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The Queen of the Skies

The Boeing 747 is one of my favourite planes. I saw a 747 for the first time at the age of 6 when I went to Italy, more specifically, to Sicily. It was an Air France Boeing 747. This plane is different from the others for me. Indeed, it has a “hump.” I was also impressed by the size of this wonderful plane, which has 2 decks.

The first Boeing 747

Unfortunately, I didn’t take this airliner to go to Sicily. I just had the opportunity to admire this plane, which was stationed in my terminal. The difference between the Boeing 747 and other planes resides in its hump.

 The Boeing 747 was designed by Joe Sutter, who was the chief engineer of the 747 program back in the 1960s. Pan Am airlines, a famous airline company, asked Boeing to build a plane that could carry a large number of passengers. Joe Sutter was the person in charge of designing and building the plane. Boeing said to Joe that they needed to build a new plane two and a half times larger than those in circulation. With a team of 4,500 engineers, he took on the task, which would be completed in just twenty-nine months.

 The hump was created to place the cockpit above the passengers because the engineers had thought that the Boeing 747 could be converted into a cargo airplane after retiring as an airliner. That’s why this hump was designed so that a large door could be placed at the front without having to move the cockpit.

Nowadays, the additional space created by the hump is used for business class, but, at the time, it served as a piano bar, making the Boeing 747 a unique plane. The hump was used to carry crew members. After the oil crisis of 1973, this piano bar was replaced with business class seats to generate substantial revenue. Unfortunately, the queen of the skies is disappearing from the skies. Indeed, airlines are phasing out the Boeing 747 in favor of more fuel-efficient wide body twinjet. Air France, for instance, have started to replace their Boeing 747 with the Boeing 787 and the Airbus A350.  Unfortunately, I haven’t flown on a Boeing 747 yet, but, if I have the opportunity, I will take it. 

mykevinaero

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