Boeing 747

History

The 747 was born from the explosion of air travel in the 1960s. The era of commercial jet transportation, led by the enormous popularity of the Boeing 707, had revolutionized 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. 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 that would be over twice the size of the 707. In 1966 Boeing proposed a preliminary configuration for the airliner, to be called the 747. Pan Am ordered 25 of the initial 100 series. The original design was a full-length double-decker fuselage. Issues with evacuation routes caused this idea to be scrapped in favor of a wide-body design.

Related Topics:
1960 - Boeing 707 - Global village - Lockheed - C-5 Galaxy - Pan Am - 1966 - Wide-body design

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At the time, it was widely thought that the 747 would be replaced in the future with an SST (supersonic transport) design. In a shrewd move, Boeing designed the 747 so that it could easily be adapted to carry freight. Boeing knew that if and when sales of the passenger version dried up, the plane could remain in production as a cargo aircraft. The cockpit was moved to a shortened upper deck so that a nose cone loading door could be included, thus creating the 747's distinctive "bulge". The supersonic transports, including the Concorde and Boeing's never-produced SST, never lived up to expectations, such planes being too expensive to operate profitably at a time when fuel prices were soaring.

Related Topics:
Supersonic transport - Concorde - SST

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The 747's upper deck was initially used as a luxurious first-class lounge/bar area. Now, however, the upper deck is most often used for extra seating capacity.

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The 747 was expected to become obsolete after sales of 400 units. But the 747 outlived many of its critics and production passed the 1,000 mark in 1993. The expected slow-down in sales of the passenger version in favour of the freighter model has only been realized in the early 2000s.

Related Topics:
1993 - 2000s

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The development of the 747 was a huge undertaking. Boeing did not have a facility large enough to assemble the giant aircraft, so the company built an all-new assembly building near Everett, Washington. The factory is the largest building ever built.

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Pratt and Whitney developed a massive high-bypass turbofan engine, the JT9D, which was initially used exclusively with the 747. 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 that allowed it to use standard-length runways.

Related Topics:
Pratt and Whitney - High-bypass turbofan engine - JT9D - Hydraulic

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Initially, many airlines regarded the 747 with skepticism. Boeing's rivals, McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed, were working on wide-body three-engine "tri-jets", which were significantly smaller than the proposed 747. Many airlines believed the 747 would prove too large for an average long distance flight, investing instead in tri-jets. There were also concerns that the 747 would not be compatible with existing airport infrastructure.

Related Topics:
McDonnell Douglas - Lockheed - Tri-jet

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Another issue raised by the airlines was fuel efficiency. A three-engine airliner burns significantly less fuel per flight than a four-engine, and with airlines trying to lower costs, fuel efficiency was an important issue that would briefly return to haunt Boeing in the 1970s.

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Boeing had promised to deliver the 747 to Pan Am by 1970, meaning that it had less than four years to develop, build and test the airplane. Work progressed at such a breakneck pace that all those who worked on the development of the 747 were given the nickname "The Incredibles". The massive cost of developing the 747 and building the Everett factory meant that Boeing had gambled its very existence on the 747's success, and the company was nearly bankrupted in the early 1970s.

Related Topics:
1970 - 1970s

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The gamble paid off, however, and Boeing enjoyed a monopoly on very large passenger transports that would only be broken more than 35 years later with the advent of the Airbus A380.

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