Jumbo
The Making of the Boeing 747
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- £8.99
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- £8.99
Publisher Description
For the 50th anniversary of the Boeing 747’s first commercial flight, a picture book about the development of the iconic passenger plane and how it changed the history of air travel.
In 1968, the biggest passenger jet the world had ever seen premiered in Everett, Washington. The giant plane was called the Boeing 747, but reporters named it “the Jumbo jet.”
There was only one problem. It couldn’t fly. Yet.
Jumbo details the story of the world’s first wide body passenger jet, which could hold more people than any other plane at the time and played a pivotal role in allowing middle class families to afford overseas travel. Author and illustrator Chris Gall, himself a licensed pilot, shows how an innovative design, hard work by countless people, and ground-breaking engineering put the Jumbo jet in the air.
On January 22, 1970, the Boeing 747 made it's first transatlantic flight, taking passengers from New York to Paris in seven hours.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Between its first flight in 1970 and its last in 2018, the Boeing 747 "transported the equivalent of 78 percent of the world's population." It's an incredible statistic, but a fraught legacy given the realities of climate change. Gall avoids any discussion of the 747's ecological consequences, centering instead the engineering challenge Boeing faced in designing the world's largest passenger plane, then building it in just 28 months per the demands of Pan American Airlines. Incisive explanations of concepts such as gravity, lift, drag, and thrust; turbojets; the design process; and plane construction ("over 4.5 million pieces in a 747!") shine alongside lucid, highly detailed realistic color illustrations and schematics peppered with plane parts, cross-sections, and relatable images, such as a girl braking a bike to depict hydraulics. Gall's attention to detail dazzles, but the institutional-feeling narrative never quite soars. Includes "Fun Facts," a glossary, and an author's note about building a plane. Ages 5 8.
