747-100

The 747-100 is the aircraft that started everything: the first wide-body airliner, the first to carry more than 400 passengers, and the machine that made long-haul flying affordable for people who had never expected to fly at all.

It first flew from Paine Field, Everett, on 9 February 1969, and entered service with Pan Am on the New York–London route on 22 January 1970. A total of 168 were built, of which 167 went to customers; Boeing kept the prototype, City of Everett, which survives at the Museum of Flight in Seattle.

Why the hump is there

The upper deck is the most recognisable thing about the 747, and it exists for a reason that had nothing to do with passengers.

Boeing expected supersonic transports to take over long-haul passenger flying within a decade or two. The 747 was therefore designed to have a useful second life as a freighter — which meant a nose that could hinge upward to load cargo straight down the fuselage. Putting the flight deck above the main deck was the only way to leave that nose clear.

The supersonic airliners never arrived in numbers. The freighter design did, and 747 freighters outlived the passenger versions by decades. The hump, designed for a future that did not happen, became the most famous shape in commercial aviation.

What it could do

Typical capacity	366 in three classes, up to 480 single class
Engines	Four Pratt & Whitney JT9D
Length	231 ft 10 in (70.66 m)
Wingspan	195 ft 8 in (59.64 m)
Range	About 4,600 nmi (8,500 km)
Built	168

The original JT9D was the 747’s weak point rather than its wing. It was the first high-bypass turbofan on a commercial airliner and it was rushed; early engines suffered ovalisation of the casing and Pan Am’s first aircraft spent time parked awaiting engines. Later JT9D models, and the General Electric CF6 and Rolls-Royce RB211 alternatives offered from the -200 onwards, resolved it.

The variants that came from it

• The 747-100B added a strengthened airframe and a higher takeoff weight. Nine were built.
• The 747-100SR went the other way — less fuel, more seats, and a structure reinforced for far more takeoffs and landings, for Japanese domestic routes.
• The 747-100F was the freighter the nose door had always been intended for.
• The 747SP cut nearly 48 ft out of the fuselage to fly further than anything else in the sky.

Where they went

Almost none survive in service. The type was retired from passenger flying decades ago, and most airframes were scrapped as fuel prices made four thirsty first-generation engines impossible to justify. A handful became testbeds, and two became Shuttle Carrier Aircraft for NASA — one of them an ex-American Airlines 747-100.

The line that began here ran for 54 years and 1,574 aircraft, ending when the last 747 was delivered to Atlas Air in January 2023.