Photo: Aldo Bidini 1978 - First: PanAm747
On Sept. 30, 1968, the first Boeing 747 rolled out of its assembly plant in Everett, WA. The new plane had its first test flight on Feb. 9, 1969, and debuted to a world audience at the Paris Air Show later that summer. From the beginning on, everything about the plane once known as the “Queen of the Skies” was big.
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It was the first wide-body “jumbo jet” ever built, involving about 50,000 construction workers, mechanics, engineers and others who took it from an idea to the air in just sixteen! months. Until 2007 and the introduction of the Airbus A380, it was the largest civilian airplane in the world.
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In 1963, the U.S. Air Force issued a proposal for a very large transport aircraft to carry heavier loads and have a longer range than then-existing transport aircraft such as the C-141. Although Boeing lost its bid for what is now known as the C5 Galaxy, the designs and studies that went into its proposal didn’t go to waste. That’s because, around the same time, Pan American World Airways wanted Boeing to build an airliner twice the size of the first-generation jet airliner, the 707.
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Many in the aviation industry – including at Boeing – believed that the future of air travel belonged to the fast, not the large. They envisioned new fleets of supersonic aircraft – such as the Concorde, which began flying in 1976. But Boeing plowed ahead with the project anyway. By the end of the year, the Federal Aviation Administration declared it airworthy, and Pan Am took delivery of its first 747 on Jan. 15, 1970. Since then, Boeing has built over 1,500 B747s, and about 500 are still flying today.
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The Boeing 747 “starred” in two disaster movies – “Airport 1975” and “Airport ‘77,” not to mention several films that involved hijackings, including “Air Force One.” The 747 also gained further fame from certain specialty missions. NASA, for example, used a specially modified 747 to transport the space shuttle between landing and launch sites.
But Boeing has no plans to assemble another 747 for the airlines. U.S. airlines stopped flying 747s in 2017, and what looks to be the last passenger B747-8 went to Korean Airlines that same year. The aircraft, however, may still have a long life as a carrier of freight – UPS, for example, recently ordered 14 of them.
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Read more:
https://theconversation.com/50-years-of-the-boeing-747-how-the-queen-of-the-skies-reigned-over-air-travel-99814
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747
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