quote:

After 54 years, the last 747 reached the end of Boeing’s Everett production line.

The iconic humpback jet transformed travel and the community that gave it wings. The factory that was hastily set up on Snohomish County farmland in the 1960s grew to enormous proportions, becoming the world’s largest building by volume. Inside, generations of workers assembled 1,574 of the iconic aircraft.

These images capture the last of them, a freighter built for cargo carrier Atlas Air, during its assembly at the Everett factory. As the last “Queen of the Skies” approaches its Tuesday handoff, read these reflections by eight Boeing workers whose lives were shaped by the 747.

Photos:

https://www.seattletimes.com/b...he-final-boeing-747/

Truly a milestone in aviation history.

I remember the first time I saw a 747. One night, I was eating in a restaurant in the Toronto, Ontario airport. The restaurant had floor-to-ceiling windows facing the airstrip and I had been watching planes pass by in the dark as I ate. Another plane began to pass and the windows of the plane went on and on much further than I had anticipated. I got up and walked closer to the restaurant window to see out into the night. That plane was the first 747 I ever saw.

Big Al

I’ll share a few thoughts when I’m at a real keyboard (not my phone).

I sent these articles to my neighbor, who worked for decades for Northwest and subsequently Delta after the two airlines merged. He was on the cargo rather than passenger side and retired a few years back. In response to my email, he mentioned that he had gone out to Washington a couple of times when his employer had 747s under construction. The guy is a total plane geek and he loved seeing them being built.

His license plate: FRTR 747.

Zoom in on Eastern Washington

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/GTI747

edit:

For real?

Totally!

Jumbo jet skywriting!

I came back to Seattle in 1988 and signed on with a temp agency to see if I could land a job somewhere. My fourth temp assignment turned into a permanent position with the New-Fangled Flying Machine Company. I was brought in to work on a database to support customer training on the 747-400 which entered service while I was still temping. That was actually my last formal association with the 747, since my permanent position was working on the 757 and 767, then I joined the 777 group as it was first forming.

But the 747 is an incredible machine. In fact, they called the people who designed and built it back in the 1960s "The Incredibles". They faced monumental challenges, and delivered what the customer, PanAm, was looking for. The airplane revolutionized air travel and made international travel accessible and affordable for millions of people for whom it previously wasn't.

I have taken dozens, maybe hundreds of people through various parts of the Everett factory. It's always fun to tell people that it is the largest building in the world by volume. Disneyland would fit inside the footprint of the factory. Vatican City would fit inside the footprint of the factory. It's huge. I would say, "a 747 is big, right? Imagine a building big enough that you can *lose* a 747 in it. I know... because I've done just that. Like... it was *here* yesterday... now someone's gone and moved it!"

They were literally building the factory a few feet ahead of the first airplane.

Working around the 747 and the 777 totally changes your perspective and sense of scale. When I go look at 737s, everything looks tiny. You may recall from a previous discussion I noted that the fuselage of a 737 is the same diameter as the engine inlet on a 777. And a 747 engines are only a bit smaller.

The entire first flight of the Wright Flyer was shorter than the fuselage of a 747.

The A380 typically seats around 800 people. I think the record for the most people ever on any airplane stands at over 1170 on a 747. An airline used a 747 to airlift people from Ethiopia. How did they get so many people on? First they took out all the seats and all but a few lavs and one galley.

It was the 777 that finally put the 747 out of production. The newest 777 model can go just as far, carry nearly as many people, and uses a lot less fuel and has much lower maintenance costs since it only has two engines.

If you are in Seattle, try to visit the Museum of Flight. They have the first ever 747 there. It has practically no interior installed, so you can look up from the passenger cabin and see all the cables and wires and stuff that make it work. Very cool.

If you are in London, visit the Science Museum. At one end of the Aviation exhibit, they have a "slice" of a 747. One side of it is just frame and skin, then every foot or so going across, they added the cables and wires and stuff, the carpet and ceiling panels, then the seats and sidewall panels and insulation and stuff, so the other side is completely finished. Very cool.

The 747 is considered one of the most recognizable objects in the world, right up there with the iconic Coca-Cola bottle. Nothing else looks like it. You can spot one from miles away. I've passed a lot of road signs that tell you where to turn to go to the airport. Many of them have a silhouette of a 747 on them... even if the airport is a 2500-foot grass strip.

A lot of 747s were retired a year into the pandemic. Several airlines I've worked with accelerated their retirement plan by a couple years. Now many of them are clamoring for airplanes again. There are several companies that convert retired passenger airplanes into cargo planes. There will still be a lot of them flying for a couple decades to come.

It still is a marvelous machine.

quote:

Originally posted by pianojuggler:
Zoom in on Eastern Washington

https://flightaware.com/live/flight/GTI747

That's some precision flying.

Big Al

Thanks, pj! That was fun.

From my neighbor:

quote:

Followed this flight a couple of times this afternoon. She has landed in CVG now.
My guess is that this aircraft will begin earning its keep with its first revenue flight tomorrow.

Not sure how long the image will be available on flightaware. Thought I'd capture it for posterity...



BTW, who was piloting the aircraft, Atlas or Boeing?

Atlas. They accepted delivery of the airplane yesterday. It’s theirs now. They were flying it home. As your neighbor said, it will probably get put right to work. Airplanes sitting on the ground aren’t making any money.

I watched an animation of the portion of the flight that made the crowned 747. By the time they got to the '4', I would have needed a barf bag. Still, it's amazing. I loved reading all about the final sendoff. Had I known it was happening, I might've even driven up to watch it leave Paine Field.

The 747 was my favorite plane to fly, even though I never got to go up into the upper cabin! It was so spacious and so stable.