When and where did you first see a Boeing 747?

Seen several at major international airports, never been on one but would like to.

I lived about 2 miles from one of the runways at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas during the mid 70s to mid 80s. There was a popular viewing spot in the desert next to the runway. Parents would take their children and teens would park their cars and makeout.

Can’t remember when, but it was definitely in the sky.

Well, my Dad worked for Boeing at the time. I imagine we went to the grand opening. In fact, I’m sure of it now! I remember standing in line waiting to take a tour of the air plane, and it must have been the 747. I would have been about 10.

I remember when we lived in Bel Air, Kansas, not far from McConnell air force base, we got treated with a sonic boom every week or so. I clearly remember the first time cuz it scared the shit out of me and Mom wasn’t home! I was 8.

Sometime in ‘74 at Miami International. It had a piano lounge at the top of the spiral staircase behind the pilot’s cabin. There was a black guy in a tux playing old jazz standards at a baby grande with bar stools around it. Drinks and champagne were free in first class, served in REAL glass stemware. I’d just turned 21.

If they’ve only been building them since 1968, then I guess my first flight across the Atlantic to the US was not on one; but I know that my next flight in 1969 was on a 747, when we went back to visit family and flew out of JFK.

1968, I lived near San Francisco Int’l Airport. Pan Am had them first and based some at SFO.

Saw one crash land there after it clipped the lights at the end of the runway on take off from the “short” runway.

Saw the Japan Air Lines one land four miles short of the runway in four feet of water in San Francisco Bay.

Fall of 1968, as a Boy Scout got to go on a tour of one.

First flew on one in 1975 on the way to Japan.

I don’t remember when I saw my first Boeing, but I do remember seeing the Goodyear blimp land at an airport in Canada when I was about 9. It landed, they deflated it and stuffed it in to the back of a truck. It was pretty cool to see.

LAX. We used to go out to the runway and watch those big babies land while drinking beerskies and smoking ganja.
You should see those monsters come in, right over you, and the roar…OMG.

I was five or six and the 747 was a big deal on the news and my brother told me a plane flying overhead was a 747. For years I believed I had seen the new plane but it’s pretty unlikely that it was true.

I think I actually first saw a 747 in the mid 70s, on a layover at O’Hare. My mom and I were flying to Denver. We had a choice of flights and I asked which planes were flying, and picked our flight to get the biggest one, a DC-10.

In the lat 90s I had an office right by O’Hare, and from my desk I could watch the big birds slowly glide in. People would come sit in my office for a chat or for lunch so they could see the show.

as far as i can know i was 8 yrs old on our nearest airport. :)

I have no idea the first time I saw one. I lived about an hour from O’Hare and certainly they flew overhead when I was a child. The first time I saw one up close was when I flew on one to New York in 1980.