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Boeing rolled out a new bigger jumbo jet on Sunday almost 42 years to the day since the 747 changed the face of the travel industry. The 747-8 carries 467 passengers, 51 more than the current 747 range, burns less fuel, has new wings, tail and engines, is more comfortable and is 19 feet longer, says Boeing. Airlines have given a cool reception to the new plane with Boeing so far picking up only 33 orders from two airlines, Lufthansa and Korean Air Lines. The first plane off the production line will go to a VIP customer later this year....

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The Boeing Phantom Ray unmanned airborne system sits atop a NASA Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA), a modified Boeing 747, as it takes off at 1:40 p.m. Central time for today's test flight at Lambert International Airport. The 50-minute flight was conducted in preparation for Phantom Ray's upcoming transport on the SCA to the Dryden Flight Research Center at Edwards Air Force Base, Calif. "This is exciting not just because it's the first time that an aircraft other than the space shuttle has flown on the SCA, but also because it puts Phantom Ray that much closer to making its first...

United Airlines 747 flies low over the Golden Gate Bridge

The airplane starts accelerating down the runway. In the flight deck, Captain Paul Stemer feels the weight of the situation. "It's a lot of mass, a lot of energy. I have to stay ahead of it." It's up to Capt. Stemer to command RC521, the second 747-8 Freighter, into defying gravity and lifting more than 1 million pounds into the air. It's a feat neither he nor any Boeing Flight Test pilot before him has ever attempted. While the airplane gathers speed, 100 knots, 120, 140, now 160 knots, the amount of available runway quickly evaporates. RC521 still needs to...

The Pentagon’s Airborne Laser (ABL) is being prepared for a late July test in which it will attempt to shoot down an ascending target missile from twice the distance of the aircraft’s previous intercept tests, the program’s top official said. Originally conceived as an operational military system that would use a high-power chemical laser to destroy ballistic missiles in the early stages of flight, the ABL platform — only one has been built — has been relegated to the role of technology test-bed. The program is funded by the U.S. Missile Defense Agency (MDA) through September, but its future is...

A British aircraft broker (Balli Aviation Ltd.) was recently fined $17 million dollars, and put on probation for five years, for illegally exporting three Boeing 747s to Iran two years ago. The broker pled guilty and cooperated with the investigation. Iran has eight Boeing 747s, and they cannot be exported to Iran without a U.S. government permit. The U.S. refuses to provide these permits, so Iran obtains these aircraft via fraud and companies that are willing to risk prosecution. The Boeing and AirBus aircraft obtained this way have to be maintained by Iran, using smuggled parts. As a result, some...

The ABL did everything it was supposed to do. Now, the Pentagon wants to call it quits. On the night of Feb. 11, off the coast of Southern California, the Missile Defense Agency scored a major achievement by destroying a liquid-fueled ballistic missile target in flight. The important part was that it did so using a laser weapon carried onboard a Boeing 747-400 aircraft. This milestone event constituted the first publicly announced test success for the Airborne Laser (ABL). However, the success was actually the second of its kind within an eight-day period. On Feb. 3, the ABL aircraft was...

Many things remain murky about the Air Force Rocket Propulsion Laboratory’s sponsorship of an effort starting in 1980 to study the possibility of launching a spaceplane off the back of a 747. AFRPL was located at Edwards Air Force Base and in early December of that year, an AFRPL engineer named Don Hart produced a several page description of what such a vehicle might look like and might be capable of doing. (See: “Fire in the sky: the Air Launched Sortie Vehicle of the early 1980s (part 1)”, The Space Review, February 22, 2010) Very quickly at least one contractor...

Sometime in the last three weeks a 747 departed Johannesburg, South Africa for Maputo, Mozambique with an camera strapped to the nose landing gear looking aft along the fuselage. The result is a stunning piece of HD video taken over African skies. (music leaves something to be desired)

The Airborne Laser Testbed (ALTB) faces an uncertain future as both a research project and an operational system even after its 1MW-class chemical laser successfully - and historically - destroyed a ballistic missile off the California coast on 11 February. The long-awaited intercept test proved that the modified Boeing 747-400F's key technology - a chemical oxygen iodine laser (Coil) invented by US Air Force researchers in 1977 - is a lethal weapon against ballistic missiles. A week before the ballistic intercept, the ALTB shot down a Terrier Black Brant, a two-stage sounding rocket that presents faster and smaller target to...

A high-energy laser mounted on a US military aircraft has shot down a ballistic missile in the first successful test of the weapon, the US Missile Defense Agency said on Friday. The experiment -- evoking a scene out of a science fiction film -- was carried out off the central California coast at Point Mugu Naval Air Warfare Center at 8:44 pm Thursday Pacific time (0444 GMT), the agency said in a statement. "The Missile Defense Agency demonstrated the potential use of directed energy to defend against ballistic missiles when the Airborne Laser Testbed (ALTB) successfully destroyed a boosting ballistic...

– Boeing Co.'s giant 747-8 freighter — the biggest plane the company has ever built — successfully completed its first flight Monday, a year later than originally planned. The huge plane took off from Everett's Paine Field shortly after noon and returned to Paine at 4:18 p.m. PST after an approximately 3 1/2-hour flight. A crowd Boeing estimated at more than 5,000 employees, customers, suppliers and other airplane fans gathered to watch the plane take to the air. The flight came just one day short of the 41st anniversary of the first flight of the original 747 model. At 250...

In honor of the 40th anniversary of the entry into service of the 747-100 with Pan Am in January 1970, Max Kingsley-Jones and I have authored a package of features commemorating the event. During my visit to Seattle in December for 787 First Flight, I had an opportunity to sit down with Joe Sutter, who served as chief engineer for the 747 program . . . . .

Mr. Toth's First-Class Obsession Recreates Defunct Airline's Cabin (Spiral Stairs, Too) Fliers nostalgic for the golden era of air travel might want to book a trip to Anthony Toth's garage. Mr. Toth has built a precise replica of a first-class cabin from a Pan Am World Airways 747 in the garage of his two-bedroom condo in Redondo Beach, Calif. The setup includes almost everything fliers in the late 1970s and 1980s would have found onboard: pairs of red-and-blue reclining seats, original overhead luggage bins and a curved, red-carpeted staircase. Once comfortably ensconced, Mr. Toth's visitors can sip beverages from the...

Boeing will take a $1 billion charge to its third-quarter earnings to reflect growing production costs and slow demand for the new version of its 747 jumbo jet. The company said this morning that the 747-8 program is in a loss position, meaning Boeing currently projects it will lose money on the plane. Boeing said it now expects the first flight of the 747-8 Freighter to occur by early next year with the flight test program taking place in 2010. As recently as last month, the program's top executive had indicated he expected the first test plane to fly in...

For the third time in the last decade, the U.S. Air Force is looking at using commercial aircraft as bombers. This time around, it's mainly a matter of cost, with the next generation heavy bomber likely to cost over a billion dollars each, and only carry 30 tons of bombs or missiles. The idea of militarizing 747s first started gaining traction three decades ago, as cruise missiles showed up and many air force analysts did the math and realized that it would be a lot cheaper to launch these missiles from a militarized Boeing 747. The freighter version of the...

PHOENIX - Hundreds of passengers aboard a British Airways Boeing 747 preparing to depart for London from the Phoenix airport were forced to use slides to evacuate the jet on Friday night after fumes filled the cabin. No serious injuries were reported among the 298 passengers and 18 crew when the incident occurred at Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport at about 8 p.m. Arizona time (11 p.m. EDT), Phoenix Fire Department Capt. Shelly Jamison said. About 15 people who were on board Flight 288 were evaluated for minor scrapes and bruises, but only one person was taken to a hospital...

Jumbo jet packed with British tourists seconds from disaster after it fails to rise on take-off By DAILY MAIL REPORTER 01st June 2009 Hundreds of passengers narrowly avoided disaster when their plane nearly crashed after taking off. The British Airways plane shook violently and did not rise more than 30ft above the ground as it set off from Johannesburg to London. The pilot has been praised for his quick actions in keeping the Boeing 747 in the air, saving the lives of the 256 passengers on board. Miraculous escape: The British Airways Boeing 747, similar to this one, is thought...

LOS ANGELES — Aviation authorities say a baggage cart was drawn into an engine of a Boeing 747 as it was leaving a terminal gate at Los Angeles International Airport. .. .. a baggage cart was being towed by at the same time and the engine ingested one of the containers. The object was lodged in the outer left-side engine of the four-engine jet.