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AVIATION HISTORY THE BOWING 747 (2018, Documentary) Pan Am Museum Foundation: The Jumbo Jet ... 50 Years In the Sky PLAY YOUTUBE VIDEO Original article: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wdxRwuwU4XE Peter Burgess COMMENTARY I found this documentary in 2024 and have devoured it with a lot of enthusiasm. My first flights pre-dated the Boeing 747 ... actually a Douglas DC-3 flight flown by BEA from London to the Channel Islands and then a Vickers Viscount to return. The out-bound flight in the DC3, a pre war aircraft, was powered by piston engines and the airframe and wings were very 'rigid' transmitting every discontinuity in the airflow to the passengers in the aircraft. The return flight in the Viscount was powered by turbo-prop engines and had a completely different 'feel'. There was no engine vibration and the wings were extremely flexible absorbing all the bumps caused by changes in the air. I was surprised at how much the engine nacelles and the wings flexed in flight. My next big flight memories were London to New York and back in Air France Boeing 707s chartered by the Cambridge Canada Club! The year was 1960 when the Boeing 707 was very new and jet flight was still very special. At the time rich Americans were flying to England and Europe for summer vacations in far greater numbers than Europeans were flying to the USA, so expensive jet planes were flying empty in a Westerly direction in June and then flying empty in an Easterly direction in September. Air France and the Cambridge Canada Club helped balance the passenger load! I took advantage of this in the summer of 1960 and then again in the summer of 1961! We were all Cambridge students and the United States' authorities let us transit through the country en-route to Canada but not to work. Canada, on the other hand, allowed us to work and be paid for it! Thinking back to these Air France flights, it was something of a challenge for get from London to New York without refueling en-route! I remember being alerted that we might need to land for refueling in Gander, Newfoundland ... and then Boston Massachusetts ... before finally getting to New York's Idlewild Airport (later renamed as JFK Airport after the Kennedy assassination) without an intermediate refueling stop! The improvement in jet engine technology over the past six decades has been remarkable and underappreciated by most people including many who should know better! I cannot remember flying much, if at all between my student days ar Cambridge and the time I migrated to Canada in 1967. I must have flown into Belfast from London when I was doing audit work with Cooper Brothers but I do not remember any details! Madeline (Healey) and I married in London in February 1967 and almost immediately migrated to Canada. Part of our Canadian immigration package were free airline tickets from London to Montreal! Better yet, the processing time for all of this was essentially less than one day! This was a massive contrast to what was in play to migrate to the United States. For the US, there was a 6 month wait before the US immigration authorities in London would even start to look at the paperwork! Worse, the 'rules' for migration to the United States added other complexities that might have derailed the process. The 'mess' that is American immigration is not new ... it has been this way for at least six decades! My next flight was Vancouver in Canada to Houston, Texas via Denver, Colorado in the summer of 1967 in a Boeing 727 trijet. This was at the height of summer with temperatures in Texas exceedubg 100°F. I remember questions about landing in Denver because of the heat ... but we did! About a year later, I interviewed for a job in Milford, Connecticut ... flying from Houston to New York and back. I got the job and my wife and I moved from Texas to Connecticut. This job required a lot of domestic air-travel. The company ... Aerosol Techniques Inc. ... had several manufacturing locations ... California, Illinois, Connecticut (2) and Massachusetts and I served as a management link between these various operations. About four years later I changed jobs, becoming budget manager for a company with more than 30 manufacturing locations all over the United States. This kept me in the air for a lot of domestic travel. Another four years larer and I changed jobs again. This time I became CFO for a company with its operations located in more than 20 places around the world. My air-travel patterns changed from pne that was entirely domestic USA to one that was almost exclusively international! This lasted for about 20 years, and in the process I got to visit ... and work in ... about 50 countries! This ended early in the 2000s after a number of quite bad experiences ... followed by some personal health issues! Fast forward 20 years ... and I am surviving not too much 'the worse for wear!' I relate to the story of both the Boeing 707 and the Boeing 747 ... both from the technical point of view and from the commercial and geopolitical (or geo-economic) perspectives. Yhis is a great video ... bravo! Peter Burgess
The Jumbo Jet: 50 Years In the Sky (2018, Documentary) Pan Am Museum Foundation Sep 19, 2024 16.9K subscribers ... 19,594 views ... 406 likes A celebration of the 50th anniversary of the Boeing 747 - which came to be known as the Jumbo Jet. Lots of archive footage and interviews with those who built it, flew it, worked on it and marveled at how it earned its descriptor as the plane the 'shrunk the world.' An Elephant House production for Channel 5 (UK). Posted for non-profit educational purposes. Like this video? Like and subscribe to our YouTube Channel! Visit Us for More Pan Am History: https://www.thepanammuseum.org Donate to the Museum and Become a Member: https://www.thepanammuseum.org/suppor... Visit The Hangar, Our Online Store, for Pan Am Gear and Gifts: https://shop.thepanammuseum.org The Pan Am Podcast! Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Google Podcasts, and more: https://podcast.thepanammuseum.org Experience the legacy of the world’s most iconic airline, Pan American World Airways! The Pan Am Podcast brings Pan Am’s 64-year history to life through engaging storytelling and insightful interviews from Pan Am employees, passengers, historians, authors, fashionistas, and aviation enthusiasts! Follow Us On: Facebook: @PAAmuseum Instagram: @pan.am.museum Twitter: @PanAmMuseum TikTok: @PanAmMuseum The Pan Am Museum Foundation is a non-profit 501(c)3 organization. Transcript 0:03 the Boeing 747 the world's first jumbo jet and the most successful passenger airliner in history the jumbo is a very special iconic machine this is a game changer of an airplane I've not met anyone who hasn't loved it designed to carry double the number of passengers of previous planes it brought Long Haul travel to the W people could go to see the places they'd never dreamt of going for the first time in history you can travel from anywhere in the world to any other point on the globe now celebrating its 50th birthday the 747s birth had been complicated I had 22 ERS in 18 months of which 18 went big bang and then threats to its safety the security was nothing like it is nowadays there were was no lock on the door then then you could just open the door but it would soon become every 1:06 airline's Flagship beloved of passengers you didn't feel like you were on an airplane you were in a restaurant or in someone's home of Pilots I reckon in an hour I could teach somebody to fly one and that to me is the proof of what an incredible handling airpl this is and crew when I had decided that I wanted to be cabin crew I want to the fly on the big birds that was the ultimate of my career was to get onto the 74 this is the story of the plane that shrank the globe I think it could be considered as important as the internet in that it brought the world closer [Applause] together September the 30th 1968 and thousands gather outside the Boeing aircraft Factory in Washington state morning ladies and gentlemen the 2:05 fact that this great plane is rolling out on schedule and the very fine Condition it's in is a tremendous testimonial to literally thousands of people the occasion the unveiling of the world's first widebody passenger jet the 747 and those doors roll back and out of the darkness comes the nose of this beautiful airplane just an incredible moment and of course the crowd cheers and then the airplane is put into position it created an audible gasp as it rolled out from the hanger because it was so big a really enormous thrill to see something of this size rolled out for the first time w 3:05 in the 50 years that followed the 747 has been at the center of nearly every development in the world of commercial Aviation enabling passengers to fly further than ever sparking Fierce price Wars that have brought down the costs of travel being on the front line of the terror threat and becoming the jet of choice for everyone from presidents and prime ministers to entrepreneurs and rock stars but above all it's been the people's airliner the 747 was the plane which was the opening shot in the aviation Revolution that brought long hole F and it was the airplane that basically brought together continents and people and cultures and economies and such it it was the first airplane in a long line of airplanes that have profoundly changed the world 4:01 London's herro airport took the arrival of the world's first fully loaded jumbo jet with surprising ease but the journey started off bump when the 747 made its Maiden flight from New York to London in 1970 its owners were still hiding a secret it had been rushed into service faster than any plane in history as a result there was was an unresolved fault one that caused the engines to overheat and even catch fire it was uh way more than teething problems but what kept the airplane in the air was the way people were working together and that was everybody from the engine guy to the suppliers to Boeing to our crew training Pilots to the airlines themselves but a solution for the teething trouble still proved elusive by March 19 70 Boeing were 5:01 making seven planes a month and supplying them to Airlines all over the world they included Britain's state-owned boac soon to be relaunched as British Airways its Pilots quickly realized how unreliable the 747s engines were I was on the first course as a pilot it wasn't really until we started flying the aircraft we became aware of the engine problems they were just horrendous they would break at the top of a hat in fact without the curver to the earth I don't think the jumbo would have got Airborne out of Heath throw I had 22 engine vales in 18 months of which 18 went Big Bang Boeing hoped that America's safety regulator would allow the 747 to fly because the company had built in a wide range of backup systems including its four separate engines you can fly on one so one engine failing was just an inconvenience and that was the secret of it staying in 6:03 the air really the airlines were also prepared to live with the initial engine faults the 747 had proved an instant hit with passengers and no other plane could compete with its capacity and range but in BAC it was considered a an ideal airplane for our operation we started with three in 1970 and fairly quickly we were operating 12 airplanes uh and successfully cuz we were making money key to the 747s money-making potential was its size it could accommodate 450 paying passengers space was really the USP of the 747 it really was 7:00 transformative inside as well as outside when you're just looking at this thinking Cy that's big but that size also brought problems hundreds of passengers meant hundreds of Security checks and in 1970 security was taking on a new importance small minority of violent terrorists put in Jeopardy the whole structure of international Communications once the skyjackers are allowed to hold the world to Ransom we will will have paid a price to lawlessness that can never be redeemed hijacking had emerged as a favorite tactic by Middle Eastern terrorist groups that year they took control of a series of planes forcing the pilots to divert holding passengers as hostages and in some cases destroying the aircraft the Middle East and a week of drama and tension comes to an explosive end to some the 74 7 looked especially 8:01 vulnerable it carried more passengers than other planes and the onboard protection measures were surprisingly relaxed access to the flight deck was easy the security was nothing like it is nowadays there was no lock on the door then you could just open the door then in September 1970 Palestinian militants targeted the 747 they hijacked PanAm Flight 93 carrying 152 passengers and 17 crew at Amsterdam airport it was due to fly to New York but they forced it to divert to Beirut where they picked up enough explosives to destroy the entire plane they then flew to their final destination pan America's 747 jumbo jet after being diverted to beut the jumbo was forced to fly to Caro whilst on on Route the crew discovered the hijackers did intend to blow up the plane lighting the fuse on the explosives as it came 9:05 into Land once on the ground the passengers would have a maximum of 90 seconds in which to evacuate we want you to do this here as swiftly and as easily so that nobody will get hurt but would it be possible for all of them to get off this giant new plane in such a short space of time fortunately Boeing had designed the wide body shape with emergency evacuation in mind and now it would be put to the ultimate test tell you go down to the bottom of the ramp and then get away from the [Music] aircraft incredibly the crew did manage to evacuate the plane in under a minute and a half everyone on board was taken to 10:02 safety they lit the fuses before we got off the airplane they knew how long the fuses were going to take everybody got out and they ran from the airplane as fast as they could go but while the hostages survived the plane did not moments later the 747 blew [Music] up the high hijacking shook the aviation world but despite the threats low Affairs and the chance to cross continents kept passenger numbers growing the 747 with its huge capacity was key to the opening up of the Skies suddenly something which was completely unattainable for uh normal working people began to be within their reach in the first year 6 million people fly and they fly 72 million mil the 747 does an incredible job you could now fly 11:07 from London to New York for £ 103 return like the Concord this is going to be the future of air travel just a year after its Maiden flight the 747 was taking passengers to all corners of the globe every major airline was putting in new orders for the plane but for Boeing there was sudden and unexpected turbulence ahead and it threatened to put the 747 out of production all [Music] together in the 50 years since the first 747 came out of the Boeing factory near Seattle around 1,500 have entered service it's been the long haul work course for every major airline in the world but just a year after its first 12:04 commercial flight production nearly ground to a halt and this was the Reason by 1971 America had lost the race to launch the world's first commercial supersonic plane the US government had paid Boeing $1.5 billion dollar to come up with a rival to Concord but while the angl French plane was undergoing test flights Boeing's SST project had barely got off the drawing board and it continued to Hemorrhage cash there was no way that therefore that the economics of the supersonic transport would ever really work unless you could get the cost way down you weren't going to sweep the industry with ssts in May 1971 the US Congress cancelled funding for the supersonic airliner and the project was 13:08 scrapped but Boeing which was heavily in debt had come to rely on the subsidy once it was withdrawn it had to slash 60,000 jobs cutting its Workforce by nearly 2/3 the effects uh on the Seattle area were in fact huge at that time Boeing was the big company of Seattle the time became so dark and dire here in Seattle that uh some real estate agents put up a sign that said well the last person to leave Seattle please turn out the [Music] [Applause] lights with its super Sonic Project dead Boeing had to pin all its survival hopes 14:02 on the 747 and the gamble soon paid off by the end of its first 12 months Airlines had bought nearly a hundred of the new jumbos and when the engine fault that had dogged the plane was finally fixed a year later demand soared once uh we got the engine problem solved the sails increased tremendously almost just within a couple of years this just changes our world the 747 saves the company and carries it into the future by the end of its third year in service the 747 had carried more than 35 million people the age of the jumbo had truly [Applause] arrived well the introduction of the 747 really brought about travel for the 15:02 general public it was very much for people who had money or were working for big companies that would travel when the 747 came in all of a sudden there were lots of seats available increased availability meant increased demand there were more planes in the sky and more pilots all get into grips with the Jumbo's unique characteristics you were part of a revolution really in aviation it was massive airplane and there was hell of a lot new technology the size it was like learning a block of flats because you the equivalent of about a second or third floor of a building it's a surprisingly agile airplane for such a big airplane you can really throw the airplane around the sky I mean it would be like a terrific 16:05 airplane to do acrobatics with the wing is so forgiving and just cushions that landing at the last minute it's hard to make a bad landing in this airplane and then the thing that sometimes people forget is that once you've landed the main Wheels the nose wheel is still you know a double-decker bus in the air you now have to land the airplane twice otherwise first class passengers really object cuz they get this bang who did that you know flying on the 747 was a new experience even for seasoned air Travelers on earlier single Isle conditions were 17:01 cramped no longer the two luxuries uh in the world are space and time and they cut the time that you could travel to foreign places but they also gave you plenty of space nearly all the extra capacity was to be found in economy the twin Isle main cabin even those paying the cheapest fairs could travel in Comfort the 747 was so unique because it was two aisles it was so much larger it didn't seem like an airplane it was more like you were entering into a vast Grand living room and with two aisles you could walk around although the 747 had space for 450 seats Airlines like PanAm and boac put in fewer for them space was the Jumbo's unique selling point a lot of the airlines took advantage of the size of this airplane to really 18:02 expand on the whole glamour of flight people would dress up they would wear jacket and tie and and the women would wear their best we didn't look out of place in our white gloves and our suits right now I'm wearing the uniform that would have been worn right after the launch of the 747 flood of tenants that wore this often say this was their very favorite uniform with a bowler hat and the JY English riding suit look uh and actually for us it was the shortest skirt we ever had cuz it was the era of the mini [Music] skirt to add to the sense of event 747 passengers were treated to inflight entertainment revolutionary at the time look you could watch a movie as you were flying along and they even used in advertising the term the sitting room in 19:01 the sky we used to pull down a screen at the front of each cabin and people would sit there with their headsets on and watch this film and it had the bright blue plastic headsets that look like stethoscopes certainly it made our lives a little bit easier because they would sit transfixed actually for a couple of hours the jumbo jet had introduced economy passengers to new new levels of luxury but whatever the standards in the main cabin they were nothing compared to those upstairs the upper deck on the 747 in the' 70s was was Hallowed Ground really because only first class passengers could access it upper spiral staircase the spiral staircase in the original 747 was a unique invention but it actually became the staircase to heaven for the passengers the upper deck gave the 747 its most distinctive design feature the hump it was housed behind the flight 20:04 deck 747 it's iconic the the shape it's an artistic form that that captures our imagination I mean unless you're an airplane not like me it's one airplane looks like the other but the 747 is you recognize it that that distinctive hump it was the space inside the hump that offered new opportun unities for [Music] exclusivity some Airlines installed piano lounges others cocktail bars and [Music] restaurants there was a bar which we used to work behind and we used to make these ridiculous cocktails give me a man hatting on the Rocks you know and they set it on the bar along with some cocktails and smoke and it was 21:00 just like they were in a bar very social and uh it was Smoky you didn't feel like you were on an airplane you were in a restaurant or in someone's home in a dinner at a dinner party the dining services that were seen in in some of these airlines are just fantastic like the greatest hotels in the world you would have a similar experience the upper deck PanAm deliberately positioned it as the $23 million flying Penthouse whereas British Airways started talking about Club class so you have the idea already of people sitting in the comfort of their own homes downstairs but upstairs you're in an elite club as well as generating money for the airlines these additional features helped keep passengers occupied for the first time they were experiencing Long Haul spending hours on end in the air as they flew to far off destinations one of the reasons why it's 22:02 such a big airplane was this the mission for this airplane was to fly great distances for the first time in history you can travel from anywhere in the world to any other point on the globe Airlines like British Airways portrayed the 747 as the key to your wildest holiday dreams we going off to India and going to go and dropping out his hippies and Far East Hong Kong it was just fantastic I can remember taking people to Africa and they were going on safaris and they were just so excited I think as fairs came down people were able to go and visit their families that they perhaps hadn't seen for donkey's years people could go and see their relatives in Australia capable of carrying over 160 tons of fuel the 747 made even the longest routs less 23:05 daunting it cut the journey time from London to Sydney from 34 hours to 25 with just two stops instead of the previous five if you look at the 747 at the time I think it could be considered as important as the internet it was like an analog version of the worldwide web in that it brought the world closer together by the mid '70s the 747 was the queen of the skies and the flagship for all the world's major airlines its Supremacy looked assured but then another threat appeared on the horizon I don't care what fair you've got mine is the cheapest and the lowest fair for the same standard the same quality the same comfor 24:01 [Music] 1977 the Boeing 747 had revolutionized commercial Aviation making Long Haul travel available to [Music] all but by today's standards fairs were still expensive there was virtually no competition within the heavily regulated airline industry and little incentive to cut prices but then came a new disruptive player in the market I don't care what fair you've got mine is the cheapest and the lowest fair for the same standard the same quality the same Comfort Freddy Laker was a bit of a scallywag you know definitely a man of the people and he positioned himself that way people identified with him Laker Was a Serial entrepreneur who started out running charter flights from the south of England to 25:00 Europe since 1971 he'd been seeking permission to run the first daily low Fair transatlantic service other way mate let's have the sky Train on after 6 years of lobbying the authorities finally agreed ler launched the sky train a new walk-on service from London Gatwick to New York oneway price £59 a third of what established carriers were charging the start of the lowcost Airways began with Freddy lak before EasyJet before Ryan Air before Southwest in the United States you had Freddy Laker and his his Sky Train Lakers secondhand dc1 planes and cut price fairs posed a huge threat to the economic viability of the 747 the major airlines had tried to persuade The Regulators to block his new service when that failed they had only one option left to slash the cost of their own tickets his price is probably 26:03 pretty unrealistic but uh if he's gotten the go-ahead we're definitely going to get into the ball game and match him suddenly things could be competitive before fairs were all set and Airlines competed more on sort of the personality of the airline and all of a sudden it was where's the cheapest ticket the first major airline price War had brought lower prices for 74 seven passengers but from now on the experience of flying on it would be very different to make up for the loss in Revenue the airlines began filling all the empty space with seats as fairs dropped we did get more and more people crammed [Music] in in 1980 came the Next Generation jumbo the 747 300 23 ft longer than and its predecessors this new 747 had over 600 27:02 seats fitting in 150 more paying customers to help free up space Boeing replaced the distinctive spiral staircase to the Upper Deck with a straight stairway for airline staff the extra seats meant extra work just became a bit more frantic I suppose we were busier we were running up and down more often we were serving more drinks we were serving more meals the staff may have been busier than before but the price cuts and design modifications did their job as the 1980s dawned the planes were operating with every seat booked over the years I was flying I I joined in 1973 when people were still you know fairly sort of middle class and people had a bit of money but then I noticed it changing towards the end of my time 1981 people were becoming more casually dressed and they would wear jeans they 28:03 would wear tracksuits they were comfortable now the premium uh is on the economy of travel that high-end special passenger experience that we once had it still exists but it exists to a much lesser scale than it once did in in the early days of the 747 although the 747s design and pricing structure had changed one feature remained constant the commitment to safety right from the start Boeing's Engineers had built in spare or so-called redundant mechanisms that could come into play in the event of any problems their ambition was to build a jet that was uncrashable it's one of the the most substantial robust airplanes that that has ever been built doesn't matter what you throw at it it will respond it doesn't matter whether it's snow ice wind turbulence lightning strikes engine 29:07 failures this airplane just it just takes it and it keeps flying and it and it gets you back home there's so much redundancy you got four engines four electrical systems got four hydraulic systems on the 747 all of them powering the flight controls you can lose three you can still control the airplane I think any Pilot Flying the 747 uh would feel that the airplane is going to look after him I think that is the the reassurance that that sort of capability gives the ability to fly uh with three of those engines failed and we train everyone in order to get to that position but what would happen in the event of all four engines failing One Night in 1982 a UK pilot was to find 30:00 out Captain Eric Moody was flying a British Airway 747-200 carrying 263 passengers from Heath R to New Zealand whilst over Indonesia his plane was suddenly enveloped in darkness unknowingly he'd flown into a blanket of ash cloud caused by a volcanic eruption today the mere threat of ash clouds can be enough to ground an aircraft but this potentially lethal environment can be recreated to give Pilots the training they need on a 747 simulator like this one flown by qualified jumbo pilot and frontman of Iron Maiden Bruce Dickinson well what we've got here is a 747400 simulator so climb aboard now with regards to volcanic ash so there is a nasty black volcanic ash cloud and we're going to go climbing up towards it of course Eric Moody wouldn't have had any idea but he was heading in this direction oh that's nasty even 35 years on Eric Moody still 31:06 remembers every second of the ashcloud flight the flight engineer he saw that number four engine was slowly running down engine number Four's not happy 34,000 ft here we go all right that's a engine Surge and he called that engine pH number four engine Captain Moody and his crew still didn't know what had caused the engine failure conditions inside the flight deck were confusing and chaotic condition volcanic ash suspected one or more of these occur static discharge around the windshield a bright blow in the engine inlets object to exit the ascl restart the engine he then said something like number two's gone number three's gone and goodness me we've lost a lot exit the volcanic ash as 32:01 quickly blow the nose exit the volcanic ash as quickly as possible we didn't believe what we were seeing because it just doesn't happen you don't get four engine faders there we were the pro possessor of the world's heaviest and largest glider uh Eric Moody he's probably flying it on on this that's a standby flight air speed indicator he's just got his flight engineer and he's got to figure it all out in the middle of a dark and stormy night when the volcanic ash went into the engine by the time it got back to the burners all of that silica turned to Glass and clogged up the back end of the engine which would surge it and stop it if Eric Moody and his crew were going to get themselves and their 263 passengers home safely they would have to rely on all the 747s famed robustness and handling capability the airplane is so responsive and it was 33:02 all the way through that incident with no engines going it handled as well as it did with all four going let's try and restart number one and number three bang one and four and as he came down that glass inside the engine cooled significantly to the point where that the glass shattered established an air flow and allowed Moody and his crew to restart a couple of those engines oh there we go Bingo actually we got three engines back now and eventually restarted all four so that they could then successfully get over the mountains and put it down in Jakarta 50 40 1 20 10 let's go with four so my theory is that that 15,000 ft we came out the bottom of the Ash and that's why they all started again because we came out into clear air yeah uh and I shall not be a national hero 34:03 cuz this is a simulator uh I think Eric Moody deserves that gong I was so impressed with it during the whole of that incident that it uh it didn't let us down didn't let me down against all the odds the 747 proved once again how reliable it was and in 1982 it's rep reputation as an inexpensive as well as safe plane helped see off a threat closer to home that year Freddy Lakers Airline complete with its DC 10s went bust as from 9:30 this morning the receivers were called in and L is as far as I'm concerned and just 2 years later another charismatic entrepreneur entered the travel business and he was smart enough to know there was only one plane for him the 747 in the highest of spirits and 35:06 happily not the pilot Richard Branson in spite of the failure of Laker Airways before him he's not afraid of this new gamble Richard Branson brought his music industry experience into it so in a way Virgin Atlantic was the MTV of the Skies it was fun it was rock and roll a bit irreverent I think with virgin it was new it was fresh it was breaking the rules he brought that relaxing atmosphere to the 747 it didn't feel like you were flying to your holidays it felt like you were on a social event before you got to your holidays the 747 offered the status for him because it was instantly recognizable the brand was written all over it and it basically launched him across the world and it gave him cudos virgin's entry into the market popularized even more Long Haul 36:03 destinations for Britains The Working Man and his family could go to Disneyland or Orlando um it was affordable it wasn't a dream in in the pipeline it was a reality now meanwhile new modifications were enabling the 747 to travel faster and longer than ever before by the end of the decade it could fly a third of the way around the world without stopping its capabilities were even enough to make it the plane of choice for US presidents in 1990 a special model came into Service as Air Force 1 costing more than $200,000 an hour to fly this jumbo is modified to enable those on board to survive during a nuclear conflict it can be refueled in midair and is 37:00 kitted out like a war plane with the latest military defense capabilities other world leaders soon followed suit I think the thing that attracted government to use the 747 when I was flying it was the sheer size of the aircraft the ability that gave you to use the inside of the aircraft very flexibly around I flew both Mr Brown and Mr Blair when they were prime minister and I think they all enjoyed using the 747 because it was just such a fabulous flying office for them the Prime Minister could be isolated if necessary in his first class area and conduct interviews with the press the journalists who were filming the arrival would always film the airplane it had such a big status with that big red white and blue tail it's sending a huge message when that thing rolls into the tarmac although the 747 still carries the president it's now no longer a plane for the American people with the Advent of more fuele efficient narrower Jets by the end of 2017 all 38:03 major US Airlines had stopped using it and most other airlines are following suit as the 747 celebrates its 50th birthday does it really now have a future at all for half a century the jumbo has enjoyed unrivaled success ESS as a passenger jet flying 5 billion of us around the world in 2012 Boeing released the latest Incarnation the 747-8 with its stretched fuselage became the longest passenger aircraft in the world today 150 of them are in the air or on order but over the last decade the 747s popularity has decreased with Airlines favoring smaller more economical t twin engine planes like Boeing 787 39:00 Dreamliner for the 747 with its four engines times have changed there are now just over 500 flying compared to a, at the end of the '90s the world's changed everything now is about fuel saving twin engine aircraft more reliable and sadly I think yeah the 747 has had its heyday and now we have airplanes that do this Mission exceedingly well so they're connecting uh point to point so I understand why this the size of airplanes may be may be going to toward smaller airplanes for the passenger Mission 2/3 of all the 747s ever built have now been scrapped written off or put into storage their final resting places are often in so-called aircraft boneyards in the deserts of Arizona and California others are bound for facilities like 40:01 this one at cwal airport in the UK where they're stripped for parts over the 22 years we've been in business we dismantle some 700 aircraft and out of those 700 aircraft I would say probably 50 of those are 747s unfortunately there are actually more 747s being stored uh uh and being disassembled than they are actually operating at the moment which is kind of the sign of the times we've just boarded the aircraft through the number one doors this is the business class area we're going to wander through here to the economy class the rest of the aircraft is highdensity economy seating unfortunately most of this uh interior will be scrapped uh very little requirement for U interior from a 747 but we're going to head up to the flight deck and I'll show you what's been removed which are some pretty valuable pieces of Kit there's only a few more bits and pieces in here which we need to remove the seats for on they're pretty expensive need also need to take out 41:00 some of the screens everything else like the throttle quadrant the Yoke we often sell these things to Pilots collectors whoever else wants to for 747 the 747 may be experiencing a sad and slow decline as a passenger jet but reports of its death are premature from the very beginning its designers had a dual function in mind its raised flight deck and hinged nose made it the world's leading cargo plane and that's not likely to change just yet so we're just going into the 747 forward L1 door which is a standard entry door just as you get on a normal 747 passenger aircraft but as you see when you get onto the aircraft the differences are that the interior is completely stripped out so today we're carrying electronics and consumable goods from the far East so one of the other excellent design features of the 747 is the huge 42:04 cargo cabin it's a 53 M effective loading area and that combined with the 3 m High capability into the ceiling gives it a huge loading capability on the main deck follow me through this way uh we'll take you through to the most iconic part of the aircraft the uh nose visor a tight bit the nose cargo door 747 enables us to load very long pieces outsized cargo through the nose of the aircraft where we are standing at the moment will rotate a full 90° out and then the aircraft is just going to be bathed in light [Music] 43:02 as you see it's a long way up into that point where the the whole door is now up above our heads it gives us complete access when I look back at the design teams these guys were very forward thinking be able to carry it Forward into the future and today be able to still carry outsized loads uh that are unrivaled by any other aircraft whether the 747 survives as a cargo plane a passenger carrier or both it will always be considered as a landmark development in aviation no other subsonic airliner has ever represented such a technological Leap Forward and with its size and range it made the dream of L haul travel for everyone a reality 50 years after the first jumo was unveiled it continues to inspire admiration and affection the 747 coming to the end as a passenger aircraft will be like a big chunk of My Life coming to an end I mean to to think that I'll never get on another one again would be quite sad 44:00 actually any pilot that's found the 747 has to have a special place in his heart for this jet you feel about this jet in ways you just just don't feel about other airplanes Doesn't Matter What airplane they bring out in the future nothing will replace the 747 I really did love that airplane it was almost a romance that you never wanted to give up and the memories of it will always stay with me this airplane has a special place in history that I think will always be secure this has to be one of the major creations of mankind as a technical achievement That Changed History [Music] Donate now

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