60 Fun Facts About Boeing 747

How many engines does a Boeing 747 have?

The original JT9D turbofans were later joined by General Electric CF6 and Rolls-Royce RB211 options.

Which airline was the launch customer for the 747, ordering 25 in April 1966?

The order was worth $525 million, and Pan Am shaped the design more than any single airline before or since.

Pan Am's president asked Boeing for a jet how much bigger than the 707?

Juan Trippe wanted seat costs cut by 30% and thought bigger planes would ease airport congestion.

Who led the 747 design team, having left the 737 programme in 1965?

Air & Space/Smithsonian later called him the 'father of the 747'.

On what date did the 747 make its first flight?

Jack Waddell and Brien Wygle flew it, with Jess Wallick as flight engineer, and found it largely immune to Dutch roll.

The 747 entered service on January 22, 1970, on which Pan Am route?

The original aircraft, Clipper Young America, overheated an engine, so Clipper Victor flew the delayed inaugural.

Who christened Pan Am's first 747 at Dulles on January 15, 1970?

Red, white and blue water was sprayed on the aircraft instead of champagne.

The 747 was the first aircraft to be called what, as the first wide-body airliner?

The aviation press coined the term for its size; 'Queen of the Skies' came later.

Why was the 747's cockpit placed on a raised upper deck, creating its distinctive hump?

Boeing expected supersonic jets to make it obsolete as an airliner, so it was designed for easy conversion to a freighter.

Boeing's raised-cockpit and nose-door ideas came from its losing bid for which 1960s USAF contest?

Every bidder moved the cockpit above the cargo bay so the aircraft could load through the nose.

Because of the pace of the 747 programme, the people who worked on it earned what nickname?

They had 28 months to design the aircraft, two-thirds of the normal time.

The purpose-built 747 factory near Everett, Washington, holds what world record?

The full-scale mock-up was built inside before the roof over it was finished, and the plant has since been expanded for other wide-bodies.

Which engine maker agreed in late 1966 to develop the JT9D high-bypass turbofan for the 747?

GE had pioneered high-bypass technology but was tied up building engines for the C-5 Galaxy.

Boeing built a taxi trainer nicknamed 'Waddell's Wagon' for the 747. What was it?

It let pilots practise steering from the unfamiliar height of the upper deck before any 747 was finished.

How long did the first full-scale 747 evacuation test take, against the FAA's 90-second limit?

Upper-deck volunteers escaped by harness and reel rather than a slide, and several people were injured.

Counterweights of what material fixed the wing flutter problem on early 747s?

The El Al 747 that crashed at Amsterdam in 1992 carried 622 lb of it in the tailplane, prompting worried investigations.

How much did Boeing owe its banks during the 747 programme, a record for any company at the time?

Boeing's president William Allen later admitted, 'It was really too large a project for us.'

What is the sweep angle of the 747's wings?

The high sweep gives a Mach 0.85 cruise and shortens the span enough to fit existing hangars.

How many main landing gear legs does a 747 have?

Each carries a four-wheel bogie, and the aircraft can land on just two opposing gears if the others fail.

In a typical three-class layout, about how many passengers does a 747 carry?

Economy is ten abreast in a 3–4–3 layout, with a smaller cabin upstairs behind the cockpit.

Which 747 variant of 1989 brought a two-crew glass cockpit and became the most common version?

It cut the instruments from about 690 dials to 300 and eliminated the flight engineer.

The shortened, longer-range 747SP entered service in 1976. What does 'SP' stand for?

It was 48 feet 4 inches shorter than the -100 and was born from a joint request by Pan Am and Iran Air.

How many 747SPs were built?

The line reopened in 1987 after five years to build one last SP for the United Arab Emirates government.

The 747-300, first completed in 1983, was distinguished by what change?

It was briefly designated 747SUD, for 'stretched upper deck', before the -300 name stuck.

The 747-8 takes the '8' in its name from which other Boeing aircraft, whose GEnx engines it shares?

It was launched on November 14, 2005 as the 747 Advanced and first delivered in October 2011.

Which cargo airline took the first delivery of a 747-8, in 2011?

Lufthansa received the first passenger 747-8 Intercontinental in May 2012.

How long is the 747-8's fuselage, making it the longest airliner in service when it debuted?

It was stretched 18 feet over the -400 and overtook the Airbus A340-600.

How many Boeing 747s were built in total over the 54-year production run?

The last, a 747-8F for Atlas Air, rolled out on December 6, 2022 and was delivered on January 31, 2023.

Which airline received the very last 747 built, in January 2023?

Boeing threw an event at Everett for thousands of workers to mark the delivery.

The US presidential aircraft popularly known as Air Force One is which 747-based military variant?

The E-4B is the airborne command post; 'Air Force One' is technically the call sign of any USAF aircraft carrying the president.

NASA's two Shuttle Carrier Aircraft were modified 747s bought second-hand from which two carriers?

Orbiters were hoisted onto their backs by gantry-like Mate-Demate Devices for the ferry flights.

SOFIA, the NASA and DLR flying infrared telescope, was built into which 747 variant?

The ex-Pan Am aircraft, named Clipper Lindbergh, went on display at the Pima Air and Space Museum in Tucson in 2022.

How many people were aboard the El Al 747 that set a passenger record during Operation Solomon in 1991?

The previous record was 674 on a Qantas 747 evacuating Darwin after Cyclone Tracy in 1974.

Aviation's deadliest accident, two 747s colliding on a runway in 1977, happened on which island?

KLM Flight 4805 began its take-off run in fog while Pan Am Flight 1736 was still on the runway; 583 died.

Which country banned Pan Am from flying 747s into its capital in the type's first year, over wake-turbulence fears?

Boeing answered by flying a 737 close behind a 747 to measure the wake, finding it little worse than a 707's.

To ferry a spare, a 747 can carry a non-functioning fifth powerplant where?

Virgin Orbit later used the same mount point to carry its LauncherOne rocket to altitude.

The 747 was the first commercial aircraft to fly with which technology, removing the need for a navigator?

The Classic variants still carried a flight engineer alongside the two pilots.

Roughly how much electrical wiring runs through a 747 Classic airframe?

The -400 cut the wiring by about 30% and also carries a mile of hydraulic lines.

Which trijet wide-bodies were the 747's main competitors during its production run?

US domestic carriers preferred the smaller trijets; international airlines wanted the 747's range.

Which aircraft finally surpassed the 747 as the largest passenger airliner in service, in 2007?

The A380 was delivered between 2007 and 2021, and struggled commercially just as other quadjets did.

Which airline was the sole customer for the short-range 747SR, built for Japanese domestic routes?

Later SRs carried up to 550 passengers and were built for 52,000 flights against a standard 747's 24,600.

Which airline inaugurated the first 747 freighter service, with the 747-200F in 1972?

It stayed the sole freighter operator until other airlines ordered 747 freighters in 1974.

How many 747-100s were built?

Boeing kept the prototype, City of Everett; the unit price in 1972 was $24 million.

The 747-400 Dreamlifter is a converted 747-400 used to carry sub-assemblies of which aircraft?

Evergreen Aviation Technologies in Taiwan performed the conversions, and the first flew in September 2006.

Which experimental 747 was built as an Airborne Laser for US missile defence?

It was one of several test-bed 747s alongside SOFIA and the Shuttle Carriers.

Boeing's original 747 concept, scrapped in early 1966, was what?

Evacuation worries and poor cargo capacity killed it in favour of a wide single deck; another idea with pilots below passengers was dubbed the 'anteater'.

How many 747s were in active service worldwide by 1982?

Nearly a third of them flew for Asia-Pacific airlines.

Which First Lady's husband was in office when the 747 entered service in 1970?

His wife Pat did the christening honours a week before the first commercial flight.

In which year did British Airways fly its final 747 services out of Heathrow?

The airline announced the retirement that July as the pandemic crushed long-haul demand; the last flights left on 8 October.

Which museum preserves the very first 747, the prototype named City of Everett?

Registered N7470, it never entered airline service; the nose of another early 747 sits at the National Air and Space Museum.

What did the 747-300 introduce in place of the spiral staircase of earlier variants?

The change freed up room above and below for more seats on the stretched upper deck.

Which airline retired the last US passenger 747 in December 2017?

Delta flew three of its last four on a farewell tour from Seattle to Atlanta, Los Angeles and Minneapolis/St Paul.

Iran Air helped prompt the 747SP with a planned route from Tehran to which city?

When launched it was the world's longest non-stop commercial flight; Pan Am wanted the same range for its New York–Middle East routes.

What was sprayed on Pan Am's first 747 at its January 1970 christening instead of champagne?

Pan Am chairman Najeeb Halaby looked on at Dulles a week before the type's first commercial flight.

Why did Boeing refuse to sell 747s to the Soviet Union in the Cold War?

Soviet delegates posing as buyers of 25 aircraft tried to obtain a document on the 747's design objectives while touring Everett.

Up to how many passengers can the 747-8 Intercontinental carry in a three-class layout?

It can fly them more than 8,000 nautical miles at Mach 0.855, sharing much with the common 747-400.

By what percentage did the 747-400's wingtip extensions and winglets improve fuel efficiency?

Each measures six feet, and the model also brought a two-crew glass cockpit like the 757 and 767.

How many volunteers took part in the 747's cabin-mock-up emergency evacuation test?

The first full-scale run took two and a half minutes against the FAA's 90-second limit, and several volunteers were injured.

On which route did Northwest launch 747-400 passenger service in February 1989?

KLM introduced the combi that September and Cargolux the freighter in 1993.

Which Pan Am 747's engine overheating delayed the type's first commercial flight by a day?

The New York–London inaugural slipped from the evening of 21 January to 22 January 1970 as a result.