Flickr’s saabfan2013 will too by the looks of it, and has created this neat brick-built homage to the 747 in double-decker configuration and Iberia livery. The aim was to reduce expenses by a third per passenger to bring long-distance air travel to the masses, and the 747 fulfilled its brief so well that over 1,500 have been produced to date, with the design single-handedly defining the ‘jumbo jet’ era.ħ47 production finally ceases next year, as the industry has moved away from ‘jumbo’ aircraft in favour of smaller more fuel efficient airliners, with two-engined planes now capable of flying just as far as their ageing four-engined counterparts.Īnything that reduces air travel pollution is a good thing, but we’ll miss the old ‘jumbo’. The 747 first entered service with the now defunct Pan Am airline in 1970, after they commissioned Boeing to build a plane 2.5 times larger than their existing airliners. It’ll all be worth it once you’re home.Īfter over 50 years of service, Boeing’s mighty 747 is starting to be retired from fleets around the world. Fly home for Christmas on BigPlanes’ British Airways Boeing via the link above. 25,000 pieces, working landing gear, flaps, and an astonishing complete mini-figure interior mean we can almost feel the Christmas-excitement in the cabin. British Airways’ Boeing 777-300ERs are some of the countless aircraft that make the great Christmas migration happen, and BigPlanes 1:40 recreation captures the real airliner spectacularly. OK, travelling home for Christmas sucks, but the ‘home’ part makes the ‘travel’ part entirely worthwhile. They will stand together to watch gift-filled luggage circulate, before the festivities of Passport Control await. Mountains, deserts and oceans will pass underneath them, no longer a barrier to their passage, and a smiling hostess will announce ‘chicken or fish?’ before presenting them with a little tray of mostly edible content. All over the world people have boarded planes to visit relatives and friends from whom they have been separated. Travelling home for Christmas is one of the great human experiences. Kennedy prior to his assassination in 1963, in jaw-dropping detail.Ī complete mini-figure scale interior and cockpit are contained within the astonishingly life-like exterior, which includes working flaps and retractable landing gear, and forty spectacular images are available to view at BigPlanes’ ‘LEGO Air Force One 70’ album on Flickr.Ĭlick the link above to fly like JFK in 1962, or here to see BigPlanes’ recreation of the current Air Force One in operation today, which may or may not include some references to a considerably less impressive president. This spectacular replica of SAM 26000 is the work of the appropriately-named BigPlanes of Flickr, who has recreated the presidential Boeing 707, as used by John F. Beginning as a converted C-54 Skymaster transport plane during the Second World War, the distinctive Raymond Loewy-designed livery we know today first appeared in 1962 with this ‘SAM 26000’, one of three Boeing 707s used for presidential transport throughout the ’60s and ’70s.

America’s ‘Air Force One’ has been flying Presidents since 1945.

Lego 747 cockpit