Since then, it has been a favourite not just with regular passengers, but also celebrities and heads of states. America’s Air Force One is a souped-up version of the Boeing 747, and Air India’s 747 continues to do sorties for India’s President, Prime Minister and the Vice-President under the call-sign Air India One. Over the past 50 years, more than 1,500 of these jets have been delivered to airlines across the world.
The 747’s impact is not to be understated. The aircraft was designed at the request of Pan Am founder Juan Trippe, who wanted a 400-seat aircraft. His original request was for a double-decker jet, but Boeing convinced him to leave the second deck on the top as a small hump only. The 747, for the first time, offered passengers high ceilings and vertical sidewalls which gave a sense of space in what was known as the metal tube then. The 747 designers also adopted the approach to split the cabin into various sections with lavatories and galleys in between. These choices continue to reflect in the aircraft design of today. Not just that, it slashed the cost of air travel by bringing in modern technology such as the turbo-fan engines we see commonly on aircraft today.
The 747 was designed at a time where it was looked at as a stop-gap till the time supersonic travel came into being. Supersonic aircraft such as the Tu-144 and Concorde came and went, but could not affect the dominance of the 747. However, the designers of the aircraft wanted to future-proof the aircraft, and hence they built specs to be able to make it a freight carrying aircraft as well. One of these design choices was to put the cockpit on the higher deck rather than the main deck of the aircraft. After all, the cargo is loaded on the 747 with the nose opening upwards, so they could not put the cockpit in a mobile section.
22/01/20 Ajay Awtaney/Conde Nast Traveller
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The 747’s impact is not to be understated. The aircraft was designed at the request of Pan Am founder Juan Trippe, who wanted a 400-seat aircraft. His original request was for a double-decker jet, but Boeing convinced him to leave the second deck on the top as a small hump only. The 747, for the first time, offered passengers high ceilings and vertical sidewalls which gave a sense of space in what was known as the metal tube then. The 747 designers also adopted the approach to split the cabin into various sections with lavatories and galleys in between. These choices continue to reflect in the aircraft design of today. Not just that, it slashed the cost of air travel by bringing in modern technology such as the turbo-fan engines we see commonly on aircraft today.
The 747 was designed at a time where it was looked at as a stop-gap till the time supersonic travel came into being. Supersonic aircraft such as the Tu-144 and Concorde came and went, but could not affect the dominance of the 747. However, the designers of the aircraft wanted to future-proof the aircraft, and hence they built specs to be able to make it a freight carrying aircraft as well. One of these design choices was to put the cockpit on the higher deck rather than the main deck of the aircraft. After all, the cargo is loaded on the 747 with the nose opening upwards, so they could not put the cockpit in a mobile section.
22/01/20 Ajay Awtaney/Conde Nast Traveller
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