THE QUEEN OF THE SKIES FINALLY RETIRES

The Boeing 747 is a large, long-range wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Boeing Commercial Airplanes in the United States. After introducing the 707 in October 1958, Pan Am requested an airliner that would be at least two and a half time larger than the 707 in order to reduce the cost of flying.

- ATHOL FRANZ

The 747 was conceived while air travel was increasing in the 1960s. The era of commercial jet transportation, led by the enormous popularity of the Boeing 707 Douglas DC-8, had revolutionised long-distance travel. In the early 1960s, even before it lost the CX-HLS contract, Boeing was asked by Juan Trippe, president of Pan Am, one of their most important airline customers, to build a passenger aircraft jet two and a half times size of the 707. During this time, airport congestion, worsened by increasing numbers of passengers carried on relatively small aircraft, became a problem that Trippe thought could be addressed by a larger new aircraft.

In 1965, Joe Sutter was transferred from Boeing's 737 development team to manage the design studies for the new airliner, already assigned the model number 747. Sutter began a design study with Pan Am and other airlines to better understand their requirements. At the time, many thought that long-range subsonic airliners would eventually be superseded by supersonic transport aircraft. Boeing responded by designing the 747 so it could be adapted easily to carry freight and remain in production even if sales of the passenger version declined.

In April 1966, Pan Am ordered 25 Boeing 747-100 aircraft for US$525 million (equivalent to $3.3 billion in 2020 dollars). During the ceremonial 747 contract-signing banquet in Seattle on Boeing's 50th Anniversary, Juan Trippe predicted that the 747 would be "a great weapon for peace, competing with intercontinental missiles for mankind's destiny" As launch customer and because of its early involvement before placing a formal order, Pan Am was able to influence the design and development of the 747 to an extent unmatched by a single airline before or since.