The Boeing 747

THE BOEING 747
The Boeing 747 is a wide-body commercial airliner and cargo transport aircraft, often referred to by its original nickname, Jumbo Jet, or Queen of the Skies. It is among the world's most recognizable aircraft, and was the first wide-body ever produced. Manufactured by Boeing's Commercial Airplane unit in the United States, the original version of the 747 was two and a half timesthe size of the Boeing 707, one of the common large commercial aircraft of the 1960s. First flown commercially in 1970, the 747 held the passenger capacity record for 37 years.
The four-engine 747 uses a double deck configuration for part of its length. It is available in passenger, freighter and other versions. Boeing designed the 747's hump-like upper deck to serve as a first class lounge or(as is the general rule today) extra seating, and to allow the aircraft to be easily converted to a cargo carrier by removing seats and installing a front cargo door. Boeing did so because the company expected supersonic airliners (whose development was announced in the early 1960s) to render the 747 and other subsonic airliners obsolete, while believing that the demand for subsonic cargo aircraftwould be robust into the future. The 747 in particular was expected to become obsolete after 400 were sold,[8] but it exceeded its critics' expectations with production passing the 1,000 mark in 1993. By September 2012, 1,448 aircraft had been built, with 81 of the 747-8 variants remaining on order
The 747-400, the most common passenger version in service, is among the fastest airliners inservice with a high-subsonic cruise speed of Mach 0.85–0.855 (up to 570 mph, 920 km/h). It has an intercontinental range of 7,260 nautical miles (8,350 mi or 13,450 km). The 747-400 passenger version can accommodate 416 passengers in a typical three-class layout, 524 passengers in a typical two-class layout, or 660 passengers in a high density one-class configuration. The newest version of theaircraft, the 747-8, is in production and received certification in 2011. Deliveries of the 747-8F freighter version to launch customer Cargolux began in October 2011; deliveries of the 747-8I passenger version to Lufthansa began in May 2012. The 747 is to be replaced by the Boeing Y3 (part of the Boeing Yellowstone Project) in the future.
PRODUCTION PLANT
As boeing did not have a plant large enough toassemble the giant airliner, they chose to build a new plant. the company considered locations in about 50 cities, and eventually decided to build the new plant some 30 miles (48 km) north of seattle on a site adjoining a military base at paine field near everett, washington.[34] it bought the 780-acre (3.2 km2) site in june 1966.
developing the 747 had been a major challenge, and building itsassembly plant was also a huge undertaking. boeing president william m. allen asked malcolm t. stamper, then head of the company's turbine division, to oversee construction of the everett factory and to start production of the 747. to level the site, more than 4 million cubic yards (3.1 million m³) of earth had to be moved. time was so short that the 747's full-scale mock-up was built before thefactory roof above it was finished. the plant is the largest building by volume ever built, and has been substantially expanded several times to permit construction of other models of boeing wide-body commercial jets.
DESING
The Boeing 747 is a large, wide-body (two-aisle) airliner with four wing-mounted engines. The wings have a high sweep angle of 37.5 degrees for a fast, efficient cruise ofMach 0.84 to 0.88, depending on the variant. The sweep also allows the 747 to use existing hangars. Seating capacity is more than 366 with a 3–4–3 seat arrangement (a cross section of 3 seats, an aisle, 4 seats, another aisle, and 3 seats) in economy class and a 2–3–2 arrangement in first class on the main deck. The upper deck has a 3–3 seat arrangement in economy class and a 2–2 arrangement in...