The 747-8 Intercontinental first flight

The 747-8 Intercontinental first flew on 20 March 2011 from Paine Field, alongside Boeing’s Everett factory — thirteen months after the 747-8 Freighter had made the type’s maiden flight on 8 February 2010.

It flew in Boeing’s orange and red launch livery, a scheme chosen to mark the aircraft out from every other 747 and used throughout the flight test programme.

What a first flight is for

A maiden flight is a deliberately conservative exercise. The gear stays down, the envelope stays narrow, and the crew works through basic handling, engine behaviour and systems checks before returning to the same airfield.

The real work follows: months of flight testing across the full range of weights, speeds and altitudes, plus ground testing including the rejected take-off test and structural loading, before the aircraft can be certified.

What came next

Certification followed in December 2011. The first Intercontinental was delivered to Lufthansa in May 2012, and the type entered scheduled service on 1 June 2012 — five and a half years after Lufthansa placed the launch order.