Shamefully, I missed posting about the fortieth anniversary of the first Boeing 747 flight.
(from ReneS on Flickr)
From the Seattle Times:
About an hour into the first flight of the 747 jumbo jet — 40 years ago today — the pilots moved the wing flaps and heard a bang.
The big plane gave a momentary shudder that morning in 1969, but pilot Jack Waddell and his co-pilot Brien Wygle kept their cool.
Wygle, now an elegant 84-year-old living in Medina, said he recalls some “mild concern.”
“We weren’t alarmed,” Wygle said. Still, they decided to cut short the flight.
Back at Paine Field in Everett, on a cold day with snow on the ground and broken clouds overhead, thousands had gathered to watch.
The plane, powered by newly developed fanjet engines, was two and half times bigger than any existing airliner. Boeing Chairman Bill Allen and a retinue of journalists were set to follow the flight in a smaller 727 to take air-to-air photos.
“It was a huge affair,” said Wygle, Boeing’s chief test pilot at the time. “There were so many unknowns. There were people who doubted it could get off the ground.”
The 747 is a true beauty of human ingenuity. Congratulations to all of you who helped make it happen.
I’m with you. It was and is an amazing achievement of human ingenuity and imagination.
the first true ‘jumbo’ jet (and doesn’t that word just really fit how it looks) and until the 380 the ONLY jumbo (sorry, the rest were just widebodies). Monarch of the skies for 40 years, and, along with the DC-3 and the dash 80/707, a worldshrinker. Don’t forget a bit of thanks for Juan Trippe, who also, along with Boeing, bet the company (Pan Am) to make it happen.
Maybe one day they’ll say the same of the triple 7
OH RITE……………………………………………….
Yeah baby! The folks who work the 747 are some of the coolest aerospace folks at Boeing, immensely and justifiably proud of what they make.
Nice post, beautiful plane. I miss the the part of my youth that was spent in the big birds – 747, DC-10, L-1011. It was still an era of service and comfort. The 747 survives into an age of the 5 Dollar Footlongification of air travel.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGhiWXKGw…
Remember when the top deck was a bar?
Lloyd, check out this 747 landing:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OtnL4KYVt…
how you ever get a 900,000 lb. hunk of aluminum and steel to fly one inch off the ground, let alone 36,000 ft off the ground is truly a marvel.
Heh. Points to the difference between confidence and overconfidence. The pilot’s just out in that wind there flying a heavy kite.
If you’ve never been in or around one of these things in real life, you have no concept of just how huge they are. Growing up in South Dakota, I was 17 before I actually got to ride in a 747.
It’s like a goddamned flying building.
A truly distinctive and graceful airframe. From a distance, it’s easy to confuse a 737 with a 777 with an A330. Nobody ever mistakes a 747 for anything else.
My first time on one was a TWA flight from Chicago to St. Louis (!). No wonder TWA is no longer around– it took more time to board and deplane than time in flight.
Blogs like SLOG should focus on larger happy issues—our new president and our nation’s honest hope for our future, for instance.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WTLGsEErW…
this is one that us aerospace nerds see pretty early on during the course of our studies. man, that 747 reaaally blows.
I hope to see the Everett-made 747 in the skies for another fifty years.
The most beautiful plane ever made, without a doubt. It’s always a treat see one on approach to SeaTac. Only been on one once from Phoenix to London on BA. Long live the 747
I’ve ridden upstairs a couple of times on long flights. What a great experience. Modern, more efficient planes are fine, but the 747 stands alone. Except the Virgin Atlantic ones, where coach passengers are treated worse than shit. Unless you are shorter than 5’2″.