BOEING 747 AIRCRAFT AIRLINER FACTS, DATES, PICTURES AND HISTORY - NEW BOEING 747-8 INTERCONTINENTAL

The Boeing 747, which is also known as the jumbo jet , is the second largest passenger airliner after the Airbus A380. Until the first commercial flight of the A380 in 2006, however, it remains the largest passenger aircraft in commercial service.

The four-engine 747, produced by Boeing Commercial Airplanes, uses a two-deck configuration, the small upper deck is usually used for business-class passengers. A typical three-class layout accommodates about 400 passengers while a one-class layout accommodates a maximum of 600 passengers. The hump created by the upper deck has made the 747 a highly recognisable icon of air travel.

The 747 flies at high-subsonic speeds (typically 0.85 Mach or 565 mph or 909 km/h) and features intercontinental range (8,430 statute miles, or 13,570 km, for the 747-400 version), in some configurations sufficient to fly New York-Hong Kong (roughly a third of the globe) non-stop. In 1989 a Qantas 747-400 flew non-stop from London to Sydney, a distance of 11,185 miles, in 20hrs 9min: this was a delivery flight with no passengers or freight aboard. By May 2004 , a total of 1381 aircraft have been built or ordered in various 747 configurations, making it a profitable product for Boeing.

The 747 was born from the explosion of air travel in the 1960s. The era of commercial jet transportation, led by the enormous popularity of the Boeing 707, had revolutionised long distance travel and made possible the concept of the "global village." Boeing had already developed a study for a very large airplane while bidding on a US military contract for a huge airlifter. Boeing lost the contract to Lockheed 's C-5 Galaxy but came under pressure from its most loyal airline customer Pan Am to develop a giant passenger plane which would be over twice the size of the 707. In 1966 Boeing proposed a preliminary configuration for the airliner, to be called the 747. Pan Am ordered 25 of the initial -100 series. The design was a full length double decker, but due to issues with evacuation routes this idea was scrapped in favor of a wide-body design.

At the time, it was widely thought that the 747 would be replaced in the future with an SST ( supersonic transport ) design. Boeing took the shrewd move and designed the 747 so that it could easily be adapted to carry freight, knowing that when sales of the passenger version dried up, it could remain in production as a cargo aircraft. The cockpit was moved to a shortened upper deck so that a nose cone loading door could be included, creating the 747's distinctive "bulge." However, the supersonic transports such as Boeing's still-born SST and the Concorde never lived up to their promise, being too expensive to operate profitably at a time when fuel prices were soaring. The upper deck was initially used as a luxurious first-class lounge/bar area, but is now most often used for extra seating capacity. After being expected to wither on the vine with only 400 sales, the 747 outlived many of its critics and production passed the 1,000 mark in 1993. The expected slow-down in sales of the passenger version in favor of the cargo derivative has only happened in the early 2000s.

The development of the 747 was a huge undertaking. Boeing did not have a factory large enough to assemble the giant aircraft, so the company built an all-new assembly building near Everett, Washington. This factory is the largest building ever built. Pratt and Whitney developed a massive high-bypass turbofan engine, the JT9D , that was, in the beginning, exclusively for the 747. To appease concerns about the safety and flyability of such a massive aircraft, the 747 was designed with four backup hydraulic systems, split control surfaces, multiple structural redundancy, and sophisticated flaps which allow it to use standard-length runways.

Initially, Boeing found that the 747 was being treated with skepticism by many airlines. At the time, Boeing's rivals, McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed, were working on wide-body three-engine "tri-jets", which were significantly smaller than the proposed 747. Many airlines wondered if the 747 would prove too large for an average long distance flight and instead invested in tri-jets. Furthermore, there was worry about whether the 747 would be compatible with existing airport infrastructure.

Another issue raised by the airlines was fuel efficiency. A three-engine airliner burns significantly less fuel per flight than a four-engine, and with airlines trying to lower costs, fuel efficiency was a large issue (this issue would return to haunt Boeing during the 1970s).

Boeing had promised the 747 to Pan Am by 1970, so it had less than four years to develop, build and test the 747. Work progressed at such a breakneck pace that all those who worked on the development of the 747 were given the nickname "The Incredibles". The massive cost of developing the 747 and building the Everett factory meant that Boeing had gambled its very existence on the 747's success, and the company was nearly bankrupted in the early 1970s. The gamble paid off however, and Boeing enjoyed a monopoly on very large passenger transports that has only been broken 35 years later with the advent of the Airbus A380.

The Boeing 747-8 Intercontinental and 747-8 Freighter are the new high-capacity 747s that offer airlines the lowest operating costs and best economics of any large passenger or freighter airplane.

The 747-400 incorporates major aerodynamic improvements over earlier 747 models, including the addition of winglets to reduce drag, new avionics, a new flight deck and the latest in-flight entertainment systems. And, the 747 continues to be the world's fastest subsonic jetliner, cruising at Mach .855 -- or 85.5 percent of the speed of sound. Along with the popular Boeing 777, the 747 is a key element of the Boeing long-range market strategy.

With the lowest operating cost per ton-mile in the industry, the new-technology Boeing 747-400 Freighter is the all-cargo transport member of the 747-400 family. It can carry twice as much cargo, twice as far, as the competitor's leading freighter. Along with earlier versions, 747 Freighters -- about 225 in all -- carry half of all the world's freighter air cargo.

Boeing has taken another huge step in the continuing evolution of the world's most recognized jetliner, the 747. The 747-400ER Family -- available in both passenger and freighter versions -- provides the same size as current 747-400s, and offers an even more unbeatable combination of payload, range and speed.

Did you know the 747-400 wing measures 5,600 square feet (524.9 sq m), an area large enough to hold 45 medium-sized automobiles?

THE NEW BOEING 747-8 INTERCONTINENTAL

The 747-8 Intercontinental and 747-8 Freighter use 787 technologies to significantly improve the economics and functionality of the 747-8 - all while improving fuel efficiency and reducing emissions and noise.

New wing design, next generation GEnx engines, a modern flight deck and new materials are just some of the ways the new 747-8 benefits from the breakthrough technologies of the 787.