Boeing’s last commercial 747 is set to be delivered today
More than 50 years after the Boeing 747 first rolled onto the tarmac, the last of its kind was completed Tuesday at the same factory where the story started.
The jumbo jet delivered this week marks the last 747 Boeing will ever build, and signals the close of an age of innovation that reshaped the landscape of commerce and normalized global travel for the everyman.
Boeing’s final 747 was commissioned by Atlas Air Worldwide airfreight company, and will serve in its cargo fleet. It was delivered to Atlas Tuesday at Boeing’s massive factory in Everett, Washington, where it will depart from this week.
The plane was the 1,574th built by Boeing since the 1960s, and though there will be no 1,575th, it is likely the resilient aircraft – long-dubbed the ‘Queen of the Skies’ – will remain in the clouds for decades to come.
The last Boeing 747 ever built leaving the factory on Tuesday morning
Boeing workers install wiring in the cockpit of one of the first 747 prototypes in 1967
Before the 747, commercial air travel was limited to single-aisle jets with lower passenger capacities, which made intercontinental air-travel prohibitively expensive for many.
But in the mid-60s, executives from the airline giant PanAm agreed to buy a massive, innovative jetliner with the potential to overturn that landscape, if only Boeing could manage to design and build one.
With the kind of drive and ambition that sent man to the moon by 1969, over the course of a mere 16 months and with the effort of 50,000 workers, Boeing designed and built a plane that dwarfed any plane the world had previously seen and had it in the air for test flights by 1968.
The new jet – the 747, the first ever dubbed ‘the jumbo jet’ – was wide enough to fit two aisles down the main cabin and seat more than 300 passengers. Its fuselage was 225 feet long, its wingspan equally wide, its tail wing stood nearly six stories tall, and four massive engines thrust it into the sky.
The last 747 sitting in Boeing’s Everett, Washington, factory, where the first 747 was also built
Boeing’s last 747 emerges from the factory on Tuesday morning for delivery to its buyer
Workers inside the nose-loading cargo hold of the last Boeing 747 ever produced
At full speed, the new 747 covered three football fields every second. Its cargo hold was so massive it could hold 19million golf balls.
The wingspan was so large that 45 cars could fit on them, and three 1,500 square-foot houses could fit in the cabin.
Each plane was built from about 6million parts – half of which were fasteners.
The wings alone were 30 times heavier than the first plane Boeing built in 1916.
Its 150-foot economy cabin alone was longer than the Wright Brothers first 120-foot flight in 1903.
The first 747 Boeing put into commercial use being build. It entered the market in 1970
Workers on the tail of one of Boeing’s first 747s at the factory in 1967
The first 747 is revealed to the public outside Boeing’s Everett factory in 1968
The first Boeing 747 on its maiden-flight in 1969. Production of the model ended Tuesday
The Boeing 747’s first flight in February 1969. It entered the market a year later
While the 747 was being developed, Boeing was also working on a supersonic commercial jet which many feared would render the jumbo jet irrelevant.
To ensure the investment was worthwhile, engineers decided to design the 747 to accommodate freight, and added a nose that could be lifted to easily load cargo.
That design forced engineers to build the cockpit over top of the main cabin, which allowed for a second-floor passenger cabin many airlines converted into a lounge for first class passengers. American Airlines even added a piano lounge to some of their 747s.
The supersonic jet was eventually scrapped, and when the 747 entered service in 1970 with a maiden-flight from London to New York.
With so many seats available on each flight and the staggering range the jets could fly, prices were lowered to fill the plane and international air travel became attainable for people who had previously never dreamed of paying for it.
The first-class lounge in a Boeing 747. American Airlines installed pianos in their lounges
The first-class cabin in the 747 was connected to a lounge by a spiral staircase
A hostess pours wine for a passenger in the first-class section of a Boeing 747 on a PanAm flight
Passengers sit in a full sized mock-up of a Boeing 747’s economy cabin
The 747 became not only a mainstay for commercial air travel, but also a status symbol among airlines. Without a 747, an airline was not an airline.
NASA even commissioned a model which would be used to help ferry the space shuttle through the sky and partake in test flights for the duration of the program.
Over the 80s the model was developed and several new iterations were introduced, and in 1989 the new 747-400 became the best-selling model. During the 1990s Boeing would sell more 747s than any other decade of production.
While the 747 remained the mainstay for airfreight, with the introduction of the 777 – which had two engines and could fly just as far as the 747 but far more efficiently – its commercial use began to wane as the 2000s began.
Boeing introduced the last 747 variant in 2010 – the 747-8 – and produced 50 planes with a capacity for 467 passengers, and 100 more for freight use.
NASA commissioned a 747 model which was used to ferry its space shuttles and help it participate in test flights. Above, a 747 carries a shuttle in 1976
The unveiling of a Boeing 747 model with the capacity to carry 412 passengers
A jeep is loaded into the nose of a Boeing 747-8F. The liftable nose was a vital design for the plane’s use as an airfreight craft
With the introduction of the 737 Max and a mindset towards more sustainable and cost-effective models, Boeing announced the retirement of the 747 in 2019.
The last was built in the same Everett factory – the largest building by volume on the plant – where the first was built years ago.
But the 747s will remain the skies for years to come. Airlines like Lufthansa, Korean Air, and Air China still fly them for passenger use.
Boeing is also producing a pair of VC-25s – versions of the 747 heavily modified for military use – to serve as Air Force One for the United States president. They are expected to be ready by 2026 at the earliest.
It is probable recently built planes like the one delivered Tuesday could be in the sky as late as 2050.
During its 54 years of production, Boeing estimates 747s have flown over 42billion nautical miles – about 101,500 trips to the moon and back – and carried over 5.9billion people.