Long live the Queen of the skies
 

THE FIRST PICTURE OF THE LAST EVER TO PRODUCED 747.

The next and last 747, line 1574 for Atlas Air, was moved from final body join to the slant position in the 40-22 last night (October 25th) at 7 PM.

Sadly no special livery will be used.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Ff94jvFa...jpg&name=small

courtesy Matt Cawby

https://twitter.com/mattcawby/status...18669470064641

I work there and didn't know this. Granted I'm not in the main factory where these are built. It was amazing standing in that building with 3 complete 747s, they are huge

My last ride on a jet was a 707. It was when I came home to Pittsburgh from San Francisco. I was surprised at the lack of vintage cars on the street, car clubs and events out in California. When I went there, I thought there would be old cars everywere, what a let down. This was in 1975, I wanted to be in Pittsburgh for the Bi Centenial..

Remember when part of the vacation was the plane ride home. Oh well, I discovered traveling by train and I can take my car with me.. It really is a shame what has happend to the Airlines..

I have a friend who was a jet Machanic for Allegheny Airlines and stayed when they were bought out by US Air. One night I asked him how much of a deal he gets since he works for them as a mechanic. He said, " you'll never get me or anybody in my family on one of those death traps!". That was enough for me.

I often wondered why they didn't seal up the cock pits to isolate the pilots.. I'm sure they had to have a good reason.

https://th.bing.com/th/id/R.e0d237aa...pid=ImgRaw&r=0

Haven't done much flying in my nearly 71 years but when I was much younger I did make a few long flights and one international flight that gave me a chance to compare the jumbo jets, and I would have to say of the big three, Boeing 747, Mcdonnell Douglas DC-10, and the Lockheed L-1011, the 747 was my favorite. Always enjoyed the flight even though I don't really care to be 35,000 feet up.

The 747 was really a landmark aircraft in so many ways. Also one of the toughest, most reliable aircraft ever built.

The 747 is just awesome. Sad to see it go. The MD11 is pretty great too, but I like the 747 more.

I'm a retired engineer from Boeing last year. I did a lot of design on the 747-400 and flew on it a lot to Frankfurt and London over the years on business. 1st class on the -400 is really something! I'm 6' 4" and there is plenty of seat room. I've also flown on the -200 but the thrust of the -400 is incredible. I miss seeing them fly over home here like they used to all the time. I'm near Everett where it/was built. The twins are nice and efficient but there is something about seeing 4 contrails trailing a jet at cruise elevation. Bye Queen, it was an honor.

I live near Fresno and the biggest planes that routinely fly out of our airport are 737s. But we have a really long runway so about 10 years ago Boeing/CargoLux used Fresno airport to test the 747-800. Absolutely massive and it looked almost comical slowly circling the area compared to the sort of aircraft we’ve been used to seeing. One of the most iconic aircraft of all time. Never flown on one but been mezmerized by it since I was a kid when you could walk up to the gate at United and see them towering above the jetway. United’s commercials in the 80s featuring 747s flying to exotic places to the soundtrack of Rhapsody in Blue were super cool too.

I had the great good fortune to be on the first Braniff 747 bound for London out of DFW airport in 1978. She was later named Fat Albert.

I sat next to a Braniff exec on his way to London for the festivities when we landed. He was full of statistics and facts to quote there, I don't remember many of them, but what will always stick in my mind is the take off weight, as we went wheels up, he leaned to me and said, that's nearly 750,000 lbs we just took airborne.

How The Boeing 747 Carried The Space Shuttle

https://simpleflying.com/how-the-boe...space-shuttle/

In 1985 with Space Shuttle Discovery aboard it made a stopover at Bergstrom Air Force Base located seven miles Southwest of Austin, Texas. On the approach to the field it went over my business at a low altitude. It was quite a sight !


.

It made a stop at KCI and they parked it where we could go out on the tarmac and look at it. Needless to say I was at the front of the line to get a look at it.

The major engine manufacturer that we do a lot of work for. has one that they use for a flying test bed. 3 standard engines and one test engine (at port inboard location) so if they have any reason to shut down the test engine, there's 3 engines to get back home safely. And lots of room inside for data monitoring stations.

Eric

I can’t even imagine flying something like that and landing it. As a private pilot who flys a pretty small and nimble vans RV6, Going up to a Cherokee or a Cessna 172 feels like flying a school bus to me , flying that has got to be alot like flying a comercial building. ��.

On 911, the day was beautiful, still air. First time in years I could look up, see blue clean sky everywhere. I am in a major path for air flights, so contrails always leave white looking skies.

Mid morning, singular contrail comes from the South, turns East over Iowa, heads to White House. 747-200 air force one. Nothing else flew for that day.

I've seen the shuttle on the back of the 747 directly over my parents home in Florida getting ready to land at KSC. Massive amount of metals being pushed through the air, very impressive!

I once attended a dinner where former shuttle astronaut George Nelson was the featured speaker. He said one of the most common questions he was asked was how were they able to land the shuttle on the back of a 747. :)

I was really looking forward to getting a ride in a 747 once I moved to Orlando, since BA had a direct to London on a 747 it could be a long weekend trip easy. Unfortunately, covid shut everything down and all the airlines dropped 747's from their fleets so now they are only being used for cargo. Would have been nice to sit "upstairs" just once.

Then you see a 747 on a runway between the new Airbus 380's and WOW, what a difference!

It's been mentioned the 747 has been used as a testbed. Here it is being used to test the new 787 engine.

This is 1 of 4 747's being modified to shuttle 787 parts (wings and fuselage) to South Carolina from Everett, WA. It's called the 777 LCF (large cargo freighter) and also the Dreamlifter (787 is called the Dreamliner). The modified airplane started by cutting the crown off at main deck floor and also the empennage off. A new crown was added with the needed capacity. The new empennage is hinged to swing to the side. This required ground support equipment to support the swing because of the weight as you can imagine. I think the vertical stabilizer is taller. I believe Atlas Air operates the 4 airplanes and the pilots say it handles very well. I think you can find a picture of the completed airplane in a search.