Original subtitles

Chad zdenek: This is a 747,

the world's first jumbo jet.

We're towing 500,000 pounds of 747.

A legendary design that began a golden age of air travel

and has flown over three billion passengers.

Now, 50 years after they first took flight,

these giants of the skies are being retired...

Their reusable parts overhauled and recycled,

possibly into your next soda can.

As we take these planes to pieces,

I'll uncover the engineering innovations

that revolutionized aviation...

On the wing of a 747!

...and opened the skies to all of us.

♪

I'm Chad zdenek.

I spent seven years building rocket engines for NASA.

Now I'm taking things apart,

breaking down giants of engineering

piece by piece...

So I can discover what made them legends of their time.

♪

I'm in the heart of Mississippi,

at a specialist aircraft disassembly facility.

Walking underneath this thing

really shows you how big it is?

Will: Yeah, it does.

Chad: This is where planes get sent

when they reach the end of their working life.

For an engineer like me, this place is amazing.

Some of these planes are beautiful,

and they're in very good condition.

They've been maintained and looked after

their entire lives.

The only problem

is that they're not really needed anymore.

But that doesn't mean there's not a lot of money

that can be made from them.

That's where the disassembly team comes in.

Will: Good morning, how's everybody doing?

All: Good morning.

Chad: I'll be working alongside these guys

to decommission a very special aircraft.

They're tracking its final flight right now.

2689 heavy, tupelo tower,

report a five-mile final, runway 1-8.

Chad: And here it comes-- a boeing 747.

Man on radio: Clear to land.

Chad: Nearly 300 tons of aviation legend,

affectionately known as the queen of the skies.

That's a big plane. Wow.

Once you come to a stop,

you can hold your position,

and they're requesting shut down the engines.

They're going to tow you from there, sir.

Chad: That's the final touchdown for this 747.

It flew its maiden flight in 1999.

Since then, it's carried nearly three million passengers

and racked up 14 million miles.

We're towing 500,000 pounds of 747

to its final resting zone.

It's unbelievable to be in here.

The very first boeing 747 took to the sky in 1969.

Film narrator: Here it is,

the largest and the fastest of all commercial airplanes.

Chad: These aircraft were twice as big

as previous passenger planes,

earning the nickname "jumbo jet."

Their size meant more people could fly further

for less,

while their design offered luxury

and mile-high glamour,

promising a new era in jet travel.

The largest, fastest,

most comfortable plane in history--

the boeing 747 superjet.

Chad: Since then, over 1,500 747s have been built.

But new production stopped in 1998.

The hard-working 747 fleet is now at the end of its life.

One by one,

these iconic planes are being retired,

making way for more modern, more fuel-efficient aircraft.

For this jumbo jet, it's the end of the line.

But there's still a buck to be made.

This plane will be dismantled

and its most valuable parts sold.

The rest will be melted down and recycled.

So, here's the plan.

Over the next 10 weeks,

I'm going to help the team take this plane apart.

They'll save anything of value

before recycling the fuselage

for aluminum and other materials...

And I'll reveal the five engineering innovations

that made this plane a record-breaker:

The revolutionary jet engines,

which can be worth up to a million dollars;

the 400-seat cabin,

bigger and wider than any before;

the vast wings

that got this huge plane into the air

from the shortest runway;

the cockpit and avionics

that guided this giant through the sky;

and the massive landing gear

that brought it safely back down.

Will Smith is an aircraft mechanic

with ten years of experience dismantling 747s.

Now he's showing me the ropes.

Will Smith: As you seen whenever it flew in earlier,

it's just a huge aircraft.

It's always fun to watch them come in,

it's fun to taxi them in and get them parked.

And, you know, like I said, from start to finish,

it's just a fun aircraft to work on.

♪

Chad: The disassembly team's first job

is to remove the most valuable components--

its four giant engines,

each one weighing four tons.

These are 20 years old.

But even with millions of miles on the clock,

they're still good for tens of thousands more flights

and can even be fitted on a different aircraft.

That's why they're in high demand

and extremely valuable.

Hayley townsend is in charge of removing them.

Since I've worked on rocket engines,

she's agreed to let me help with this jet engine,

provided I don't get in her way.

We take off this cowl here,

and then we take off this cam door,

and we're going to open these up in a little while--

the thrust reversers--

and get in and disconnect everything underneath there.

Chad: Finally, I got a wrench, I can do some work.

As the cowling comes off,

I can see the complex engineering underneath

and the huge scale of its moving parts.

It gives you a perspective size

when you're here without the inlet

just really how big these fan blades are.

They had to be big.

When boeing designed the 747,

there wasn't a jet engine in the world

big enough to lift it.

They asked engine company Pratt and Whitney to build one.

It took a huge amount of trial and error.

60 prototypes were developed

and written off.

But boeing was determined to make it work,

whatever the expense.

Finally, after two years and millions of dollars,

one of them worked.

It was five times more powerful and six times more efficient

than anything before.

I've come to this jet engine testing facility in Georgia

to meet Barry latter,

one of the original engine designers.

Barry latter: Yes, we had problems with the engines.

It was a huge gamble, with a lot of money involved.

But we were given the latitude to be able to try ideas out.

If they worked, great;

if they didn't work, we just tried again.

So, what would you say some of the major innovations are

that went into the 747 engine?

Barry: In the case of the 747,

the kind of innovation

that was built into the airplane or the engine

was the first application

of what we call a high-bypass-ratio engine

to a commercial airplane.

Chad: A high-bypass-ratio engine sounds complicated,

but like all the best ideas in engineering,

it's actually pretty simple.

And it starts with understanding how a classic jet engine works.

It basically comes down to four principles:

Suck, squeeze, bang, blow.

That's it.

Now, the sucking happens right here.

These fan blades are moving really fast

and sucking in a lot of air.

Now, the squeezing--

that's starting up in this area right here.

Basically,

we're bleeding off some of the air from the fan blades,

and we're squeezing it or compressing it down

all the way through this section

until we get to the combustion chamber.

Here we're adding fuel and ignition,

and we're getting bang.

Once we have combustion,

those hot gases are going to expand

through a series of turbine blades, right here.

Now, these turbine blades, they're attached to a shaft,

which is connected to the fan blades at the front.

Those fans blades are going to spin

up to 4,000 revolutions a minute.

That creates thrust--

the power to get the plane moving and off the ground.

Even so, with all this work,

we're only creating 30% of the thrust for the engine.

But it's the way this bypass engine creates the rest

that is so ingenious.

As well as driving air through the central turbine,

the fan forces twice as much down the sides of the engine,

bypassing the turbine,

hence the name.

This air blasts straight out of the back of the jet,

creating an additional 70% more power.

It's just air that is creating over 40,000 pounds of thrust

that's propelling this airplane forward.

The 747 pioneered the high-bypass engine.

Now it's an industry standard,

delivering more power with less fuel

on aircraft all over the world.

The engineering it pioneered

is still in use in these engines.

Hayley: It's looking good!

Chad: They were put into service when Hayley was just a kid.

Hi, Hayley. Hayley: Hi!

Chad: Now she's overseeing their careful removal

so they can fly for another generation.

Hayley has aviation in her blood.

Hayley: My dad was an aircraft mechanic,

and now he's a sheet metal technician.

My sister is younger than me,

but she does electronics for airplanes.

Chad: So, I'm gonna guess it's not your first engine

you've taken down.

Nah, I've taken off several.

Chad: There are 30,000 connections to be undone...

In the south,

this is what they call a no-joke wrench.

...until the four-ton engine is left hanging from the plane

by just eight bolts.

But final removal can only happen

under the watchful eye of an airline inspector.

We gotta hurry up.

We got the inspector coming at noon,

and we're supposed to have all the cowlings off,

duct work off, cabling off,

and only the eight bolts holding this thing on,

for the inspector to look at,

approve that, yeah, we can take it down.

If we miss that window, it's not coming down today.

The process takes hours.

Finally, the last connections are undone,

just as the inspector arrives.

His job is to make sure the engine is removed

the right way.

And why is it so important to get the engines off first

on the whole disassembly?

Well, we want to make them,

they're going to be serviceable.

That means we're going to take them off

where they can be reused again,

because you want to always protect the engine bearings,

make sure all our chains are straight,

'cause once you get the weight on there,

it's hard to readjust.

Hayley: Ok.

Chad: It's a serious weight

and a seriously tense moment.

One mistake could knock tens of thousands of dollars

off the value of this engine.

Hayley: What the heck was that?

Chad: Hayley's worried her team may have damaged the engine.

But it's ok.

Mechanic: A clamp popped off this duct.

It's fine.

Chad: Crisis averted,

they continue disconnecting the engine

until it's held to the 747 by just four bolts.

Now Hayley has to make sure it's fully supported from below.

Hayley: We're going to pick the whole cradle up,

and square it, it'll sit level,

all four tires off.

Hold up, just the front.

With the weight of the engine

supported evenly by the cradle,

we can finally take out the last bolts

that connect it to the plane.

I've taken out a lot of bolts in my day,

but nothing like this before.

This is a whole different animal.

Hey, Hayley, these guys are having a hard time.

They might need your help up here.

Mechanic:!

Man: Let's go, Chad. Let's get in there, man!

Hayley: Go, Chad! Mechanic: One, two, three...

That's it!

That's it!

Hell, yeah!

Man, these bolts are tight.

Man, that is a serious bolt.

Mechanic: There's your bolt. Chad: Wow, look at that.

Whoo!

So right now Hayley is making sure

the guys are bringing it down evenly,

because if they don't, you could tweak it

and mess up one of those pylons,

and then we're going to have a big problem on our hands.

Hayley: Can that come down the back some?

What do you think?

Yeah, that's what I'm thinking.

Hayley: All right.

Mechanic: Ready, art? Man: Yeah.

Mechanic: Yeah, go ahead.

Art and I'll just hit a quarter...

What do you think, Hayley?

Hayley: Doing good!

All right, everybody go.

Chad: Over 9,000 pounds of engine

are now suspended in mid-air.

Any mistake could be disastrous.

Hayley: Hold on a second!

Chad: Inch by inch,

the team lowers the engine to the ground.

Hayley: All right, everybody?

Man: There we go. Right there.

Hayley: Everybody come down.

Yeah! Good job, guys.

Chad: One engine down, three to go.

With the engine safely in the cradle,

Hayley gets sign-off from the airline inspector.

This prize engine can head to the warehouse.

There, they'll overhaul it, test it,

and then sell it.

The engineering genius behind the 747's engines

means they can be used again and again--

not just on other jumbo jets,

but also on more modern aircraft.

I'm back at the test facility with Barry latter,

who helped develop the 747's engines.

This engine is being reconditioned,

which gives me the chance to see and hear it in action.

Barry: Dark screen's up.

Here comes the fuel.

Egt's rising...

Chad: Barry goes right for the ear protection.

He knows what's coming.

If you've ever wondered what it's like

to stand alongside a 747 at takeoff, this is it.

This engine can produce 60,000 pounds of thrust.

Four of them are enough to take a fully loaded 747

to 600 miles an hour.

Wow!

Barry: There you go. Chad: That was amazing!

So I'm just imagining a 747 having four of those,

Max throttle all at once.

I mean, that's some serious power.

Barry: Serious power.

And that's why, even now,

you listen to that engine start up and run,

it's still exciting.

Chad: It never gets old, does it?

Barry: Never gets old.

Chad: Two weeks later,

and all four jet engines have been successfully removed.

The team's next job

is to take out the interior of the plane's cabin.

One challenge 747 engineers faced

was to build a space big enough

to fit twice as many passengers as any other airplane,

without making it feel like a cattle car.

The cabin is the next engineering innovation

I want to uncover.

But how do you get inside a 747 without a jet bridge?

It turns out, every one has a secret entrance.

Man, this is tight. Sheesh!

It leads directly to the passenger cabin.

This is nice. Will: Yeah, it is.

Chad: What do you guys actually do

with the seats and these pods?

Will: We have to take them out by sections,

just because of the size of the seats.

Chad: So, with the 747 being retired,

are these becoming more a collector item type pieces?

Will: If we can't sell them, you know, to the airline

or back to united, you know,

I see customer interest in these for sure.

Chad: I guess we better get started.

Will: We gotta get started. Plenty of work, yup.

Chad: We're starting in economy,

where the dismantling team

has already received an order from a major airline

for over 300 seats.

I've teamed up with mechanic Ronnie.

So, I imagine it'd take a little while

to get all 300 of these chairs out?

Ronnie: Yeah, it's gonna take a while.

Chad: Man!

Airlines buy seats in bulk,

and that means they have to be removed together.

Each row consists of three seats

bolted together into the cabin floor.

Is this all aluminum framing?

Ronnie: Yes.

Chad: So even that's probably worth money?

Ronnie: Yup.

Chad: Getting them out requires a bit a turbulence.

Is it good? Is it free now?

All right. So, one down, 150 to go.

Man: Probably something like that, yeah.

Chad: A 400-seat plane may be familiar to travelers today,

but in the 1960s, it was revolutionary.

Then, the biggest passenger aircraft

were the boeing 707 and Douglas DC-8.

They each sat just 200.

Lots of these small planes

meant congested airspace and crowded airports.

Pan American airways decided they would find a solution.

In 1963, they approached boeing with a daring proposition--

design the biggest passenger plane

the world had ever seen--

one that could carry twice as many people

as its competitors.

Their initial request?

A tall narrow aircraft.

A double Decker,

with two decks running the length of the plane--

a cruise ship for the skies.

But there was a problem.

A double-Decker fuselage

could accommodate a high number of passengers.

But it could be very difficult

to get those passengers off the plane,

especially during an emergency.

Aviation law required that all passengers

could be evacuated off of a plane

in less than 90 seconds.

Impossible on a double-Decker design.

It was a setback that changed aviation history,

for better or for worse.

Boeing went back to the drawing board

and came up with a giant twin aisle cabin--

20 feet wide,

300 feet long,

fitted with 400 seats.

Crucially, the twin aisles gave each passenger

speedy access to eleven emergency exits,

satisfying aviation law.

The 747 engineers pulled out all the stops

and made their presentation in a specially built boardroom

the exact dimensions of their cabin.

Pan am were so impressed,

they signed off on the twin aisle design

right there and then.

With a nod to the original brief,

boeing even incorporated a short upper deck

that seated first class passengers.

Just like that,

an aviation icon was born.

Film narrator: Having led the world into the jet age,

pan am tops itself.

Working closely with boeing,

pan am develops a huge new aircraft

far exceeding in size and capabilities

anything that anyone had ever dreamed of.

Chad: 50 years later,

this wide-body design is the industry standard

used on 7,000 other passenger aircraft flying today.

If you've ever flown long haul,

you've probably flown on one.

Now, on this plane,

that cabin has got to go.

We've pulled out all the seats.

Now it's time to take out what's left.

Ronnie: You're getting pretty good at this stuff, Chad.

Chad: The design of the 747

makes it possible to disassemble the plane in separate pieces.

Windows...

Wall panels...

Overhead bins...

They all come out, ready for use again.

Now we have to start the one job

we have been putting off all week.

Ok, Ronnie, what's next?

Ronnie: Well, it's time to remove the toilets.

Yeah, it's a crappy job.

Chad: You knew it was coming. Ronnie: Yeah, it's coming.

Chad: All right, I'll roshambo you for it.

Ready? Ronnie: All right.

Chad: One, two, three.

Ronnie: Yeah!

Chad: This plane has flown three million passengers,

so I don't want to think

how often this toilet has been used.

Ronnie: Make sure you wash your hands when you're done.

Chad: Definitely need hazard pay.

But, like so much on board, it's still valuable.

Reconditioned, it could fetch thousands of dollars.

Man.

Ronnie: Good job, Chad. Good job, man.

Chad: Before I finish the cabin,

there's one other important piece of equipment

I want to find.

It's kept hidden safely away, right in the tail.

Well, this is something the passengers don't get to see.

The quarters for the crew.

Six beds...

Two chairs...

And one very important piece of equipment,

the flight data recorder--

I think it's right in there--

also known as the black box.

Let's take a look.

So here we are, second level,

we're at the aft of the plane, right near the tail section.

And this is where the black box recorder is,

and that's because the faa regards this area

as the safest part of the plane during a crash.

So, we're going to pull it.

Let's see what we've got here.

There it is.

That is definitely not black.

This slides right out.

Ok, and this is your black box,

or in layman's terms,

a really bright orange neon box.

And we're just gonna tag it, and we'll be good to go.

All right, we're ready.

Now, this thing records

dozens of parameters on the airplane

so that if there's ever an incident,

it can be used for the investigation.

And this thing is built to last.

Jet fuel will typically burn at about 1,800 degrees fahrenheit.

This thing's designed to withstand

just over 2,000 degrees fahrenheit.

So regardless of what the incident might be

that the plane goes through,

this is going to be critical in helping with the investigation.

With the 747 design signed off, pan am took a leap of faith,

and in 1966 awarded boeing a record-breaking contract--

$525 million for 25 747s.

It was a huge gamble for boeing, too.

The cost of failure would destroy the company.

It had just two years to begin delivery--

two thirds of what was normal

for planes half the size of the 747.

Boeing even had to build a factory from scratch

to house the vast production line.

Film narrator: 1966.

A tranquil woodland near Everett, Washington,

swept clean to make room for a new dimension.

Inside, the 747 program becomes a reality.

Chad: It would eventually become

the biggest building in the world.

But production of the plane couldn't wait,

so 50,000 engineers

began assembling the first 747 in snowstorms

as the factory was constructed around them.

Film narrator: The giant task of assembly began.

Someone called the 747 group the incredibles.

We think it's a good name.

Chad: Boeing built a giant factory.

And inside it, the sheer size of their new aircraft

gave engineers a giant headache.

The super-sized plane was going to have to take off and land

on runways built for aircraft half its size.

To do that, the 747 engineers needed an ingenious solution--

one that would make the 747 a truly global airplane.

Now I want to uncover the engineering innovation

that made that possible--

its giant wings.

I'm about to walk out on the wing of a 747,

and even the pilots don't get to do this.

Yeah!

On the wing of a 747!

We've seen how important the jet engines were

on the evolution of the 747.

But it was also the wings that made it a unique plane.

Together, its two wings measure 222 feet wide

and double as gas tanks,

holding 35,000 pounds of fuel.

But even at that size,

engineers needed a trick up their sleeve

to get this plane up in the air,

before the runway ran out--

movable lift-altering surfaces,

or wing flaps.

The 747 has 36 of them.

And like the rest of the plane,

they're huge...

So that when just these three flaps are extended,

the surface area of the wing is increased by 21%.

And that increases overall lift from the wings

by a whopping 90%,

meaning that even fully loaded,

the 747 can take off

from runways built for planes just half its size

and make use of existing airports all over the world.

Today, these wing flaps are still in demand as spare parts.

And universal asset management

has just received an order for one.

I'm helping the team remove it from the plane.

The flap is held in place by just four pins.

We have to take these out one by one, without damaging it.

So basically, we're connecting up

this spreader bar with these choker straps

to the trailing edge of the flap.

We need to make sure the load is evenly divided between the two

so that it comes off evenly.

Otherwise, when you pop those pins,

it's going to want to jump one way or another,

and we don't want that to happen.

We gotta make sure Clint, who's our rigger right now,

is happy with the way it looks

'cause he's gonna be ultimately

the one who's gotta pull this thing off.

If we go up a little bit,

I think I can probably get my hands through there

and just pop it in this way.

We have to make sure the guys controlling the crane

keep enough tension in the cables

to hold the flap steady.

Clint, how's that load?

You got 1,200?

All right.

Three down, one to go.

Man: Last one!

Perfect.

Chad: With the pins removed, the flap should pop off.

It's up to the rigging team to do the lifting

without breaking it.

Man: Now it's outside of our hands.

We just go down and get out of their way.

Man: Keep coming down.

There we go.

A little more.

Little more!

Keep it coming.

Come down, Clint!

Chad: These are a lot bigger when they're on the ground.

This thing's huge.

It's crazy to think just four of these pins

are the main support that's holding that flap,

that last trailing edge flap on the wing.

There's just four of these.

This thing, with the rigging, was about 1,400 pounds,

but when this thing's under load from that wind,

I can only imagine the load that's going through this.

The 747's wing design may be ingenious,

but they didn't come easy or cheap.

By 1968, production overruns and design snags

left boeing $2 billion in debt.

Then...disaster.

Engineers discovered the huge wings

cracked under the immense weight of the engines.

The design had to be revised

and the wings rebuilt,

plunging the company even further into the red

and leaving boeing's fate hanging entirely

on the success of the 747.

Film narrator: Rollout day for the boeing 747.

Chad: In January 1970,

boeing revealed its jumbo jet to the world,

and with it, offered the jet set a new way to travel--

one that was unique and luxurious.

Man: We have an airplane now--

a remarkable one.

Chad: It was an impressive spectacle.

But now boeing needed to convince the world

their plane was worth it.

The huge debts from developing the 747

meant their deal with pan am

was not enough to keep the company afloat.

And the 747 was already facing some competition--

new supersonic planes

offering an elite trans-Atlantic service to passengers.

Boeing needed other airlines

to place big orders for their new aircraft,

or they'd be sunk.

It's now six weeks

into taking apart and recycling a 747.

We've removed the engines,

the seats,

and parts of the wings.

That's already over $5 million in reusable parts

ready for a new life on other aircraft.

This is universal asset management's enormous warehouse.

It's stacked high with reconditioned parts,

all salvaged from retired airplanes

and ready to be sold.

In this warehouse, do you have all the parts

from the small stuff to the big stuff of the 747?

Michael kenney: Everything. Everything ends up here.

If it doesn't sell fast enough

that it ships directly from the airplane itself,

it'll end up here in the warehouse.

Chad: So, is the philosophy

that a plane is worth a lot more in different parts and pieces

than it would be in its entirety?

Michael: When we acquire it and when it comes to us,

it's hit that point.

It's hit the point where it's more useful to us

than it is to an airline.

Chad: Just for, let's say, a landing gear, for instance.

How much would these go for, roughly?

Some of the older landing gear,

maybe, $25-30,000 per leg.

Some of the newer landing gears

are several hundred thousand dollars...

Chad: Wow.

Michael: Even approaching a million dollars.

Chad: Price tags like that

reflect how the 747's engineering

has endured over the decades

and the demand that still exists for them.

Now an order has just come in from an airline

for the nose landing gear off this 747.

The giant engines and wings

lift this huge plane into the air.

But landing it?

Well, that's a whole different ball game.

So, the next amazing feat of engineering

I'd like to take a look at is the 747 landing gear.

747 engineers faced a conundrum--

how to land 300 tons of plane.

Most existing passenger planes had six wheels--

two under each wing and two under the nose.

But those planes were much smaller and lighter.

Simply making the wheels bigger wouldn't work.

There would still be too much weight

on too few points of support.

So, engineers added more wheels.

18 wheels arranged in five separate trucks.

This pioneering design spread the plane's huge weight

and allowed it to land safely.

Now our next job is to remove the nose gear from this 747.

So, it's taken the crew about a day

to get these support structures underneath the plane

to lift the load off of the landing gear.

These support structures,

they consist of two interlocking frames

with tie rods at the top

to match the curvature of the plane.

The section we're working in

is known to the disassembly team as the dog house.

It's shaped liked a kennel, and it's a tight squeeze.

There's a lot of moving parts up there,

and you've got to follow it step by step

because this is one of the most dangerous parts

of taking apart the 747.

There's hydraulic lines in there,

there's a lot of linkages,

and there's a lot of tension in these parts,

so that if you don't do it step by step,

you could run into a lot of problems.

The landing gear doesn't just stop the plane on touchdown;

it's also designed to take the load off the plane landing.

This nose gear takes about 10% of the 747's weight.

So, these spring-loaded blocks

have to handle the pressure of over 66,000 pounds.

Any mistake or failure here could release those blocks

and cause a serious accident.

The last thing we want to do is take a pin out

and have this whole thing spring back at us.

I imagine there's a lot of force in here.

Man: Yeah, there'd be a lot of force.

Chad: On top of the risk of getting hit by a flying part

is getting crushed by the gear itself.

It weighs 1,600 pounds.

Ok, here it comes, here it comes.

There we go.

That's no joke.

Man: That's a serious pin. Chad: That's a pin!

So, we have to be extra careful

to take the parts out in the correct order.

Yeah, there it is.

Whooo!

This is one of the biggest nose landing gears

ever installed on a plane.

But there was more to its innovation

than just size.

One thing you almost never see when an airplane lands

is a blow-out.

Think about it.

These tires are hitting the tarmac

at 170 miles an hour,

carrying the weight of a small office building,

and they nail it every time.

When the 747 touches down,

the wheels must accelerate from zero to 150 miles an hour

in a heartbeat,

making them skid before they start to spin.

That's why they smoke on touchdown.

That friction causes heat to build inside the wheel,

creating the risk of an explosion,

which is never good on an airplane.

So, the 747's tires are filled with nitrogen,

an inert gas,

which unlike oxygen, won't aid combustion.

That helps protect the plane from blow-outs

and keep landings safe.

♪

Here in the dog house,

you can get an idea of how fast those tires are spinning

after takeoff.

It's definitely pretty tight in here,

a lot of tire dust, rubber dust,

because when these tires are spinning right off the ground,

they're still spinning when it comes up,

and they hit these stop plates at the top,

that's just like a friction stop on it,

and that's where all this rubber is from, grease.

It's a pretty dirty area up here.

We're finally ready to pull the whole thing off,

but it's going to take brute force.

So, the last section of the nose landing gear

is this huge section right here,

and this is when we call for the big breaker bar.

Back it up..

I've worked on a lot of machines before.

But when you need three guys and a 6 1/2-foot breaker bar,

you know you're dealing with some serious bolts.

All clear!

Chad: Looks good on this side.

Man: You've successfully removed the landing gear.

Chad: That was awesome!

With the landing gear removed from the front of the plane,

there's now another valuable part to take out,

all the way at the back.

It's the 747's fifth engine,

the auxiliary power unit.

It's a small but crucial feature.

There it is.

The apu.

It'll take most of the day,

but it's definitely coming out.

So basically,

I think the way to think of the apu

is basically like your battery for the car.

The battery is what gives your power to the car to start it.

The apu is used to power the 747's electronics

and air conditioning

and to start up its engines.

But when you're dealing with something like jet engines,

you got to have a lot of power to kick-start the jet engines,

so to speak.

The apu puts out 1,800 horsepower,

which gets the jet engines turning.

Just like them, it's still valuable for resale.

Hayley: It's basically everything

that's connected to it, just disconnect.

It's not that difficult.

There's some duct work up top

that I'll have to crawl on top of to get out,

which is always fun.

Chad: How come you're doing that instead of Paul?

Well, I think you can tell.

Paul: It's a little harder for me to squeeze in there.

Chad: We need to be ready to remove

the last pieces connecting the apu to the tail,

which means we need to be ready to support it.

So right now, we're positioning the pads

to get underneath the structural part of the apu.

Once we get that all squared away,

we're going to lift up a little bit higher

to take the load off,

and then we can undo the bolts at the top.

It's a good thing Hayley is kind of small

because there's not a lot of room up there.

So we took off the three nuts that were holding this on,

and now it's just the upward pressure of our stand

that's holding it there,

and the plan is that we're going to slowly bring it down,

and we gotta make sure it's coming down at the same angle,

'cause you don't want it to get caught on one of the posts.

So, the challenge is we have this exhaust duct,

it's about 2 feet in diameter,

and we got to make sure that when this thing's coming down

that it's not getting hung up on the part of the exhaust duct

that's staying attached to the plane.

And it looks like it might be getting hung up up there,

so we're gonna double check.

We've got about 1,500 pounds of apu right here.

The problem is that the apu, when it's up there,

it's not squared with the ground,

so you gotta tilt down, back down,

tilt down, back down, like this,

all the way down, inch by inch,

and a big reach fork like this

isn't used to moving inch by inch.

Whooo!

Hayley: Yeah!

Chad: Man!

Like all the other parts we've taken off the 747,

that apu is now ready to be sold and installed in a new aircraft.

After years of development and setbacks,

boeing now had an aircraft

that could change the way we travel forever.

But it also had a sound financial argument.

A fully loaded 747 could cut the cost of flying a passenger

in half.

More passengers meant more money for the airlines.

The economics were undeniable.

Over the next ten years,

four major airlines

ordered almost 600 new planes between them.

Boeing was saved from ruin.

And the 747 ushered in a new golden age of jet travel,

now on its way to becoming an aviation icon.

Eight weeks into the disassembly of this 747,

we've removed the engines, the seats,

and the cabin interior.

We've removed the flaps from the wing

and taken off the landing gear.

Now, the final innovation I want to uncover

is the plane's nerve center-- its cockpit and avionics bay.

Wow!

The cockpit of the 747.

Now, this is the spot.

If I could have any job in aviation,

it would be right here,

the captain.

So, I'm excited to meet a very special 747 pilot.

In 1980, Lynn rippelmeyer

made the remarkable leap

from flight attendant

to become the first female pilot of a 747.

So how does it feel

to be back in the cockpit of a 747?

It's fantastic.

This is my favorite baby.

Chad: Was it? Lynn: Yeah, it really was

Chad: I can't imagine that there's many flight attendants

that made their way all the way up to captain

of a huge plane like this.

What was that like?

Lynn: My main job,

being the most junior one on the airplane,

was to serve the cockpit.

To not have to listen to the lousy jokes,

I started asking questions about the cockpit,

and I'd get to sit in that jump seat.

I started learning about flying

and the airplane in general,

and I got addicted.

I think it's the closest explanation.

It's just where I wanted to be and what I wanted to be doing,

so I spent the summer taking lessons,

and then I heard

that the airlines decided women could fly airplanes!

Chad: That was in 1973.

Lynn would go on to become an aviation pioneer.

But today, still only 3% of commercial airline pilots

are women.

Of all the planes you've flown,

what made you feel so attracted to the 747,

or why did this become your favorite plane to fly?

Lynn: I guess because it's so big,

it was stable.

Of course, the 74,

you've got a redundant system

for every engine that you've got,

so the more engines you have, the more redundancy you have.

So for the 74, you've got four backups to everything--

to the hydraulics, the electrics, the pneumatics.

Best workplace, best office I can imagine,

you know, 7 miles above the ground.

Kind of sad that it's the last time, you know,

um, but I guess there's always got to be a last time.

Chad: When Lynn first sat in this cockpit,

there were over 900 lights, gauges, and switches.

They output so much technical information

that a dedicated flight engineer was needed.

But all that was about to change.

By 1982, the innovations the 747 pioneered

were being used on other, newer planes,

and sales of the 747 began to dip.

Boeing responded by reinventing their icon,

giving it even more efficient engines,

stronger, lighter alloys for the wings,

carbon brakes for the landing gear,

and a brand-new avionics system

to control the new and improved plane.

Today, all the hardware in this aircraft

is still state-of-the-art.

And will and I are going to remove it

so it can be sold and reused.

Avionics components are highly sensitive,

so we have to wear special gloves

to protect the devices

from any static charge we could be carrying.

These look a little thin.

Are they warmer than my gloves here?

Will: No, they're not anywhere close

to warmer than these gloves,

but they do protect a $30,000 or $40,000 component for sure.

This part that we pull out of this aircraft

could end up on a plane that your family is on.

Chad: Gotcha.

Will: So, I always keep that in mind. It helps me.

Chad: That gives it perspective.

Will: Yeah, yeah. Chad: All right, let's do it.

One by one, we take out the cockpits' gauges and dials,

navigation units,

fuel controls,

engine monitors--

each one still worth thousands of dollars.

One and done.

So, this looks like it's the no-joke box right here.

Evac with a special red cap.

Will: That would mean

to please proceed quietly to the nearest exit.

Chad: Man.

Will: Go ahead and just pull that out.

Chad: All right, last piece. Here we go.

Will: Let's do it.

Chad: Ok.

Cool. Glad to see it all getting reused.

Will: Yeah. Definitely. Definitely.

From nose to tail, most everything on these aircraft

are reusable in some way.

Chad: Yeah.

♪

Chad: The avionics in the cockpit

are just the start.

The whole plane is wired

to allow computerized control of every system,

from tip to tail.

In a 300-foot-long plane,

that's over 170 miles of cabling.

I'm climbing into the avionics bay.

It was created by partitioning off part of the cargo hold

and filling it with computer hardware,

to handle that digital information

coming from all over the plane.

So, all the control systems, from the wings,

the fuselage, the passenger systems,

engines...

Everything is basically processed in this area,

and then the information that the pilots need

is sent up to the cockpit.

All right, so we need esd gloves for this one?

Man, I'm gonna feel like a brain surgeon

taking these things out.

Clinton: What we'll do first is you'll just take these knobs

and you'll just loosen them to a certain point,

and you'll feel it get really free. Yeah.

Chad: And then it just slides out?

Clinton: Yeah, just slide out.

Chad: It's just like the cockpit.

Clinton: Yeah.

Chad: Now, I've done my fair share

of engineering wiring diagrams,

but nothing would compare

to the one of the avionics bay of a 747.

This one coming out?

Clinton: Yeah, that one's coming out as well.

Chad: That's kind of cool.

So you don't need to have someone in the cockpit

to do the checks.

Clinton: Radioing down to do checks as well.

Chad: Got it.

Clinton: I'll go take these and put them in the bin.

Chad: Ok.

Wherever you are on the 747,

there's something new to discover.

Who knew the cockpit was equipped with one of these?

Whoa!

Will: Aircraft crash axe.

Chad: No way.

Will: Yeah. They keep these on every aircraft

in case of emergency,

if you need to get out of the aircraft,

or a zombie apocalypse or whatever the case may be.

There's an escape hatch here.

There's ropes inside this compartment,

inside that compartment there.

You'll escape out of the access hole,

the hatch on top of the cockpit,

and you will rappel.

Film narrator: Let your knees bend on touchdown.

Chad: James Bond's got nothing on us.

Will: James Bond!

Chad: Wow!

Ha ha ha!

Whoo!

It's really high up here.

Saved the best for last?

Will: Yeah, we saved the best for last,

pilot and co-pilot seats.

Chad: Ok.

These seats are the final connection

to the men and women who flew this plane.

Ok.

By the mid-1980s,

the 747 could be flown by just two flight crew--

a pilot and a co-pilot--

while its new fuel-efficient engines

promised savings of a million dollars a year.

These were savings the industry couldn't ignore.

20 major airlines placed orders for 700 more planes,

keeping the 747 in production for the next 25 years.

During its years of service,

it flew more than 3.5 billion passengers.

That's almost half the world's population.

But now, its golden era is over.

The fleet is being replaced

by more fuel-efficient two-engine designs.

♪

This has been an incredible journey we've been on.

You know, we started with the 747 fully functional,

landing here on the airstrip.

And then piece by piece, part by part,

we took it apart,

and, and now we end up with this,

which is, you know, it's really end of a legacy, the 747.

All that's left now is the aluminum hull.

That can be torn apart and recycled.

This high-value metal will be sold,

melted down,

and transformed.

Next time you have a can of soda or a beer,

you could be drinking from a piece of aviation history.

It was a design unlike any other...

That began a new era in jet travel

by offering long-distance flights to the masses.

But which almost destroyed the company that created it...

Only to prove that a giant plane made commercial sense

and fly for 50 years.

The golden age of the 747 may be over,

but it lives on in the parts installed on other planes

and in the legacy it leaves behind.

My time spent on the 747 has been inspiring.

For the last four months,

we've taken apart a piece

of history bolt by bolt.

We've been given total access to its engineering marvel

and amazing design.

And I've learned that without a doubt,

the 747 has lived up

to its iconic reputation.

♪