A nostalgic walk between two huge Boeing 747 planes awaiting their end

@ElentirENG ES 1·11·2024 · 23:40 0

The Boeing 747 was a commercial aircraft that revolutionized the world of aviation after its first flight in 1969, due to its large size.

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Known as "Jumbo" due to its enormous dimensions (the first version had a fuselage length of 70.66 meters, a wingspan of 59.64 meters and a height of 19.3 meters), This plane appeared with an initial capacity of up to 550 passengers, a capacity that increased to 660 in the 747-300 version. The largest version, the 747-8I, measured 76.4 meters long, a size that was only surpassed by the Airbus giant, the A380, in its A380-900 version, which measured 79 ,4 meters.

The 747 began service as a commercial aircraft in 1970 and continued to be manufactured until 2022, demonstrating its success in the civil aviation market. In fact, its size and great quality led the US to choose this model to be Air Force One, the name given to the planes responsible for transporting the president of that country for decades. The US Air Force also chose a variant of the 747, the E-4B Nightwatch, as "Doomsday Plane".

Despite their success, older 747s have been ending up in airplane graveyards for years now. Two of them have been awaiting their end for years at the Laurinburg-Maxton Airport, in Maxton (North Carolina, USA). Chris Luckhardt recently published a video recorded at Christmas 2021, in which takes a nostalgic walk between these two giants of aviation:

You can see some screenshots of this fascinating video below. Here we see the two Jumbos from this video, parked as if they were looking at each other. The plane with the red top is a Boeing 747-151, N603US. It bears the pound of Northwest Airlines, a company with which it began service on May 22, 1970 (it is, therefore, one of the first 747s in operation). It was withdrawn from service in 1994. It was officially listed as scrapped in 1999 (probably when the engines and other parts were removed), but it has been abandoned there for decades awaiting its end. The other plane is a Boeing 747-151, N602PR. It served on the Northwest Orient airline.

Other Jumbos have already passed through this airport and some of them have already been scrapped. According to Atlas Obscura, access to this aircraft graveyard is banned since 2017.

An image of the enormous landing gear of a 747. The rear landing gear of this plane had four 16 wheels distributed in groups of four, to be able to support the great weight of this plane.

In addition to the Jumbos, at the time of recording that video there were also other abandoned planes on this site, like this Boeing 737, now without engines.