This is how Flight reported the event at the time.
Flightglobal users voted the Boeing 747 to be their favourite civil aircraft in its 100 Greatest campaign last year to celebrate its centenary in publishing, which neatly coincided with 100 years of powered flight.
Picture credit Boeing (note - this is a 747-400ER and it flew for the first time on July 31, 2002.)
Flight's 100 Greatest top 5 civil aircraft - Boeing 747
Aircraft profile: Boeing 747 including news, images, a cutaway, blogs, videos, forum discussions and Boeing 747 results from Flight's PDF archive.
FlightBlogger blogging about the 747
Boeing charts the 747 milestones
AirSpace discussion on the 747 roll-out (40th anniversary last September)
on March 5, 2009 10:38 PM | Reply
The Boeing 747-400 is the most amazing aircraft that I have ever flown.
I do not understand why it has been disccontinued or with mo more orders
on March 12, 2009 12:41 PM | Reply
The 747-400ER is a capable aircraft, but I would not want to be a coach passenger on a long-haul flight. The early models of the 747 (100 series) offered 9-across seating in coach, however that was quickly changed to a 10-across (3-4-3) layout to increase revenue. This is physical abuse to the average sized human male. Most people understand how challenging it can be for an airline to generate a profit in these times, but there must be a better way than this.