Photo: Eduard Marmet
Ned Bunnell tells us that today it's been 50 years since Boeing announced the 747 on September 30th, 1968. It was expected to be retired after 400 planes were made, but the latest version of the aircraft is still current and production reached 1,546 last July.
Credit: University of South Florida
To put that in context, it was only 54 years, 8 months, and 29 days between the date of the very first commercial passenger flight (January 1, 1914) and the day the 747 was introduced!
Mike
(Thanks to Ned)
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(To see all the comments, click on the "Comments" link below.)
Featured Comments from:
R. Edelman: "The Boeing 747—what a great plane! I first flew on one in 1971, when they were still being introduced to the airline customers. I flew from Amsterdam to New York on a KLM 747, and what a ride. The entire plane was a student charter (the only criterion was that you were a student somewhere), so there was only one class of passenger. I asked for a forward seat, figuring correctly that I would get a larger, first-class seat. The cabin crew decided to open the bar (free Heineken!) and proceeded to kibbitz with the passengers. Some of the passengers finished smoking a certain mood-altering drug in the extra large open spaces that they had by the exit doors back then. (The drug was tolerated in Amsterdam, but not in the US, so the incentive was there to finish the stuff before the flight was over).
"That summer I also visited Israel. El Al had just taken delivery of its first 747, and they showed it off by flying it in circles over Tel Aviv a few times. The 747 was designed to be a luxurious jet in an era when airlines still felt that all of their customers deserved to experience a comfortable flight, no matter where they were seated. I think that we all miss those days."
Mike replies: ...Flying high while flying high. And yes, I miss the days when all the seats felt roomy and luxurious.
Speed: "The 747 is still in production at Boeing's Everett plant but it is almost a special order item. Wikipedia reports orders for six and 14 in 2017 and 2018 respectively and shipments of 14 and four also for 2017 and 2018 respectively. 2018 isn't over yet. For comparison, Boeing's 737 build rate is almost two per day! A tour of the Everett facility where 767, 777 and 787 aircraft are also built (cameras not allowed—not even phones) is time well spent. The 747 is almost hand built, riveted together from thousands of small bits of aluminum and magnesium (I'm oversimplifying) over many weeks, while the newest 787 is assembled from large components (lots of composites) in days.
"When I visited last year they were working on an order from UPS for 14 747 freighters and one 'executive' version for a wealthy middle-eastern customer. I was already amazed that such a large machine could fly but the engineering that goes into designing and manufacturing such a massive and complex device that routinely and reliably carries people and packages around the world is quite remarkable."
Geoff Wittig: "The Boeing 747 is indeed remarkable for its longevity, when many commercial and military aircraft run the gamut from first flight to scrapyard in a decade or less. But the champion for active lifespan has to be Lockheed's remarkable C-130 military transport. It's a strikingly homely and utilitarian aircraft, yet its efficient, practical, durable design has never been bettered. The first example flew in 1954, and it is still in active production to this day, an astonishing 64 years later. That's vaguely analogous to a Sopwith Camel [a WWI biplane —Ed.] still being produced in 1981."
David Zivic: "I remember two things about the Wright Brothers' first flight, one involving a 747. The length of the first flight was shorter than the wing span of a 747. And, the iconic flight photo with one brother the pilot and the other releasing the wing tip from the ground was taken by a friend, and it is the only photo he ever took before or after...you know, squeezing a bulb for a shutter release."
c.d.embrey: "In August, 1960, I flew from Monterey, California, to Baltimore, Maryland. A 24-hour trip flying on four different piston powered planes. In January, 1961, I did the return flight from Baltimore to LAX in a 707. What a difference a few months makes when it comes to technology.
"When I was young, Pan Am was the USA's premier overseas airline. Juan Trippe invented tourist class, and Boeing built the 747 at his request. Pan Am went out of business in the early 1990s."
Mike replies: There's a vivid and informative book that I enjoyed about the fall of Pan Am called Skygods by Robert Gandt.
Paul De Zan: "United made an excellent video on the occasion of their retirement of the aircraft."
John Masters: "As a young man, I worked for Delta for a number of years at both DFW [Dallas/Forth Worth] and ATL [Atlanta]. During those years, Delta had no 747s, and I would always pause when I saw one land or take off for American, Lufthansa and other airlines. For me, being drawn to a 747 is one of those nebulous things whose attraction could only be summed up as '...there's just something about a 747....' As awesome and long-serving as the L-1011, DC-10, etc., were, they didn't have the immediate eye appeal of a 747.
"I never flew on, but was part of ground crews on British Airways' Concorde aircraft in and out of DFW in the late '80s. The interior of the Concorde, while very nice, was necessarily cramped and disappointing. But seeing that Concorde take off was the only commercial jet that could cause more shivers in me timbers than a 747 roaring for takeoff. (Military jet roar is a whole other beast.) I was able to ride a 'tug' around and under one of the two Presidential 747 in Texas (in for electronics upgrade at a company I was interviewing with). That was beyond awesome for me. There's just something about a 747...."
Rick D: " I was a Boeing Kid whose dad worked there; he was part of the crew relocated from Renton to Everett to build and then run the new factory home of the 747. Heady days. Boeing supposedly developed the 747 after losing the C-5 transport contract to Lockheed. I picture them sitting glumly around a conference table asking, 'So we have plans for this ginormous airplane, what are we going to do with them?' Thus, they tackled the plane that changed an industry.
"Only problem was it cost so much to get to production the jumbo jet nearly bankrupted the company, and Seattle. Dad was among many thousands who lost their jobs and a famous billboard appeared: 'Would the last person leaving Seattle please turn off the lights?' Hard to imagine in today's tech boomtown Seattle how dire things were then. On a recent visit I took the kid past my childhood house and saw its eye-popping Zillow 'Zestimate' was precisely one hundred times what my folks paid for it when we transplanted there from Seattle. Dad found other work and we stayed.
"My junior high overlooked Boeing Field and we kids were all quite versed in their product line, literally able to I.D. the models by sound. The 747's sound was very different from the others and they were worth looking at; it has always seemed to just hover on its approach. Something about the scale has the brain asking: 'How does that thing stay in the sky?' If I understand correctly, very long-haul point-to-point aircraft like the 787 are shoving hub-and-spoke jumbos aside. I think they'll always be around, but no longer the dominant planes of intercontinental travel."
