![]() ![]() Over the years, as engineers and designers worked on the plane, Boeing’s financial situation dimmed. To make that possible, they placed the flight deck above the main cabin, rather than at the front of the plane, creating the 747’s unusual hump. The designers wanted the nose to lift up so cargo could be loaded more easily. But, even then, many people within Boeing were expecting the 747 to soon be supplanted by a supersonic jet the company was developing.Īs a result, and to justify their investment, Boeing and Pan Am decided that the plane should be designed with passengers and freight in mind, a choice that would be crucial to its success and determine its unique shape. The 747’s long life is remarkable partly because its start was so uncertain.īoeing began designing the plane in the mid-1960s at the request of Pan American World Airways, a leading airline that filed for bankruptcy protection in 1991. Photograph: Lindsey Wasson/The New York Times Last Tuesday it was handed over to Atlas Air Worldwide, a cargo and passenger airline that will use it to haul goods.Ī view inside the interior of the craft. The plane and its systems continued to be evaluated. Outside, fuel systems and other features were checked and the plane embarked on a test flight, landing in Portland, Oregon, for a paint job before flying back. Finally, the plane was rolled out of the factory, through bay doors several storeys high that could accommodate the jet’s 68-metre wingspan. Near the end of assembly, the engines were added. Soon after, flooring, lighting, walls, parts of the flight deck and other interior fixtures were installed. “And you have a very clear path of what lies ahead.” “If you’ve done that, there are many, many important steps behind you already,” Kopecki says. Then, the plane was lowered from its supports and allowed to stand on its own, a major milestone. “That’s the place where the airplane actually finally becomes an airplane,” Kopecki says.Īfter the body sections were attached, the landing gear was installed and six-tonne counterweights were hung from the wings. Then, the front and back sections were lifted and moved into place on either side. Next, the middle section of the fuselage was lowered and attached to the wings. There, they were attached to either side of a stub known as the centre wing box. Once the wings were ready, they were hoisted several storeys high by a crane and moved into a bay sandwiched between where the wings and fuselage were built. Workers unhook crane cables from the vertical fin as it is attached to the plane. Photograph: Jovelle Tamayo/The New York Times Photograph: Meron Tekie Menghistab/The New York TimesĬranes lift the rear fuselage during the final body join. The plant has been used to make other planes, but it has remained home to the 747 down to the final one: No 1,574.Ī custom crane moving the fuselage, which will then be lowered on to the body of the plane. ![]() That plant, generally regarded as the world’s largest building by volume, was built for the 747 in the 1960s. But the final, awe-inspiring work of assembling them into a plane was completed at a factory in Everett, in Washington state. The 747 is composed of about six million parts produced all over the world. The Boeing factory where the last 747 jumbo jet was built in Everett, Washington. It was a quantum leap.” Assembling a Goliath “If you had to make a list of the 10 most important airplanes ever built since the Wright Flyer, the 747 needs to be on that list. “It’s one of the great ones,” says Shea Oakley, who runs an aviation-history consulting firm and is a former executive director of the Aviation Hall of Fame and Museum of New Jersey, in the United States. It could still be flying decades from now, a longevity that aviation historians say is a testament to the work that engineers, designers and others put into repeatedly remaking the jet, which transformed air travel. With a distinctive hump, the 747, nicknamed the Queen of the Skies, is perhaps the most widely recognisable commercial plane ever built. But its days are numbered: Boeing last week handed over the last 747 it will ever make. The jet has been a workhorse ever since, ferrying passengers and cargo around the world. More than half a century ago Boeing unveiled the 747, a massive and striking plane that captured the public imagination and brought air travel to the masses. ![]()
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