Inside the Archive #21 | Boeing 747

Looking back on our trips through the archive, we were surprised to discover that we hadn’t yet covered perhaps the most iconic passenger aircraft of all time: the “Queen of the Skies”. This, we felt, simply would not do – so here, at last, is our hagiography on the mighty Boeing 747.

Conceived in the mid-1960s as the jet age was flourishing, the 747’s genesis is inextricably linked to one of its most iconic operators: Pan American Airways, or Pan Am. Looking for a way to boost capacity beyond the limits of the then-dominant Boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8, Pan Am president Juan Trippe went to Boeing looking for a new jet two and a half times the size of the 707, able to transport international passengers en masse with a 30 per cent lower cost per unit of passenger-distance. After a few iterations, Boeing engineers under Joe Sutter produced the first-ever prototype 747-100 – N7470, “City of Everett”, which rolled off the production line in 1968.

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