![]() The thinking was - when the 2707 came out, they could still use the 747 for cargo, where high speed wasn't required. As such, it was modified for use as a cargo aircraft, by moving the cockpit above the main cabin, to facilitate a front opening nose for rapid cargo load/unload. The 747 was initially conceived a stopgap effort in the mid 1960's, expected to be overshadowed by the 2707 SST under development. It took some selling, and several mockups, to persuade Pan Am to accept this new and radical design. More efficient use of the available volume, and faster emergency egress. ![]() Boeing did study a full double-deck model to compete with the A380, but opted to focus on a smaller, more fuel-efficient market with the 787 instead.Īccording to Joe Sutter, the chief designer of the 747, his team came up with the concept of a wide body as an alternative to a double decker. Extending the second deck all the way back would create too many major changes to the structure and aerodynamics of the airplane, essentially making it a completely new model. The relatively short "hump" was retained not for extra passenger capacity, but so that if the passenger market dried up, they could keep producing the aircraft for the cargo market.īoeing did extend the "hump" further back to add capacity on passenger versions, first on the 747-300 (and later retrofitted to a few -100 and -200 planes), and again on the 747-8I. In the 1960s when the 747 was being developed, some believed that supersonic aircraft would be taking over the long-haul travel market. The Lockheed C-5 Galaxy was selected, but Boeing carried the same features over to the 747. One of the main requirements of the program was for cargo to be loaded from the nose, and placing the cockpit above the main cabin made this possible. The basic design of the Boeing 747 was originally developed to for the US military's CX-HLS program for a large cargo aircraft. ![]()
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