Sir Norman Foster, noted British architect and designer, was asked what his favorite building was and he explained it wasn’t a building at all, but an airplane. And it wasn’t just any airplane, but the iconic Boeing 747, the pinnacle of commercial aviation. “The fact that we call this an airplane rather than a building - or engineering rather than architecture - is really a historical hangover, because, for me, much of what we have here is genuinely architectural both in its design and its thinking,” he remarked during an episode of the BBC show Building Sights.
At 231 feet, the 747’s fuselage was longer than the Wright brothers' first flight and stretched two-thirds the length of a football field. Its wingspan measured 169 feet and the tail soared to the height of a six-story building. Known as the Queen of the Skies, the 747 revolutionized air travel when it made its commercial debut in 1970, allowing travelers to globe trot farther than ever before, faster than ever before, and perhaps with more flair than ever before. And more than 50 years later, its design legacy lives on in contemporary aircraft and in the hearts of aviation enthusiasts around the world.
Looking back at the years between 1903 and 1939, aviation escalated from the Wright brothers spruce plane to the very first jet aircraft, an astonishing engineering achievement. From there, commercial travel literally took off entering the Golden Age of Flight, when passengers donned their finest suits and dresses to board a plane, then wined and dined on white table linen at cruising altitude. By the close of the 1960s, more people in the United States traveled by air than by railroad for the first time in history. The era culminated with the largest most impressive plane of all: the world's first Jumbo Jet from Boeing.
“The main thing that really captured everybody’s attention, and their imagination at the time that the airplane came out, was its incredible size,” says Boeing’s senior corporate historian Michael J. Lombardi. “When you put it next to the 707, which was the biggest jetliner of its time in the 1960s, the 747 is twice the size.” Everything about the new aircraft was measured in superlatives. The first 747 completed more than 15,000 hours of wind-tunnel testing. The original 747 flight test program, which led to the airplane's certification for commercial service in December of 1969, used five airplanes, lasted 10 months and required more than 1,500 hours of flying.
The revolutionary aircraft had its roots not in commercial aviation, but in the military. In the 1960s, the US Air Force sought to develop a large plane for cargo and troop transport, and it tapped into the expertise of aerospace companies, including Boeing, to develop one. Lockheed Martin eventually won the contract for their C-5 Galaxy, but Boeing was able to take its technological research and transform it into the 747. Under the leadership of engineer Joe Sutter, a team of “Incredibles,” as they became known, worked at lightning speed to build the aircraft in just 29 months. At the time, Boeing directed the majority of its resources to other crucial projects, including NASA’s Apollo missions and the development of a supersonic transport, or SST, which was supposed to be the future of passenger air travel. Only two SSTs actually entered service, including the Concorde and the Tupolev Tu-144 while Boeing’s funding was cut, thus ending its program.
The 747 was originally designed to carry passengers for just a few years before being converted into a cargo carrier. And it was that cargo purpose which led to the aircraft's defining exterior design element: the bubble. "The best way to load freight onto an airplane is straight down the fuselage. They thought the best way to do this with the 747 was to have a nose that tilts up," noted Lombardi. "Well, if you do that on a conventional airplane, the flight deck is right there in the way. So the way to to fix that is to put the flight deck up on top of the fuselage." And thus the bubble came to be, which in itself led to another key design feature aboard the aircraft, this one on the interior. Due to aerodynamics, the bubble had to be extended behind the cockpit, leaving an empty space. Pan Am founder and aviation giant Juan Trippe, who had ordered 25 of the first 747s for his airline in 1966, can be credited with defining that space. Boeing originally suggested using the space as a crew rest but Trippe immediately countered and said, "Oh no, that'll be our First Class lounge," explained commercial aviation historian Shea Oakley.
Sadly, the days of onboard lounges didn’t last. When the US Government passed the Airline Deregulation Act in 1978, the price of airline tickets dropped, passenger numbers soared and airlines needed the lounges’ real estate for seats. Today, only a few airlines squeeze in lounges and bars aboard their larger aircraft like Emirates and Qatar but they do so on their Airbus A380s, which are not at all like the 70s-era hotspots of the Jumbo Jets. Still, the legacy of the 747s’ interiors lives on elsewhere in today’s aircraft and many of its other design features have become standard in aviation design lexicon. For the 747, Boeing and its longtime cabin design partner Teague developed what was called the “Superjet Look,” alternatively known as the “Wide Body Look,” which is still used in today’s aircraft. The 747 was the first wide body commercial aircraft, meaning it had two aisles, providing passengers with more space than ever before. In fact, the airlines started calling this era the “Spacious Age.” All that space provided room for features like overhead storage which was first introduced on the 747. Prior to its introduction, planes only had hat racks just like trains. It was also the first aircraft to feature indirect lighting as well as the regular implementation of in-flight entertainment systems.
Boeing conducted research on an unprecedented scale while developing the 747, interviewing thousands of passengers regarding their experiences and their preferences. That scientific approach is still taken today with Boeing’s newer aircraft like the 787 Dreamliner, which alters lighting, air pressure, and humidity inside the cabin to mitigate the effects of jet lag and create a more comfortable in-flight experience. Unfortunately, as technology improved to create better avionic systems and more powerful fuel efficient engines resulting in newer aircraft like the Dreamliner and the planned 777X, the 747 simply fell behind. The onset of the COVID pandemic accelerated the type’s retirement from passenger service and Boeing ceased production of the 747-8 in July of 2022, marking a run of more than 50 years. But that doesn’t mean the 747 will be gone from the skies as they are often being converted into cargo planes, in effect fulfilling their original mission.
Some of the jumbos are staying on the passenger side of operations as massive private jets. In 2018, Alberto Pinto Interior Design debuted the world’s largest private jet, a converted 747. “The Boeing 747 is the Holy Grail for designers in general and aircraft interior designers in particular. As everyone knows, this plane has become a myth,” says Yves Pickardt, lead aviation designer at Alberto Pinto. “It alone represents all that modern aviation has achieved in terms of technology and comfort. And for passionate aviation professionals like us, it is the most beautiful subject to motivate our creativity.”
The iconic airliner certainly captured the world’s attention and quickly became the most recognizable aircraft of all time. Its overarching influence on aviation is still seen and appreciated today.
Until next time...safe travels.
Until next time...safe travels.
Ah, the good old days ...