Cockpits, Profiles and Logos
The Boeing 747-100 was the original version of the iconic Boeing 747. In 1963 the United States Air Force started a competition for a very large strategic airlifter. Lockheed won the competition with the C-5 Galaxy but Boeing’s proposal had caught the attention of Juan Trippe, the founder and president of PanAm with the requirement for an aircraft with twice the capacity of the Boeing 707. The project led by Joe Sutter was a low priority as everyone thought that the future lay in supersonic transports, the aircraft was expected to be primarily used as a freighter, this led to the need for a hinging nose which led to the decision to place the cockpit in a bulge above the nose, a distinctive design feature of the 747. The area of the fairing behind the cockpit was originally used to be used as a in-flight lounge, but in later versions this was used as an upper passenger cabin. The final design was much different than that initially envisioned for the airlifter which had a high mounted wing.
In 1965 PanAm ordered 25 of the aircraft and the airliner project was formally launched. The first prototype was flown on the 9th February 1969 but the flight test program was hindered by problems with the aircraft’s new technology high bypass engines and this delayed delivery by several months. The entry into service was on 21st January 1970 with PanAm on the New York to London route. A total of 168 -100s were built, and altogether over 1,568 aircraft have been ordered.
The Boeing 747-400 was derived from the earlier 747-300 but was largely updated especially in the cockpit where the flight crew were reduced from 3 to 2 by the elimination of the need for the Flight Engineer. The major external difference being the inclusion of 6 foot high winglets, the engines were also upgraded. In all 694 747-400’s were built.
The Boeing 747-8 was launched in 2005 as an upgrade to the 747-400 with new engines, updated flightdeck and wings. The aircraft uses the same engine and cockpit technology as the Boeing 787, hence the -8 name. The fuselage is stretched by 5.6m and the wing by 4m with raked wingtips rather than the winglets on the -400. The engines used are the General Electric GEnx-2B67. There are two versions of the aircraft, the 8F which is the cargo version with 16% more capacity than the -400 and the passenger version, the -8i or Intercontinental. The first aircraft was delivered to Lufthansa in May 2012.