COBI Boeing 747 First Flight 1969 Set 26609

COBI's Boeing 747 First Flight 1969 is a 1:144 model built from 1,051 blocks, 46 cm long with a 42 cm wingspan, in the livery worn on the aircraft's first flight. The turbines in the engines rotate. Specially designed parts were made for this model. All markings are printed.

The hump is a hedge against a future that never arrived

Everyone knows the 747 by its upper deck. Almost nobody knows why it is there, and the reason is that Boeing did not expect the aircraft to carry passengers for very long.

In the mid-1960s the industry was certain that supersonic airliners were coming. Concorde was being built, the Soviets had the Tu-144, and Boeing itself was working on the 2707. Everyone assumed that by the 1980s long-haul passengers would fly supersonic, and that large subsonic aircraft would end their lives hauling freight.

So the 747 was designed from the start to convert. A freighter needs to load long cargo through the nose, which means the entire nose has to hinge upward — and that means the flight deck cannot be in the way. Put the cockpit above the main deck, and the nose can open.

The fairing behind the raised cockpit was aerodynamic tidying. Somebody then noticed it enclosed usable space, and it became a lounge, then a bar, then more seats.

The supersonic future never came. Concorde flew in small numbers, the 2707 was cancelled in 1971, and the 747 carried passengers for fifty years — keeping a hump it had been given for a job it mostly never did.

The first flight

9 February 1969, from Everett, Washington, with Jack Waddell at the controls. Production ended on 6 December 2022 after 1,574 aircraft and fifty-four years.

In the COBI range

Set 26610 is the 747 as Air Force One, and 26603 the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

Specifications

Pieces: 1,051 · Scale: 1:144 · Rotating turbines
Model dimensions: 46 × 42 × 15 cm (18.1 × 16.5 × 5.9 in)