Last Boeing 747, the original jumbo, will be delivered this week

The Boeing 747, the original and arguably most aesthetic “Jumbo Jet,” revolutionized air travel, but its more than five-decade reign as “Queen of the Skies” ended with the arrival of more efficient twin-jets.

Boeing’s last commercial jumbo will be delivered on Tuesday (31) to Atlas Air in its surviving freighter version, 53 years after the first 747 drew worldwide attention as a passenger aircraft for the defunct Pan Am.

“On the ground it’s wonderful, imposing,” said Bruce Dickinson, lead singer of Iron Maiden, who flew a 747 specially dubbed “Ed Force One” during the British heavy metal band’s 2016 tour.

“And in the air it’s surprisingly agile. A huge plane, but you can really throw it anywhere if you have to.”

Designed in the late 1960s to meet the huge demand for travel, the nose and upper deck of the first wide-body, twin-aisle jet became the world’s most luxurious club above the clouds.

But it was in the seemingly endless rows in the back of the new jumbo jet that the 747 transformed travel.

“This was the plane that introduced flying to America’s middle class,” said Air France-KLM CEO Ben Smith. “Before the 747, the average family couldn’t afford to fly from the US to Europe affordably,” Smith told Reuters.

The jumbo has also made its mark in global affairs, symbolizing war and peace, from the nuclear command post on the American “Doomsday Plane” to visits by the pope in chartered 747, dubbed Shepherd One.

Now, two previously delivered 747s are being retrofitted to replace the US presidential jets known globally as Air Force One.

As a Pan Am flight attendant, Linda Freier has served passengers from Michael Jackson to Mother Teresa.

“There was an incredible diversity of passengers. Well-dressed people and people who had very little and spent everything on that ticket,” said Freier.

Transformer

When the first 747 took off from New York on January 22, 1970, after being delayed by an engine failure, it more than doubled the planes’ capacity to 350-400 seats, which required redesigning airports.

“It was the aircraft for the people, the one that really had the capability to be mass market,” said aviation historian Max Kingsley-Jones. “It was transformative in all aspects of the industry,” added Ascend by Cirium’s senior consultant.

His birth became the stuff of aviation myth.

Pan Am founder Juan Trippe sought to cut costs by increasing the number of seats. On a fishing trip, he challenged Boeing President William Allen to do something that surpassed the 707.

Allen put legendary engineer Joe Sutter in charge. It took just 28 months for Sutter’s team, known as “the Incredibles”, to develop the 747 to its first flight on February 9, 1969.

Though it later became a “cash cow,” the 747’s early years were fraught with problems, and $1 billion in development costs nearly bankrupted Boeing, which believed the future of air travel lay with supersonic jets.

After a slump during the oil crisis of the 1970s, the plane’s heyday came in 1989, when Boeing introduced the 747-400 with new engines and lighter materials, making it perfect for meeting the growing demand for trans-Pacific flights. .

“The 747 is the best looking plane and the easiest to land… It’s like landing an armchair,” said Dickinson, who is also president of aviation maintenance company Caerdav.

era of economics

The same wave of innovation that got the 747 off the ground spelled its end, as advances made it possible for twin-engine jets to replicate its range and capability at a lower cost.

However, the 777X, which is expected to take the 747’s place at the top of the jet market, won’t be ready until at least 2025 after delays.

“In terms of impressive technology, great capacity, great economics… (the 777X) unfortunately makes the 747 look obsolete,” said AeroDynamic Advisory managing director Richard Aboulafia.

However, the latest version of the 747-8 is expected to grace the skies for years, mainly as a freighter, having outperformed Europe’s Airbus double-deck A380 passenger jet.

The latest delivery of the 747 this week casts doubt on the future of the massive but now underutilized Everett wide-body production plant near Seattle, as Boeing also struggles after the Covid pandemic and a 737 MAX safety crisis.

Chief executive Dave Calhoun said Boeing may not design a new plane for at least a decade.

“It was one of the wonders of the modern industrial age,” said Aboulafia, “but this is not an age of wonders, it’s an age of economics.”

Translated by Luiz Roberto M. Gonçalves