Randy Tinseth, the Vice President, Marketing for Boeing Commercial Airplanes and the blogger behind Randy’s Journal, has written about the recent final day of flight testing for the 747-8 Freighter. One of the two airplanes that flew drew up a giant 747 across the continental USA sky in a 17 hour endurance flight over some 15 states. Below is the actual 8,119nm flight plan from FlightAware:
SEA J70 MLP J36 GTF HLN DLN TWF PARZZ MVA MQO MVA PARZZ Q121 TOUGH DIK RAP J157 BFF HGO TCC VANSS TCC HGO BFF J157 RAP DIK J36 FAR J140 DLH J21 ICT SPS ICT J21 DLH J140 FAR DIK BFF PARZZ TWF DLN HLN GTF J36 MLP J136 GEG GANGS KPAE
Randy has pointed out that the 747-8 Freighter has already flown more than 1,200 flights and 3,400 hours since its maiden flight back in February of 2010.
You have to respect the viability of this long-lived design, and the various tweaks Boeing has made to make it ever more attractive to operators. What a success story. The 747 is truly inspirational in it's history, as well as it's lively future.