Initially, Boeing found that the 747 was being treated with skepticism by many airlines. To appease concerns about the safety and flyability of such a massive aircraft, the 747 was designed with four backup hydraulic systems, split control surfaces, multiple structural redundancy, and sophisticated flaps which allow it to use standard-length runways. Pratt and Whitney developed a massive high-bypass turbofan engine, the JT9D, that was, in the beginning, exclusively for the 747. This factory is the largest building ever built. Boeing did not have a factory large enough to assemble the giant aircraft, so the company built an all-new assembly building near Everett, Washington. The development of the 747 was a huge undertaking. The expected slow-down in sales of the passenger version in favor of the cargo derivative has only happened in the early 2000s. After being expected to wither on the vine with only 400 sales, the 747 outlived many of its critics and production passed the 1,000 mark in 1993. The upper deck was initially used as a luxurious first-class lounge/bar area, but is now most often used for extra seating capacity. The cockpit was moved to a shortened upper deck so that a nose cone loading door could be included, creating the 747's distinctive "bulge." However, the supersonic transports such as Boeing's still-born SST and the Concorde never lived up to their promise, being too expensive to operate profitably at a time when fuel prices were soaring. Boeing took the shrewd move and designed the 747 so that it could easily be adapted to carry freight, knowing that when sales of the passenger version dried up, it could remain in production as a cargo aircraft. The design was a full length double decker, but due to issues with evacuation routes this idea was scrapped in favor of a wide-body design.Īt the time, it was widely thought that the 747 would be replaced in the future with an SST ( supersonic transport ) design. Pan Am ordered 25 of the initial -100 series. In 1966 Boeing proposed a preliminary configuration for the airliner, to be called the 747. Boeing lost the contract to Lockheed 's C-5 Galaxy but came under pressure from its most loyal airline customer Pan Am to develop a giant passenger plane which would be over twice the size of the 707. The era of commercial jet transportation, led by the enormous popularity of the Boeing 707, had revolutionised long distance travel and made possible the concept of the "global village." Boeing had already developed a study for a very large airplane while bidding on a US military contract for a huge airlifter. The 747 was born from the explosion of air travel in the 1960s. ![]() By May 2004, a total of 1381 aircraft have been built or ordered in various 747 configurations, making it a profitable product for Boeing. In 1989 a Qantas 747-400 flew non-stop from London to Sydney, a distance of 11,185 miles, in 20hrs 9min: this was a delivery flight with no passengers or freight aboard. The 747 flies at high-subsonic speeds (typically 0.85 Mach or 565 mph or 909 km/h) and features intercontinental range (8,430 statute miles, or 13,570 km, for the 747-400 version), in some configurations sufficient to fly New York-Hong Kong (roughly a third of the globe) non-stop. The hump created by the upper deck has made the 747 a highly recognisable icon of air travel. A typical three-class layout accommodates about 400 passengers while a one-class layout accommodates a maximum of 600 passengers. The four-engine 747, produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes, uses a two-deck configuration, the small upper deck is usually used for business-class passengers. Until the first commercial flight of the A380 in 2006, however, it no longer remains the largest passenger aircraft in commercial service. ![]() ![]() The Boeing 747, which is also known as the jumbo jet, is the second largest passenger airliner after the Airbus A380. The Classic Boeing 747 Facts, Specs And Pictures.
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