Prepare for your weekly dose of history, as WDD recaps significant events that took place in the tech and engineering space.
February 9, 1969 marks the first test flight of the Boeing 747, a wide-body, long-range jet airliner also known by its aliases, Jumbo Jet and Queen of the Skies.
At the time of its creation, the 747 had two and a half times greater capacity than the Boeing 707, one of the common commercial aircraft in the 1960s. (In some configurations, the 747 has room for up to 550 passengers. It would go on to hold the passenger capacity record for 37 more years.)
The technological innovation behind the jet’s design is the high-bypass turbofan engine, capable of delivering twice the power of earlier turbojets while consuming a third less fuel.
Of course, Boeing risked most its net worth to develop the world’s largest passenger aircraft: the 747 is taller than a six-story building, has a takeoff weight of over 300 tons (the equivalent of ten fully-loaded 18 wheel trucks), and can hold enough fuel to power a car around the world 36 times.
Boeing designed the 747’s recognizable “hump”-like upper deck for extra seating, as well as to allow the craft to be easily converted into a cargo carrier, as the company believed that the 747, along with other subsonic airlines, would become obsolete—replaced by new, developing supersonic airliners.
The jetliner, however, exceeded expectations. By 1993, Boeing had produced 1,000 aircraft.
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