Jim Eames - The Mighty 747: Australias Queen of the Skies

Jim Eames has been involved with airlines since he began work as an aviation writer in the 1960s. He has been a ministerial press secretary and aviation adviser to governments and a senior executive with Qantas. He is the author of nine books including Taking to the Skies: Daredevils, heroes and hijackers, Australian flying stories from the Catalina to the Jumbo, The Flying Kangaroo: Great untold stories of Qantas the heroic, the hilarious and the sometimes plain strange and Courage in the Skies: The untold story of Qantas, its brave men and women and their extraordinary role in World War II.

This edition published in 2022

First published in 2022

Copyright Jim Eames 2022

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ISBN 978 1 76087 711 8

eISBN 978 1 76118 561 8

Set by Midland Typesetters, Australia

Cover design: Luke Causby/Blue Cork

Front cover photograph: Boeing (VH-EBA, first Qantas 747 test flight, Washington state, USA, 1971)

At first sight, on the ground, it can present a slightly ungainly shape. Its upper-deck bubble seems somehow out of character with the sleek examples of high-speed air transport we have come to know since the birth of the jet age.

But first impressions can be misleading. Once in the air, its shape quickly transforms into an image that not only captures the gracefulness of flight but also has created indelible memories for millions of us. This is the aeroplane that opened up the world for generations of Australians, providing them with an opportunity to venture overseas for the first time. Among them were many thousands of war migrants who would finally reconnect with their families scattered all over the world.

But the Boeing 747 in Qantas service reached further than that, creating probably one of the largest gatherings of dedicated followers of any aircraft to have flown Australian skies.

Much of its reputation, of course, had to do with Australias geographic remoteness. It was this remoteness that carved out Australias space in the skies of the world, giving Australians such a deep affinity with aeroplanes and the early aviators who flew them. It also partly explains why certain of the 747s predecessorssuch as the Douglas DC-3 and the Constellationclaimed a special place in the hearts of past generations.

Looking beyond its passengers and more deeply at the 747 itself, however, one finds an aeroplane that draws a very sentimental response from those who spent their lives working closely with it: the air crews and cabin crews who flew in it day and night, those who maintained and sold its seats, and even those in the air traffic control towers who cleared it for take-off and landing.

Its also a story of groundbreaking airport runway and terminal requirements, of negotiating the often-political international air services agreements and overflight rights between sovereign nations, and of meeting the challenges of advances in engine technology. Along with the 747 came a new era of in-flight entertainment and, for that matter, innovations in how the meals served to passengers made it onto their fold-down trays somewhere over the mid-Pacific.

But if the story of the 747 in Qantas demonstrates anything, it is that an airline is really about people rather than just the machinery that brings the excitement, speed and comfortand, of course, occasionally the excitement and risk. So, while the last Qantas Boeing 747 departed Australian skies just a few weeks short of its 50th anniversary with the airline, it left a lasting legacy. That legacy had its origins many thousands of miles away on the far side of the world.

The aircraft that would go on to make history and become affectionately known as The Queen of the Skies was actually born out of disappointment. Indeed, had Boeing not lost out to its competitor Lockheed in a bid to build a military transport aircraft for the US Air Force, the 747 might never have been builtat least not in the form we have come to know it.

As time passes, and as history often confirms, myths can be created out of the most basic of facts. One such myth is that Boeing simply converted the design it had developed for the US Air Force military transport into the 747. It is true that Lockheed won the air force contract, with the aircraft that would become known as the C-5A Galaxy, but the design Boeing had submitted for a high-wing aircraft bore little resemblance to the eventual 747 beyond its sheer size. By the time the C-5A decision was announced, however, a new designthe Boeing 747was already on the drawing board.

Its real origins go back even further. Some would even suggest it has links to that other iconic aircraft, the 707, back in a time when Boeing was largely known not for its civilian aircraft but for the production of military aircraft. It had produced iconic versions of that genre, like the B-17 bombers that flew above most of the battlefronts of World War II. Boeings military signature would continue post war with the development of aircraft such as the B-47 and the B-52, both playing roles in the Cold War and the Korean conflict.

But when it came to airliners, it was Lockheed, Boeings major competitor, that paved the way to the development of aircraft specifically designed for civilian use, particularly the Super Constellation in the mid-fifties. Before then, it had been a matter of converting ex-military variants for civilian use, such as the Douglas DC-3 and DC-4, and Britains Lancaster.

As with the eventual 747, the Boeing 707 was a gamble. It would be the first big US step into the commercial jet age, a risk that was destined to enter aviation folklore even before the first one had been sold.

***

It happened in Seattle one morning in 1954, as Boeing chief Bill Allen played host to a gathering of US airline chief executives aboard a yacht on Lake Washington. Allen was attempting to sell them what he believed was his companys four-engined jet masterpiece, designed to cut propeller-driven airliner schedules in half.

The aeroplane that Boeings chief test pilot Tex Johnston was flying towards the luxury yacht that morning hadnt even yet earned the numerals 707. Bearing a relatively plain dusty-brown-and-yellow livery, it was simply known as the Dash 80 prototype model.