bigger than those of its competitors was a bold move & a huge commercial risk that required borrowing some $2 billion from a banking consortium, the largest amount of money ever borrowed by any corporation at that time.
For its manufacturing plant, Boeing bought a 780-acre site near Seattle & built a plant which is still one of the largest plants ever built, by volume.
Here are some fun nuggets about the 747:
- One of the main reasons the upper deck was designed was to allow the 747 to be easily converted into a cargo aircraft.
- The project timeline was so aggressive that the first 747 mockup was built before the factory’s roof was finished.
- There are 365 switches, dials, and lights in the incredibly confusing cockpit.
- The 747 was over 2.5 times larger than the Boeing 707, which was one of the most common commercial aircraft at the time.
- NASA chose the 747 to haul its space shuttles since the low wing design made it easy to mount the shuttle.
- 747s have flown more than 3.5 billion people. That's almost half the planet's population.
- A typical 747-400 can accommodate between 416 to 660 passengers depending on the seat layout.
- Its takes 90 gallons (or 340 litres) of paint to paint a 747.
- The upper deck alone has the same square footage as a Boeing 737.
- The 1st flight of the Wright brothers was shorter than the wingspan of a Boeing 747.
- Appearing in over 300 film productions, it is one of the most widely depicted civilian aircraft and one of the most iconic in film history.
- It would take Usain Bolt 7 seconds to run from tip to tail.
The 747 is facing pressure from smaller, fuel efficient aircrafts but Boeing still has a few orders left to complete - from freight carriers and from none other than the President of the United States. It's biggest direct competitor, the Airbus A380 is also facing turbulent weather owing to its large size.
While we haven't yet seen the last of the "Queen of Skies", it will be the end of an era when the final 747-400 rolls out of the Seattle factory.
