On January 31, at a function at its Everett facility in Seattle, Washington, attended by thousands of employees and company executives, the Boeing Commercial Airplane Company bade an emotional farewell to a Boeing 747-8 freighter aircraft.
The aircraft rolled off the assembly line on December 6, 2022. It is the final and 1,574th 747 aircraft to be manufactured by Boeing. It was delivered to Atlas Air, a New York-based company that operates a fleet of Boeing 747 freighter aircraft.
The event started with a parade in which employees carried flags with the logos of over 100 airlines at the time of delivery of the first 747 aircraft. The last two flags were carried by the grandson of the founder of Pan American World Airways (Pan Am) – the first airline to take delivery of a Boeing 747 aircraft and the chief pilot of Atlas Air’s Boeing 747 fleet.
The majestic Boeing 747, dubbed the Queen of the Skies, revolutionised air travel as the world’s first twin-aisle aircraft and enabled more people to fly farther, faster and more affordably than ever before. With its distinctively recognisable hump, this iconic aeroplane is a symbol of great engineering, innovation and an outstanding work of architecture which cemented Boeing’s dominance of the commercial aircraft market.
The genesis of the Boeing 747 was Pan Am’s desire for a jet with twice the payload capacity of a Boeing 707 aircraft and which could reduce seat-mile costs by 30 per cent. In 1965, Boeing began a design study with Pan Am and other airlines to better understand their aircraft requirements.
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In 1966, Boeing and Pan Am entered into an agreement for Boeing to manufacture the four-engine 747 aircraft and Pan Am agreed to buy 25 of the aircraft, at a cost of US$525 million.
During the ceremonial 747 contract-signing banquet in Seattle at Boeing's 50th Anniversary in 1966, Juan Trippe, the then president of Pan Am, predicted that the 747 aircraft would be "…a great weapon for peace, competing with intercontinental missiles for mankind's destiny."
As the 747-launch customer and its early involvement in the 747 programme, Pan Am was able to influence the design and development of the aircraft so it could be easily adapted to carry freight and remain in production even if sales of the passenger versions declined. The partial double-deck 747 aircraft was designed with a raised cockpit so it could be converted to a freighter by installing a front cargo door. In future variants, the upper deck was extended to become an exclusive first-class passenger cabin with full sleeper seats.
The aircraft had its first flight test on February 9, 1969 and received its FAA certification in December 1969. It was nicknamed the "jumbo jet" as the first wide-body aircraft. On January 15, 1970, US First Lady Pat Nixon christened Pan Am's first 747 – Clipper Young America – at Washington Dulles International Airport. Instead of champagne, red, white, and blue water was sprayed on the aircraft.
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