In the first episode we talked about the origins of Boeing,
and all the diverse and amazing aircraft the company had developed.
However, things quickly changed in the jet age
when the first jetliner was produced in 1957.
Since then Boeing established itself as a dominant airliner manufacturer
and produced some of the largest aircraft in the world!
This is the Evolution of Boeing Part 2.
While Boeing had developed multiple passenger airplanes,
it wasn’t until 1957 when the company started to become
the massive commercial airplane producer we all know today.
In 1957 the Boeing 707 was developed and it was the company’s first true jetliner.
It was based on the Dash 80 of which only 1 unit was built.
This prototype was used for promotion and an advertising campaign that was directed at the public,
showing the comfort and safety of jet air travel.
Boeing Company President Willian Allen and his management are said to have
“bet the company” on a vision that the future of commercial aviation was jets.
Although the Boeing 707 wasn’t the first commercial jetliner in service,
the 707 is often credited for the beginning of the Jet Age.
With a range of 3,000 miles and a cruising speed of 600 miles per hour
the 707 was meant for medium-range transport.
It could carry up to 181 passengers, which was a lot at the time.
To take market share away from one of its main competitors, like Douglas’s DC-8,
Boeing made custom models of the 707 for different customers.
For example, for Qantas Airways Boeing made special long-range models with larger engines.
Even though costs of customization were high, the risk paid off
and, in total, Boeing delivered a whopping 856 Boeing 707 models.
The 720 is a lighter shorter-range variant of the 707 that was introduced in 1960.
Compared to the 707 it had much lower development costs.
It could seat 156 passengers over a 3,680 mile range.
A weirdly looking model of the 720 was built known as the Boeing E-3 Sentry.
It had a huge rotating radar dome that was used by the military for air defense and to direct strikes.
Only 154 720 units had been built.
Fun Fact
In 1955 a pilot named Tex Johnston was instructed to do a simple fly-over with the Dash-80.
Tex knew that aviation people from all over the world would be watching.
So instead of doing a simple test flight,
he unexpectedly did a barrel roll with this massive aircraft!
He certainly helped selling airplanes, and
what do you expect when a guy that goes by the name of “Tex” has to do test flights.
What a freaking legend!
In 1962 Boeing developed another airplane
for shorter flight lengths from smaller airports.
They considered the Boeing 727 a very risky development since there was so much competition.
Which made it even more challenging was that some customers wanted four engines,
while others wanted two.
So, Boeing decided to create the only Boeing aircraft that is powered by three jet engines,
which are all on the back of the airplane.
These three engines made it one of the noisiest commercial jetliners.
In fact, it was so noisy that it had to use hush kits
that are basically like silencers for the engines, which help to reduce the noise.
Since 2010 some Australian airports banned 727 jetliners
including those with a hush kit because they were considered too loud.
The 727 had a top speed of 632 miles per hour and an impressive range of 3,110 miles.
The Boeing 727 was successful and it was one of the first commercial airplanes to break the 1,000 sales mark.
Originally Boeing planned to build only 250 of these planes.
However, they were so popular that in total 1,832 units were built.
Fun Fact
The Boeing 727 had a built-in airstair, which initially could be opened in flight.
In 1971, a guy named Dan Cooper hijacked a Boeing 727 while in midflight.
He carried a bomb with him and demanded $200,000, which is over $1.3 million today.
After receiving the money he prepared a parachute and jumped out of the airstair.
Even after a 45-year investigation by the FBI, Dan Cooper was never found.
Due to multiple similar hijackings the aircraft was modified so the airstair couldn’t be opened during flight.
One of the most iconic and popular Boeing airplanes is the Boeing 737.
The commercial twinjet was much smaller than the 144 foot Boeing 707
or the 133 foot Boeing 727, and quickly earned the nickname “Baby Boeing.”
During development Boeing was far behind its competitors.
So, to accelerate development, Boeing used 60% of the structure of the Boeing 727.
The 737 would compete with multiple well established airliners,
such as the French SE 210 Caravelle
and the American Douglas DC-9.
The first Boeing 737 made its maiden flight on April 9, 1967.
Lufthansa, a German airline company, was the first customer,
placing an order for 21 aircraft, worth $67 million.
The 737 had a range of just 1,150 miles which wasn’t nearly as far as its predecessors.
It could carry up to 107 passengers.
Just 20 years after its launch, the 737 became the most ordered plane in commercial history.
Throughout 4 generations many models of the 737 were made.
The first generation, known as the Boeing 737 Original, was also the smallest in the 737 aircraft family.
The second generation was the Boeing 737 Classic, which was produced from 1984 to 2000.
Several improvements were made to increase capacity and range.
The third generation, which Boeing named the 737 Next Generation, was released in 1997
and is still in production today.
It featured redesigned wings with a wider wingspan,
greater fuel capacity,
longer range
and it could carry more passengers,
ranging from 108 to 215 passengers.
During this time Airbus became a major competitor when they released the A320 family.
Airbus even took over the loyal Boeing 737 customers such as Lufthansa and United Airlines.
The latest generation of the 737 is the Boeing 737 MAX that was first delivered in 2017.
It had many upgrades, including a new more efficient engine,
airframe modifications and several aerodynamic improvements
of which the most notable are the advanced split winglets.
The 737 Max has 4 different models ranging seats from 172 to 230.
On October 29, 2018 just 13 minutes after takeoff a Boeing 737 MAX known as Lion Air Flight 610
crashed in the Java Sea killing all 189 passengers.
On March 13, 2019 another 737 MAX crashed
with Ethiopian Airlines Flight 302 just 6 minutes after takeoff,
killing all 157 people aboard.
Due to both aircraft being newly delivered and crashing both shortly after takeoff,
all Boeing 737 MAX units around the world were grounded from March 2019 until December 2020.
Investigators have linked the crashes to the fierce competition with Airbus,
as well as the pressure to speed up production and cut down costs.
Boeing even had to pay $2.5 billion in fines
since it had been hiding critical information about the 737 MAX from the public and regulators.
While the Boeing 737 MAX returned to service
the groundings resulted in a direct cost of a massive $20 billion
while indirect costs were even estimated to be over $60 billion!
Fun Fact
Netflix has a new documentary,
“Downfall: The Case Against Boeing”.
It’s about the trade-off between safety versus profits
that may have contributed to the two catastrophic crashes happening within months of each other.
In 1970 Boeing introduced the enormous Boeing 747.
It is a low-wing airliner powered by four turbofans.
It was so big that it took a custom-made assembly plant, the world's largest building by volume ever,
5.6 million-cubic-meters, to produce the first “Jumbo Jet”.
The 747 was designed to reduce seat cost.
The turbofan engines were used
because they were thought to be capable of delivering double the power of the earlier turbojets
while consuming one-third less fuel.
The 747 has a raised cockpit that would allow for a front cargo door,
turning it into a transport airplane in case supersonic transports would have taken over the passenger market.
This seemed like a real threat back then since the Concorde already made its first flight in 1969.
It had a top speed of 1,354 miles per hour, which is twice the speed of sound.
Meanwhile the Boeing 747 wouldn’t go much faster than its cruising speed of 640 miles per hour.
Placing the cockpit on a shortened upper deck resulted in the 747's distinctive "hump".
In 1966, Pan Am ordered the first 25 Boeing 747-100 aircraft for $525 million,
equivalent to $4.6 billion today.
When Boeing agreed to deliver the first 747 to Pan Am
it left the people working on the aircraft with so little time, that they were called "The Incredibles."
The Incredibles comprised some 50,000 employees
who made aviation history by building the largest civilian airplane in the world
in roughly 16 months during the late 1960s.
The financial risk was so high Boeing was said to have, yet again, "bet the company" when it started the project.
The firm's debt exceeded $2 billion, with $1.2 billion owed to the banks setting a record for all companies.
Fortunately for Boeing, the gamble succeeded,
and resulted in Boeing’s monopoly in supersize passenger air travel for many years.
The body of the 747 was 68.5 meters long, with a tail as tall as a six-story building.
The aircraft could hold 3,400 pieces of luggage and could be unloaded in seven minutes.
The total wing area was larger than a basketball court.
Yet, the entire global navigation system weighed less than a modern laptop computer.
Funnily enough, pilots learned to maneuver the plane sitting in a mockup
of the 747 flight deck built on top of a three-story-high stilts on a moving truck,
directing the truck driver below them by radio.
The first 747-100 and -200 models had a cruising speed of 640 mph,
a range of 6,000 miles,
and could carry between 375 to 490 passengers.
NASA modified two -100s into Shuttle Carrier Aircraft,
and in 1990, two -200s were modified to serve Air Force One,
replacing the VC-137s that served as the presidential airplane for nearly 30 years.
The 747-300 has an extended upper deck and carries even more passengers than its predecessor.
The 747-400 was introduced in 1988 in 3 different models.
First as a freighter,
second as a combination between a freighter and a passenger plane,
and third as a special domestic version for shorter range flights.
The longer range 747-400 airplanes were launched in late 2000.
The “Extended Range” model, lived up to its name with a range of 8,826 miles
compared to just 5,355 miles of the standard version.
In 2005, the 747-8 was launched.
It is a massive intercontinental passenger airplane, serving the 400- to 500-seat market.
It has a range of 8,892 miles and a wing-span of 68.4 m or 224 ft.
The -8 incorporates innovative technologies from the 787 Dreamliner, that will be discussed in the next episode.
The -8 derives its name from the 787,
and it is more environment-friendly in terms of noise, CO2 emission and fuel consumption.
In fact, it has a 30% smaller noise footprint and a 15% reduction in carbon emissions.
From the start pilots noted the 747 was an aircraft that handled extremely well,
and it was found to be largely immune to "Dutch roll", a phenomenon that had been a major hazard to the earlier jets.
Under certain conditions, however, the wings suffered from oscillation, meaning the wings go up and down.
This was partly solved by inserting depleted uranium counterweights in the engines of the early 747s.
This was a major cause of anxiety when El Al Flight 1862 crashed in 1992
scattering 282 kg of uranium in a densely populated suburb of Amsterdam.
To date 61 Boeing 747s have been involved in accidents, in which a total of 3,722 people lost their lives.
In total 1,569 units of the 747 have been built.
In fact, the 747 was the first wide-body airplane in history to reach the 1,500 units milestone,
but in 2022 production of the iconic 747 is scheduled to end after 54 years.
Fun Fact
The success of the 747 is not purely based on economy.
For sure, it had the lowest potential operating cost per seat when the aircraft was fully loaded.
However, costs rapidly increased as occupancy declined.
A 70 percent seated aircraft would still use more than 95 percent of the fuel
needed by a fully occupied jumbo jet.
Thus, surprisingly, it seems that many flag-carriers purchased the 747 due to its prestige,
"even if it made no sense economically.”
In the final episode we’ll feature all the latest and most advanced Boeing aircraft.
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