Boeing has delivered its last 747 jumbo jet, more than a half-century after production of the plane began.
Boeing delivered its final 747 jumbo jet on Jan. 31 as thousands of workers looked on. Former flight test engineer Thomas H. Gray described the moment.
Boeing’s success with the 747 — the company has now delivered 1,574 models and racked up more than 118 million flight hours worldwide — began with a failure. After losing a military contract for a large cargo plane, Boeing adapted its freight design as a large civilian aircraft. It found a willing buyer in Pan American Airways, which ordered 25 of the planes in April 1966. The new twin-aisle design lowered the per-seat cost and doubled passenger capacity.
The 747 led to a “dramatic increase in international air travel” by reducing costs, said Scott Miller, a pilot and a lecturer in San José State University’s aviation department, said in an email. “But that won’t be the 747’s legacy. Its legacy will be the timeless majesty of the aircraft itself,” Miller said.
“In aviation, everybody can probably tell you two things: the first time they flew anything and the first time they flew on a 747,” said Dave Kircher, general manager of a General Electric production line that manufactures engines that went on the Boeing aircraft. “I’ll never forget being on that upper deck of a 747. It’s just iconic,” he said,
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