First impressions count. When visitors to the National Air and Space Museum enter the expansive America by Air exhibit in the Hall of Air Transportation, they encounter the massive front fuselage hull of a Boeing 747. It surely catches their attention. But why – and how – did the nose of a 747 end up in the gallery?

As senior curator of America by Air, I felt it was essential to convey to our visitors the scope and scale of modern air travel. What better object to emphasize this point than a Boeing 747 – or at least as many as a Boeing 747 could fit inside the Museum.

Our original plan was to make a simulated nose section for a 747. In a wonderful example of serendipity, Dan Pietrzak, Director of Airline Transactions at Northwest Airlines, called me in March 1999 to gift the Museum a 747 complete for what would become our Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Virginia.

First flown in 1970, the aircraft (number N601US) has a remarkable history. It was the first 747 built for Northwest; the first 747 to fly for an airline other than Pan Am; and the first 747 to open service across the Pacific. Northwest was looking for a good home for this aircraft as they were retiring all of their early 747-151 series aircraft. Even though we didn’t have room for the entire plane, I offered an alternative: Could Northwest give us a nose for the new America by Air exhibit? The answer was a quick and emphatic “yes”.

The devil, as they say, is in the details. The new America by Air was originally scheduled to open in 2001, then 2002. With the museum very focused on opening the Udvar-Hazy Center in time for the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers’ flight on December 17 2003, the gallery was delayed again (until 2005). Subsequent funding problems pushed the opening back until 2006 and finally 2007. In the meantime, Northwest had sold the plane to Charlotte Aviation to salvage it, with the understanding that the forward fuselage would be preserved for the Smithsonian. In 2000, the aircraft arrived in Maxton, North Carolina, and it was supposed to be retired by 2002. However, due to numerous scheduling and funding issues, it was not. Fortunately, Charlotte Aviation graciously allowed the Museum to leave the aircraft on its property beyond the deadline.

Due to the length and intermittent nature of the America by Air exhibition, the final details of the gift agreement were not worked out when the aircraft was retired by Northwest. Under the watchful eye of the Museum’s project coordinator, Frank Florentine, discussions between Northwest and the Museum resumed in 2005; they were almost complete, but Northwest then filed for bankruptcy in September. This further delayed the project since all financial transactions with the airline were now subject to bankruptcy courts. Fortunately, after considerable work by all parties, an agreement was reached in February 2006. The way was clear for the contractor to disassemble the nose, restore it for display, and install it in the new America by Air exhibit .

But there were still details to be worked out. We wanted to take the first 30 feet of the 747, but we were concerned that removing this portion of the larger aircraft would compromise the structural integrity of the now-separated nose. A Boeing engineer recalled that all 747s were built in subassemblies and often by subcontractors. The nose of the 747 was built by Boeing Wichita in five parts and shipped by rail to Everett, Washington. These five parts reinforced each other, but only if they connected to frame station 520. Armed with this information, we decided to bring the entire nose back to frame 520, which meant taking a total of 35 feet, not 30. It was worth it. . The nose is solid.

Guard-Lee of Apopka, Fla., carefully cut the nose off the airframe and trucked the parts to its Orlando facility. There, they carefully renovated and repainted #601, turning the nose up on a test run to ensure our display plans would succeed.

Four tractor-trailers transported the 11 nose pieces 850 miles north from Florida to the museum in Washington, D.C., in January 2007. Once there, Guard-Lee’s team and museum staff worked diligently for two weeks to install the 747. A large crane was carefully positioned on the concrete floor to lift the parts and into place. The floor was temporarily reinforced to support the additional weight of the aircraft and crane. It was a huge task. The nose weighs approximately 26,500 pounds. Twenty-five percent of this weight is carefully distributed through the front landing gear onto the main structural beam located under the floor. The remaining 75 percent of the weight is suspended from a large support behind the 520 frame which transfers the weight to a main cross beam along the edge of the floor. (The nose of the 747 is not attached to the wall.)

When the museum’s west wing closed for renovation in 2019, all planes were removed from that section of the building except the 747. Instead of risking costly removal and reinstallation, the museum decided to protect the 747 in place until the updated America by Air exhibit was installed and reopened in October 2022.

If our visitors remember anything, they will remember a Boeing 747 in a gallery at the Museum. A very, very large 747.

F. Robert van der Linden is a curator in the aeronautics department of the National Air and Space Museum. He specializes in the history of air transport.

This article is from the Fall 2024 issue of Air and Space Quarterlythe National Air and Space Museum’s flagship magazine that explores topics related to aviation and space, from the earliest moments of flight to the present. Explore the full issue.

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