AIR FORCE ONE 747 COCKPIT REGISTRATION

They say it could hold all of Disneyland, with room to spare. To build her, Boeing constructed what remains the biggest building by volume in the world in Everett Washington. And for good reason: When it was introduced, everything about the 747 screamed “royal.” With Boeing’s first iteration measuring 231 feet, she was longer than the Wright Brothers’ first flight (that was just 120 feet). | Photo 12/Universal Images Group/Getty Images The 747 commercial jetliner assembly line in 1969, at the Boeing plant in Everett, Washington. And every single one of them forever changed the way we fly.

Initially projected to cease production after the first 400, at final tally, a total of 1,574 Boeing 747s have hit the market since the airliner’s 1968 debut, spanning six variants and multiple sub variants. And a design that definitely defied the odds. A design that, thanks to its offset upper level, kind of resembles a beluga whale. Considering the last Boeing 747 ever produced rolled off the assembly line on December 6, 2022, your chance to own one of the most influential designs in modern history is slimmer than ever. You can even turn your rescued jet into overnight accommodations- Jumbo Stay in Stockholm, Sweden makes for quite the novel airport hotel.Ī solid business idea? Perhaps, but the window of opportunity for obtaining a piece of this repurposed action is sadly coming to a close.

Some have opted to balance one on top of a water park, like this incredible specimen in McMinnville, Oregon, while others have displayed them in aviation museums, like the Museum of Flight in Seattle. And while an airplane without an engine might sound like a giant waste of space, more than a few innovative 747 enthusiasts, it turns out, have managed to see the upside in these mechanical beached whales. But if you can figure out a way around that, you can purchase them for a steal (or, at least, a lot less than the tens of millions they originally sold for). In 2019, the planes were stripped of their engines. The jets’ interiors still reflect the dominant beige and tan color scheme of the time, their wide bodies partitioned by two narrow aisles.

AIR FORCE ONE 747 COCKPIT REGISTRATION

Painted white with a stark red stripe, registration numbers indicate they were built to cart around Japanese government officials. Parked in the Pinal Airpark, among the sleeping Cessnas and whatnot, are a couple of worn Boeing 747-400s dating to 1991. There’s some recent history around these parts, too. Decommissioned and suspended commercial aircraft at Pinal Airpark. Today, visitors can peer at the resident airplanes from outside the chain link fence or, even better, hop on a grounds tour -just call or email to make an appointment. The largest commercial boneyard in the world (during the pandemic, when planes were grounded, the number of occupants ballooned from 89 to 400), Pinal Airpark comes with some serious history: During the Vietnam War, it functioned as the base for CIA front company Intermountain Airlines, now famous for their covert operations in Southeast Asia.

Here, commercial planes interlock in rows, dormant, while on the single runway their smaller brethren fly off to explore new horizons. Near Tucson, Arizona, Pinal Airpark pulls double duty as both a boneyard and an airport. Therefore, long-term aviation parking lots are typically found in deserts-in the US, that usually means the Southwest.

These spaces must be arid and dry, conditions conducive to preserving big metal things. They call it the airplane boneyard, where once high-flying craft are dropped off when they’re no longer needed, temporarily out of service, in need of refurbishing, or marked for cannibalization of their parts (RIP).

Air force one 747 cockpit