The curtain falls, revealing Boeing's new 747-8 Intercontinental on Sunday during the unveiling ceremony for the new airplane at its plant in Everett, Washington state, in the United States. The airplane is the largest passenger plane built by Boeing. [Shanghai Daily]
Boeing Co rolled out a new jumbo jet on Sunday, hoping to relive the glamour of the birth of the 747 over 40 years ago and use it to boost slow sales.
The 747-8 Intercontinental will seat 467 passengers, 51 more than the current version of the 747, and burn less fuel while offering passengers more comfort, the United States plane maker says.
"Of all the airplanes that we've built, there is one that is identified more closely with Boeing than any other, and that's the 747," said James Albaugh, head of Boeing's commercial airplane unit, introducing the plane to a crowd of almost 10,000 Boeing employees, their families and a select group of industry VIPs.
The event took place in the same hangar at Boeing's Everett plant outside Seattle where the first jumbo debuted in 1968.
Near the front of the seated audience was Joe Sutter, Boeing's chief engineer on the original jumbo, and known as the "father of the 747."
The plane itself, unveiled from behind an enormous curtain to rapturous, thudding music, was bright red and white - a departure from Boeing's recent blue - bearing generic Boeing livery on the side and '747' on its orange tail.
The unveiling came almost 42 years to the day since the maiden flight of the 747, which went on to become the world's most recognized jetliner and transformed the global travel industry.
It is the first appearance of a radically new version of the passenger jet since the first jumbo, with its humped two-storey cabin and 69-meter wingspan, took the world's breath away on a sunny morning at Everett in September 1968.
"People were awe-struck. It was a monster, nobody had seen anything like it," said Jim Mullins, a writer who covered the original rollout for King Broadcasting.
"Today it looks ordinary, but at that time there were no airplanes even close to it in size. They opened up the hangar doors and it was just unbelievable. People reacted as if they were rolling out the Empire State Building."
The 747 lost its crown as the world's largest plane to the 525-seat Airbus A380 when it was unveiled in 2005.
