Photo via @MWAAFlights might be grounded right now at the three major airports in the D.C. area, but earlier today, Dulles International Airport played host to the commercial debut of a brand-new class of jumbo jet.
The Boeing 747-8 completed its first public voyage this afternoon with a transatlantic Lufthansa flight originating in Frankfurt, Germany. The 747-8 is the newest iteration of Boeing’s famous jetliner,and the biggest—at 250 feet and two inches long, it bests the previous model, the 747-400, by around 18 feet. It also boasts a wingspan of 224 feet and seven inches.
It’s also very modern. Wired reports that under its exterior, the 747-8 uses much of the same technology as seen in the 787 Dreamliner, though blown up to a much larger scale.
Although the new 747 can hold as many as 467 passengers, Lufthansa’s configuration goes with only 362 to accomodate a business class spanning the entirety upper deck in which every seat can recline to a fully flat position.
The 747-8 was first announced in 2005, and it’s been floated as a possible model for the next aircraft to be designated Air Force One. The current planes used as Air Force One are a pair of modified original-model 747’s purchased by the U.S. government in 1990.
