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Final 747 rolled out December 6, 2022


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Final Boeing 747 rollout for ‘Queen of the Skies’

Dec. 7, 2022 at 10:10 am Updated Dec. 7, 2022 at 1:35 pm

By Jennifer Buchanan Seattle Times staff photographer
The final 747 jumbo jet rolled out of Boeing’s Everett plant late Tuesday, marking a milestone for both the iconic airplane and the giant assembly plant for which the jet was first built in the late 1960s.
The final 747-8 freighter model will fly to Portland for painting before Christmas and return to Everett early in the new year. It will undergo standard testing of fuel and other systems and then be inspected by its buyer, the cargo company Atlas Air that purchased Boeing’s last three 747s.
Atlas will take delivery some weeks after its return to Everett and at that point Boeing plans a farewell celebration of its “Queen of the Skies.”
The first 747 rolled out at the same airfield on Sept. 30, 1968. With its distinctive humped upper deck, it’s the only airplane many flyers can recognize on first sight.
The final model, the 747-8, was introduced in 2009 and is the largest 747 type made during the plane’s five decades in production.
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End of an era, but a pretty impressive run! I got to see that one on the final assembly line at the Boeing Family Day event a few months ago and it definitely stood out proudly from the sea of KC-46/767/777F in that building.

 

It's cool that after all that time the first and last are ones are currently only about an hour's drive apart from each other since the Spirit of Everett is at the Museum of Flight.  And she still has better lines than the rest of the fleet...

 

Thanks for sharing the link.

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  • 4 weeks later...

A friend flies the -800s. 

He has flown the final ship a great deal. I asked him about it and he showed me a cell phone photo of a new rudder pedal...so new the paint was still on it. He said it still had the "new airplane smell".

 

He loves the 800...

 

My late uncle was at the rollout of the prototype back in the day...as a wartime glider pilot (Normandy, Southern France and Arnhem) he was astonished something that large could fly.

 

I was a kid then and they did seem futuristic.

Edited by JohnEB
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