747 Celebrates Double Birthday
It’s often said that life begins at forty.
In the case of the ubiquitous 747 family, it celebrates not only the fortieth anniversary of its maiden flight on February 9th, but also the twentieth anniversary of the 747-400’s service entry.
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With over 1,500 orders to date, the 747 is one of the longest running airplane programs at Boeing Commercial Airplanes and almost certainly one of the longest running, if not the longest running widebody airplane programmes still to be in production since the type first underwent construction in the late 1960’s.
A whole host of innovative changes and investment has kept the 747 in touch with the evolving marketplace through the decades, culminating with the first major stretch for the airplane with the launch of the 747-8 family back in November 2005.
By far the most popular passenger variant is the 747-400; this airplane also shares a milestone with the original first flight - commemorating twenty years of service since delivery to Northwest Airlines. While the 747-400 has been supplanted in size by the Airbus A380-800, it is still an airplane of superlatives.
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Today, British Airways sports the largest 747-400 fleet, totalling 57 airplanes.
As evolution continues and dispelling the myth that the 747-8 programme was “under threat”, construction of the first 747-8F began last August.
Image courtesy of Boeing
Randy’s Journal highlighted progress on the first airframe last week with images of the first “humped” section 41 being loaded into assembly tooling.
Rollout and first flight are both expected to take place in the third quarter of 2009 with service entry penned in for the third quarter of 2010 with Cargolux.
Image courtesy of Newairplane.com
While speaking to Randy Tinseth, he told of his admiration for the airplane, what it had accomplished, its achievements and where it was headed in the future.
“There’s no reason why it won’t continue to fly for another forty years,” he said.
Roll on 2049!
7 comments February 9th, 2009
