American wide-body commercial jet airliner Boeing 747 celebrated its 50th birthday. On February 9, 1969, the aircraft Boeing 747-100 performed its first flight.
Jumbo Jet performed a test flight with pilots of the company Jack Waddell and Brien Wygle. The plane took off from the company’s factory airfield in Everett. On board was also an engineer, Jess Wallick. The first flight of the aircraft was recognized successful, and the airliner responded to the declared characteristics, despite the fact that the engineer noted minor problems with one of the flaps.
At the time of its creation, the Boeing 747-100 was the largest and heaviest passenger airliner, remaining as such for 36 years. The pilots came up with the nickname “Queen of Heaven” and Jumbo Jet.
In total, 250 aircraft of this modification were built in various versions, of which 167 aircraft were the basic version of 747-100, 45 were -SP, 29 -were -SR and 9 were 100B. The last Boeing 747-100 belonged to the −100SR modification, was built for Japan Airlines and was delivered in September 1986.
As of December 2018, 1,548 units of the Boeing 747 were produced in various modifications.
