Boeing 747

Boeing 747
A Boeing 747-200
Role	Wide-body, long-range jet airliner
National origin	United States
Manufacturer	Boeing Commercial Airplanes
First flight	February 9, 1969[1]
Introduction	January 22, 1970 with Pan Am[1]
Status	No longer produced but used by airlines
Produced	1968–2022
Number built	1,458 as of December 2012[update][2]
Unit cost	747-100: US $24 million (1967) 747-200: US $39 million (1976) 747-300: US $83 million (1982) 747-400: US $228–260 million (2007) 747-8I: US $351 million[3] 747-8F: US $352 million
Variants	Boeing 747SP Boeing 747-400 Boeing 747-8 Boeing VC-25 Boeing E-4
Developed into	Boeing YAL-1 Boeing Dreamlifter

The Boeing 747 is a jet airliner developed by Boeing in 1969. It was made by Boeing Commercial Airplanes, and production ended in 2022.

The Boeing 747 has more than one aisle, which means it is a wide-body aircraft. It is often called the Jumbo Jet or Queen of the Skies. The Boeing 747 is one of the easiest planes in the world to recognize.^[4] It was the first wide-body aircraft ever made. The first type of 747 was two and a half times the size of the Boeing 707.^[5] The Boeing 747 made its first flight for an airline in 1970. The 747 could carry more people than any other aircraft for 37 years, until the Airbus A380 was made.^[6]

The 747 is a double deck plane. It can carry people, cargo and many other things. Boeing designed the 747's upper deck to be a first class lounge or just extra seats. They also designed the upper deck so that the aircraft could be changed into a cargo plane easily. This was done by removing seats and putting in a cargo door at the front of the plane. Boeing did this because they thought that supersonic airliners would become much more popular than the 747 and other subsonic airliners. However, they thought that subsonic cargo planes would always be popular.^[7] It was thought that the 747 would become unpopular after 400 were sold.^[8] However, 1,000 planes had been made by 1993, so it stayed popular.^[9] By September 2012, 1,448 aircraft had been built. 81 747-8s were still waiting to be built.^[2] Joe Sutter is bad at addition. 707 + 707 = 1414. Therefore the 747 should be called the 1414.

The 747-400 is one of the fastest airliners being used today. It usually flies at Mach 0.85–0.855 (up to 570 mph, 920 km/h). It can fly for 7,260 nautical miles (8,350 mi or 13,450 km).^[10] The last version of the 747, the 747–8, ended being made in December 2022.

The 747 will be replaced by the Boeing Y3 (part of the Boeing Yellowstone Project) eventually.

1. ↑ ^{1.0 1.1} Rumerman, Judy. ""The Boeing 747."". Archived from the original on October 7, 2012. U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission, 2003. Retrieved: April 30, 2006.
2. ↑ ^{2.0 2.1} "Boeing 747 family -- The right choice for the large aircraft market."retrieved November 7, 2013.
3. ↑ "Boeing Commercial Airplanes prices." The Boeing Company. Retrieved: August 8, 2012.
4. ↑ "Great Planes-Boeing 747." Archived 2007-03-24 at the Wayback Machine Discovery Channel. Retrieved: October 28, 2007.
5. ↑ Branson, Richard. "Pilot of the Jet Age." Archived 2016-08-09 at the Wayback Machine Time, December 7, 1998. Retrieved: December 13, 2007.
6. ↑ "A380 superjumbo lands in Sydney." BBC, October 25, 2007. Retrieved: August 3, 2010. Quote: "The superjumbo's advent ends a reign of nearly four decades by the Boeing 747 as the world's biggest airliner."
7. ↑ Orlebar 2002, p. 50.
8. ↑ Haenggi 2003, pp. 14–15.
9. ↑ Sutter 2006, p. 259.
10. ↑ "Technical Characteristics – Boeing 747-400", The Boeing Company. Retrieved: April 29, 2006.