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Boeing will officially say goodbye to the original jumbo jet, the 747, as it makes its final commercial delivery of an aircraft that democratized flying and served US presidents.
A farewell party will be held Tuesday afternoon at the Boeing factory in Everett, Washington, in the Northwestern United States, in conjunction with the delivery of a Boeing 747-8 cargo plane to Atlas Air. Thousands of current and past Boeing employees will attend.
The current fleet of planes is expected to fly for decades longer, but by ending 747 production more than 50 years after the aircraft’s first flight, Boeing is closing a chapter in civil aviation history.
Even during the energy shocks of the 1970s, the plane’s size, range, and efficiency “made it possible for the middle class to go outside of Europe or the United States at an affordable price,” according to Michel Merluzeau, director of aerospace and defense studies at AIR consultancy.
“It made the world smaller,” Merluzeau said.
Boeing produced 1,574 747s in total. However, the jet has been surpassed in popularity by newer models that fly more efficiently and use less fuel.
The 747 has not been used by American commercial airlines since 2017.
For decades, this has been the largest jet.
The origins of the 747 can be traced back to the 1960s, when aviation was on the rise and airports were becoming increasingly congested.
Boeing began planning for a larger jet at the request of Pan American Airways.
Engineers considered building a plane with two fuselages, but they abandoned the idea due to concerns about evacuating passengers from the second level.
Instead of making the plane taller, Boeing’s company historian Michael Lombardi said of the 747, which was the first designed with two aisles.
“This airplane will always be known as the queen of the sky,” Lombardi said during a recent press conference.
The 747 has four engines and was designed from the start to carry cargo.
But that imperative necessitated other changes, including raising the cockpit above the nose, which resulted in the 747’s iconic “hump.”
Up to the Airbus 380’s introduction in the 2000s, the Boeing 747 was the largest passenger aircraft.
The 747 made many journeys between cities like New York, Paris, and London throughout the 1980s and 1990s, according to Merluzeau, making it “truly the industry’s workhorse.”
However, the introduction of more fuel-efficient long-distance jets like the Airbus 350 and Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which are faster than the 747 and can travel farther on a single tank of fuel, has changed the nature of intercontinental travel by expanding the number of destinations that can be reached directly.
Lombardi claimed that the more modern aircraft “have altered flying to what we desire, point to point.”
massive moving
Even though Boeing has repeatedly updated the 747, “there are limits to what you can accomplish compared with alternative possibilities,” according to Merluzeau.
Boeing sold 48 passenger planes and 107 cargo jets for the 747-8, the penultimate iteration of the aircraft, which was introduced in 2005.
Despite Boeing’s announcement that it would stop producing the 747 in 2020, the legacy fleet is anticipated to continue operating for many more decades, particularly in the cargo sector.
“The 747 really is unique in its value for carrying heavy industrial parts, including motors for ocean liners and heavier oilfield equipment,” said Merluzeau, pointing out the freighter’s capacity to carry more than 130 tons.
With two Air Force One aircraft now being renovated to replace jets currently in operation, the 747, the presidents’ aircraft since 1990, is anticipated to continue serving the White House for the foreseeable future.
