The upper deck of a Lufthansa 747-8, configured in a 2-2 business-class layout (Photo by JT Genter/TPG) The upper deck of the 747 has grown dramatically since those first models went into service in 1970 with Pan Am. But it immediately became a passenger lounge when Pan Am’s founder and boss Juan Trippe saw the 747’s mockup and demanded the change. In fact, the cockpit was placed above the passenger deck to simplify the plane’s potential conversion to a nose-opening cargo carrier, giving the plane its “hump.” The small space behind the flight deck was suggested by Boeing as a crew-rest area. The “Queen of the Skies” recently celebrated the 50th anniversary of its first, world-changing flight, held in February 1969.īoeing didn’t expect the 747 to be a popular jetliner. The B-377-SGT, also known as the "Super Guppy Turbine," at the Long Beach Airport in 2014 (Photo by Jeff Gritchen/Digital First Media/Orange County Register via Getty Images)Īnd in a delicious irony, a small fleet of Super Guppies was used by Boeing’s arch-rival Airbus to transport aircraft components between its European facilities, a role now performed by the A300-derived Beluga. It was replaced in the air force in 1969 by the turboprop C-160 Transall, built by a French-German consortium. The French military also operated the Deux-Ponts, which could also be configured as all cargo or with a combination passenger/cargo load on the two decks. The propliner served medium-range destinations and flew primarily between Paris and Algiers. Air France operated the unpressurized Deux-Ponts, also known as the Provence, from 1953 until 1971. The Proplinersįor a time in the 1950s, the chubby Breguet “Deux-Ponts” - French for "two decks" - was the largest-capacity airliner in the world.Ībout 20 of the peculiarly tri-tailed, four-engine aircraft were built - configured to carry around 107 passengers on two decks in tourist-class seating. (Photo by Harry Shepherd/Fox Photos/Hulton Archive/Getty Images)īOAC flew the Sandringham on routes that reached as far as Tokyo until it was replaced by land-based planes in the late 1940s, signaling the end of the era of the flying boat. The British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) Short Sandringham passenger flying boat, a demilitarized conversion of the Short Sunderland military flying boat, taxiing for its maiden flight from the Short Brothers facility in Rochester, England on November 28, 1945. Although each engine generated over 500 horsepower, the Do-X was so big and heavy that it could barely climb to 1,600 feet for trips across the Atlantic.įourteen crew members controlled the behemoth from an upper-deck bridge that included an engine room befitting a steamship of the day. The Dornier Do-X had a wingspan of over 157 feet, was more than 130 feet long, and powered by 12 engines arranged in six “push-me, pull-you” pods over the wing. Ten years before Pan Am’s Boeing 314s crossed the Pacific, a massive flying boat staggered into the air over Lake Constance, Switzerland. Downstairs, in the all-first-class accommodations, there were passenger seating and sleeping compartments, a dining room/lounge, and restrooms. Upstairs on the 314 you would have found the cockpit, baggage hold, crew quarters and galley. (That route is now a 15-hour nonstop flight in a Boeing 777, with less space per passenger, but also without the roar of prop engines in your ear and the turbulence from flying under the weather.) Those flying on to Hong Kong would arrive six days after leaving San Francisco, after island-hopping across the Pacific. People boarding a Pan American Boeing 314 Clipper in 1939 (Photo by Apic/Getty Images) The 17-hour trip was flown at a blistering cruise speed of 125 mph, while passengers tolerated the thunder of four 1,600-hp Wright Cyclone radial piston engines. The 25 passengers per flight headed from San Francisco to Honolulu were pampered by four pursers on the luxurious lower deck of the Clipper. (Want to bring back that idea of not stuffing planes to the gills, airlines? We're all for it.) It could carry as many as 74 passengers, but was configured for 40 or fewer for overnight flights. In service from 1939 to 1948 - and drafted into the US military during the war - the 314 had a cabin almost as wide as a 747’s. Oh, the romance of the Pan American Clippers, captured in exotic settings on the gorgeous travel posters of the 1930s! They were the archetype of the seaplanes that dominated long-haul air travel before and immediately after World War II.īoeing’s Model 314 flying boat was the ultimate in pre-World War II intercontinental travel. The Points Guy will not share or sell your email. I would like to subscribe to The Points Guy newsletters and special email promotions.
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