Boeing said goodbye on Tuesday to an icon of aviation, which helped democratize air passenger transport, with the delivery of its well-known 747 plane, the “Jumbo Jet.”
Since its maiden flight in 1969, the “giant and graceful” 747 has served as a cargo plane, a commercial jet capable of carrying around 500 passengers, a shuttle for NASA’s space shuttles or ‘Air Force One’.
This device revolutionized travel, connecting international cities that had never had direct routes and helping to democratize air passenger transport, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
Over the past 15 years, US Boeing and its European rival Airbus have introduced wider-body, more cost-effective and fuel-efficient aircraft with just two engines instead of the 747’s four.
The latest aircraft is number 1,574 built by Boeing in the Puget Sound region of Washington state and delivered to Atlas Air.
“If we love this area, we fear this moment. Nobody wants a four-engine plane anymore, but that doesn’t erase the tremendous contribution that the aircraft has made to the development of the industry and its remarkable legacy. analyst Richard Aboulafia.
Boeing decided to build the 747 after losing a contract for a huge military transport aircraft, the C-5A, taking advantage of newly developed engines for civilian aircraft, which burned less fuel when air passed over the engine core, allowing a higher flight. range.
It took more than 50,000 Boeing employees in less than 16 months to produce the first 747, a Herculean effort that earned them the nickname “The Incredibles.”
The production of the “Jumbo Jet” required the construction of a huge factory in Everett, north of Seattle, the largest building in the world by volume.
The aircraft’s fuselage was 68.5 meters long, and the tail was as tall as a six-story building. The aircraft’s design included a second story that extended from the cockpit to the first third of the plane, giving it a distinctive “hump” that inspired the nickname “The Whale”, although it would eventually be known as the “Queen of the Heavens”. .
Some airlines have turned the second floor into a first-class drinks lounge, but some companies have even converted the lower deck into lounges or even a piano bar.
A decommissioned 747, originally built for Singapore Airlines in 1976, has been converted into a 33-room hotel near Stockholm airport.
“[Este avião] set a new standard for airlines to figure out what to do with and how to fill it. It became the essence of mass air travel: they couldn’t fill it with people paying full price, so they lowered prices to get people on board,” explained Guillaume de Syon, a professor of history at Albright College of Pennsylvania specializing in aviation and mobility.
The first 747 entered service in 1970 on Pan Am’s New York-London route, although it appeared at poor timing, with the 1973 oil crisis, Aboulafia stressed.
An updated model, the 747-400 series, arrived in the late 1980s and had a much better time, coinciding with the Asian economic boom of the early 1990s, he added, noting how much easier it was for more people reach other regions of the world planet.
Delta was the last US airline to use the 747 for passenger flights, which ended in 2017, although a few other international airlines continue to fly it, including German carrier Lufthansa.
Source: TSF
