OPINION
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In 1970 I was on a trip to America. It was a troubled time: two students protesting against American involvement in the Vietnam War had just been shot by National Guardsmen at Kent State University. I was visiting US tertiary institutions, and every one of them was simmering. I sat in on a student meeting which was working out ranges to the White House from locations in Washington DC for a 75mm military mortar mounted on a flatbed truck. I was on my way to visit Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma when out of the taxi window, I saw an impossibly large aeroplane climbing out from Tulsa Airport at what looked like stalling speed. It was a prototype Boeing 747 undergoing loaded flight trials.
The 747 was, in essence a gamble. Like many technological innovations of the Cold War era, the 747 project was catalysed by the US military. In the early 1960s, Boeing produced designs in response to a government request for a large military transport aircraft. Lockheed won that job and produced the C‑5 Galaxy. Boeing’s loss steeled its resolve and freed up engineers to work on the biggest airplane ever built for commercial service. Boeing bet the entire business on the project. From 1970, when the first 747 entered service, to 2023, when Boeing stopped building the plane, the company manufactured 1,574 of them, including the two that still serve as Air Force One whose replacement has been much delayed. The ‘can do’ attitude that produced the 747 has today all but vanished from the American psyche.
Just north of Seattle they put up the largest building in the world by volume to house up to eight 747s under construction. Had the 747 project faltered, Boeing would likely have gone down with it. There were a number of ‘marks’ of the 747 as engines and performance improved. There were several variants, including one designed to transport the fuselage-mounted Space Shuttle. Passenger capacity went from 366 in the earliest version to 690 in the final series. In the earlier versions, there was even a spiral staircase between decks. It was the plane every airline pilot wanted to fly, the top rung of a commercial-aviation career. From 1969 to 1979, the number of people flying every year more than doubled, to 640 million.
Flying was glamorous then, in part because it was expensive, but also because the 747 was built for human comfort as well as fuel efficiency. The 1973 oil shock made fuel more expensive, altering the fundamentals of the airline business. Hijackings surged too, leading to the intervention of airport security, which since 9/11 has become much more intrusive. In 1978, deregulation transformed the economics of the domestic airline industry. Fares dropped dramatically, and more people began to fly. As the clientele became more pedestrian, flying felt less cosmopolitan. Many 747s still flying have been modified to carry freight, with a retractable nose. At one time it was thought that supersonic flight would render the 747 obsolete, but the high passenger-mile cost and two disastrous crashes, put paid to Concorde.
Qantas purchased 60 Boeing 747s, with the last delivered in 2003. The Boeing 747-400 saw a major change for airlines and the industry as a whole. It reduced the cockpit crew from three to two. The aircraft not only carried more freight and passengers but also had such a long-range that it spelled the end for refuelling airports. But by 2020 Qantas 747s at airports were a rarity. One has been set up at the Qantas air museum at Longreach in Queensland, next to Qantas ambassador John Travolta’s personal Boeing 707 which was the first jet aircraft that Qantas purchased. Others have been turned into aerial busses in Russia, and a number of other formerly Soviet republics. They are unlikely to receive the complex maintenance necessary, and will fly until they crash or are scrapped.
Two 747s were involved in the Tenerife airport disaster, occurring on March 27, 1977, the deadliest aviation accident in history, resulting in 583 fatalities. It involved a runway collision between two Boeing 747 aircraft – KLM Flight 4805 and Pan Am Flight 1736. After 9/11, flying became much more security conscious and the comforts started to vanish. The social spaces and onboard lounges began disappearing so the airlines could cram in more passengers – including into the upper deck, which became certified for
passenger seating during taxi, takeoff, and landing. When the 747 is gone, other aircraft will service high-capacity, long-haul routes: the Boeing 777, for example, and the Airbus A350. But none of those planes will symbolise global access and renewal, because nothing about any other plane is symbolic. They all look and feel the same, just metal tubes with wings.
When we are on a plane these days, we are really inside our headphones, sewn into our seats, yearning for it to end. The miracle of flight itself goes unnoticed, as even daytime travellers draw their shades. They do so to sleep, or to increase the contrast on their screen. Striking up a conversation is taboo. Six miles above ground, you feel buried rather than aloft.
Where do obsolete aeroplanes go to die? In Australia it is the airport at Roma in Queensland or the Qantas Air Museum at Longreach. In America, the graveyard (you’ve all seen pictures of it) is in Arizona at a former World War II bomber training airfield. It is called the Pinal Airpark. It is “home to a number of businesses that provide storage, maintenance, and end of life [sic] services for aircraft”. The ‘luxury’ airliner which Qatar offered to President Trump, personally, and which he accepted, was a 747. Recently Trump was barred from using it because of ‘security issues’.
It will be interesting to learn what its maintenance implications are. The climate of the region offers a great low-corrosive environment that is ideal for storing aircraft. It holds a number of retired 747s. Perhaps the Qatari 747 will go there.
Whatever, it’s a compulsory stop-off for aviation-minded tourists. Like me.
John Fleming II
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