The Boeing 747-200F

A note on the URL. This page has lived at 727-200f since the original site was built, and the address is kept so that old links keep working. The aircraft described is the Boeing 747-200F — there is no 727-200F in the 747 family.

The 747-200F was the freighter version of the 747-200, and the aircraft that established the 747 as the standard heavy freighter worldwide. It entered service with Lufthansa in 1972, could be ordered with or without a main-deck side cargo door in addition to the nose door, and carried up to 105 tons at a maximum takeoff weight of 833,000 lb (378,000 kg).

Cargo capacity

Main deck volume	516 m³
Under-floor volume	149.96 m³
Bulk hold	28.3 m³
Total load volume	694 m³
LD3 containers in the belly	30

Upper deck

Crew lounge	3 places
Or economy seats	20

That 20-seat option is unusual for a freighter, and reflects how these aircraft were actually used: carrying supernumeraries, engineers travelling with a load, or livestock handlers, on routes where there was no practical alternative.

Why the -200F endured

Freighters age differently from airliners. A passenger 747 is retired when its fuel burn per seat stops making sense against newer twins; a freighter is retired when the airframe runs out of cycles or the maintenance bill exceeds its remaining value.

Because freighters fly fewer, longer sectors and carry loads that do not complain about cabin age, 747-200Fs stayed in commercial service into the 2010s — decades after the passenger -200s had gone. Several were still flying with cargo operators long after their contemporaries had been scrapped.

Related pages

• The 747-100F, the first 747 freighter
• The 747-200C, the convertible version
• The 747-400F, which used this fuselage design with the -400 wing
• The 747-8F, the last and largest