This Is Boeing’s New 747
When you’re leavin’ on a jet plane, or in a traveling band, might as well go in style. With Boeing’s new 747, it’s a piece of cake. The major airplane producer showed off an updated 747-8 Intercontinental at its home base in Seattle, Washington.
Over 42 years after that original 747 first took flight, chief engineer Joe Sutter (commonly referred to as the Father of the 747) sat near the stage at its unveiling. Sutter says that could not have predicted more than 40 years later his 747 would be Boeing’s new plane.
“If you design it right in the beginning, it will last for a long time.”
Flight and speed tests set records for this type of craft. During a practice run, the vessel flew at speeds just shy of Mach 1 (around Mach 0.90 to Mach 0.98). “I felt, and the co-pilot felt, like we were very gently,” he explains, “just rocking up and down,” said test pilot Mark Feuerstein. “It just lingered, it didn’t go away, and that was the key.”
Boeing’s red, orange and white paint job “pays homage and reaches back to the original 747 that first flew in 1969 with a red and white livery.” Boeing added that it honors customers “whose cultures recognize these colors as symbols of prosperity and good luck.”
Two airlines have already placed orders for the “luxury” plane 747-8, Lufthansa and Korean Air. Keep an eye out at JFK, LaGuardia and Newark Liberty International for the new generation 747-8′s.
Source: WIRED
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