Links and further reading

Places to see a 747 in person, and sources worth reading. Every external link below was checked and working when this page was last updated.

See a 747

The City of Everett, Museum of Flight, Seattle The first 747 ever built, RA001, registered N7470. It first flew on 9 February 1969 and Boeing kept it rather than delivering it. Restored over nearly two years and reopened to visitors in 2014, now under cover in the museum’s Aviation Pavilion. See our page on the restoration.

VH-OJA, HARS Aviation Museum, Illawarra, Australia The Qantas 747-400 that flew London to Sydney nonstop in 1989 — 9,720 nautical miles in 20 hours 9 minutes. Qantas’s last 747 dipped its wings to this aircraft on its farewell flight in July 2020.

NASA 905, Space Center Houston A Shuttle Carrier Aircraft — a former American Airlines 747-100 — displayed with a full-size shuttle replica mounted on its back, so the pairing can still be seen as it flew.

Joe Davies Heritage Airpark, Palmdale, California Home to NASA 911, the second Shuttle Carrier Aircraft — originally a Japan Air Lines 747-100SR built for high-density domestic routes before NASA converted it.

Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum Holds Space Shuttle Discovery at the Udvar-Hazy Center — delivered there in 2012 on the back of a 747.

Still flying

Stratolaunch Operates Spirit of Mojave, formerly Virgin Orbit’s Cosmic Girl — the 747-400 that air-launched satellites into orbit and is now being converted again as a hypersonic testbed carrier. The full story.

NASA Armstrong: Shuttle Carrier Aircraft fact sheet NASA’s own technical account of how two airliners were modified to carry spacecraft.

Reference

Boeing 747 — Wikipedia The best general starting point, with detailed specification tables per variant.

List of Boeing 747 operators — Wikipedia Orders and deliveries by airline, and a summary-of-deliveries table by variant. The source for much of our airlines page.

Aviation Safety Network The standard public database of accidents and incidents, searchable by type and operator. See also 747 accidents.

Airliners.net A very large photographic archive, useful for identifying variants and liveries.

On this site

• The 747 family — every variant, from the 747-100 to the 747-8
• Everything about the Boeing 747-8
• Special Boeing 747s — Air Force One, the Dreamlifter, SOFIA, the Supertanker
• Airlines — who flew it, and who still does
• Videos and the photo album
• Contact us — corrections and additions are welcome

A note on two removed links

This page previously linked to Plane Nation and Airline Nation. Both domains have lapsed and no longer resolve, so the links have been removed rather than left to fail.