Passenger Planes: Boeing 747

Behind the scenes at the Farnborough airshow in England in the summer of 2000, Boeing was keen to share its opinion that Airbus’ weight numbers for the A380 dual-deck jumbo, which is to enter the fleet in 2006, were optimistic. Retired 747 chief engineer Joe Sutter was there just to remind people that Boeing had studied a dual-deck airplane as long ago as 1965 and had rejected it as too heavy.