Boeing delivers last 747, saying goodbye to ‘Queen of the Skies’

SEATTLE — Boeing bid farewell to the iconic 747, delivering the last airplane to Atlas Air on Tuesday afternoon and marking an finish of an period when the first-ever “jumbo jet” dominated the skies.

Hundreds of Boeing workers – together with some of the so-called “Incredibles” who developed the jet in the Nineteen Sixties – watched the last supply of the historic airplane, which introduced air journey to the masses and represented an indelible slice of Americana.

The occasion at the mammoth manufacturing plant was capped off by a star look by John Travolta, who recounted studying to fly the 747-400 as an envoy for Qantas Airways. “[It was] the toughest program that any commercial pilot will ever have to endure,” stated Travolta, who referred to as the jet the “most well thought out and safest aircraft ever built.”

Referred to as the “Queen of the Skies,” the 747 was the world’s first twin-aisle jetliner, which Boeing designed and inbuilt 28 months and Pan Am launched in 1970.

“It’s the airplane that redefined the industry and redefined air travel,” stated Man Norris, co-author of “Boeing 747: Design and Development Since 1969.”

British billionaire entrepreneur Richard Branson, who was impressed to begin an airline with a single Boeing 747 after getting caught on a delayed flight, earlier on Tuesday called it a “wonderful beast” as he bid farewell.

Boeing’s Everett, Washington, facility has been the 747’s manufacturing website since the airplane’s conception. Inbuilt 1967 to produce the mammoth jet, it stays the world’s largest manufacturing plant in accordance to Boeing.

However after 5 a long time, buyer demand for the 747 eroded as Boeing and Airbus AIR.PA developed extra gas environment friendly two-engine widebody planes. When Boeing confirmed in July 2020 that it might finish 747 manufacturing, it was already solely producing at a fee of half an plane a month.

Boeing delivered 5 747s in 2022, whereas in 1990, the peak supply 12 months of the bestselling 747-400 model, Boeing delivered 70 747s.

As totally different sections of the last 747 – the wings or fuselage buildings, for instance – had been full, the manufacturing line “just slowly started to shut down,” stated Kim Smith, Boeing’s vice chairman and basic supervisor for the 747 and 767 packages.

Smith stated all 747 program employees had been transferred to different jobs or voluntarily retired.

The last 747 rolled out on Dec. 7, capping the program at 1,574 whole. The airplane has since accomplished inspections and flight exams, flying to Portland over the holidays to get a paint job. The airplane will fly off on Wednesday morning to Atlas’ headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio.

Whereas Boeing additionally builds the 767 and 777 in Everett, the firm has but to resolve which program will completely take over the 747 manufacturing bay, which is at present getting used for 787 stock and 777X work, Smith stated.

Boeing will stay tied to the 747 via the aftermarket enterprise and the Air Drive One substitute program, which Boeing received in 2018.

The inheritor obvious to the 747, the 777X will not be prepared for supply till 2025, however Boeing Chief Government David Calhoun centered his goodbye on that future: “The 777, the next plane to dominate this space, displaced all its competition just like that – and we haven’t even introduced the best version.” — Reuters

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