747: Creating the World's First Jumbo Jet and Other Adventures from a Life in Aviation (Hardcover)

by Joe Sutter (Author), Jay Spenser (Author)
Key Phrases: propeller airliners, fuselage cross section, gear legs, Pan Am, New York, World War (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
As leader of the Boeing company's design and engineering team that created the 747—the world's first wide-body, twin-aisle airplane—Sutter had perhaps the best overall view of all aspects of the 747's development in the mid 1960s. This engaging look at the technical, political and corporate forces that clashed over the 747 adds important details to Clive Irving's 1993 Wide-Body: The Triumph of the 747. Sutter's descriptions of the furious pace his team had to maintain proves his assertion that the 747's development process closely resembled that of aviation's colorful early days. It is fascinating to read that while the 747 later became Boeing's crowning achievement, with variations of the plane continuing to remain popular during the past three decades, various Boeing executives during the '60s "were taken in by the enticing vision" of supersonic transports like the Concorde, and Sutter had to fight "every step of the way to get the 747 designed, built, certified, and into service." 8-page b&w photo insert, 20 b&w photos throughout, not seen by PW. (June)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
The chief engineer of the 747 here recounts his experience designing one of the most iconic airplanes in aviation history. At pains to dispel the perception that the humpbacked behemoth was a one-man show, Sutter mentions many colleagues as he relates a process that partook as much of intra- and intercorporate diplomacy as of nuts-and-bolts engineering. Indeed the narrative dynamic arises from the interaction of technical problems with the nonengineering concerns of the Boeing hierarchy. The company was in deep financial trouble at the time of development (1965-70), as its supersonic transport project hemorrhaged money. Pressure on Sutter was intense both to expedite the 747 and slash costs; in the book's climax, Sutter faces down the executives' demand that he fire thousands of his engineers. Sutter's story also revels in the intuition and technical precision that resulted in the 747's distinctive appearance and capabilities. Replete with energetic anecdotes from Sutter's non-747 life, this memoir will fascinate fans of aviation. Gilbert Taylor
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 288 pages
• Publisher: Smithsonian (May 23, 2006)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060882417
• ISBN-13: 978-0060882419
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #266,980 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Joe Sutter IS " one of the great ones " , June 18, 2006

By	D. SHUPER (Redmond, WA USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

The above partial quote is plagerized from Joes book as he quotes Charles Linderbergh comments about the 747 which in its entirety was " This is one of the great ones "
I'm a retired Boeing Engineer, and while never meeting or dealing with Joe since I was working in other areas [supersonic transport, etc ] I did hear and work in later years with several who did have personal knowledge. Joe pretty much tells it like it WAS/IS.

I especially appreciated his efforts to avoid highly technical terms, and in few simple words explaining some of the basics of flight, powerplants, design criteria, safety concerns, etc. In some ways, it could be considered ' high school' level courses on flight and design criteria- but without ' talking' down to the reader.

It is an 'easy read' and does lift the curtain on a few, but not all the insider political games typical of Boeing and most other aerospace companies. [ I've also worked at Rockwell and Ling Temco Vought ]

Joe is definitely from the 'old school' as far as ethics and integrity, and his comments about serving on the Challenger Shuttle disaster commission and the NASA attitude re safety and risk in the last chapter seem as if they were written this week [ June 16,2006- see news items about safety concerns re the impending Shuttle flight in July 2006 ]. Hopefully, his comments and concerns will NOT be proven to be " deja vue all over AGAIN."

In my opinion - a keeper, and readable from Junior high up.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Father of the Queen of the Skies, September 13, 2006

By	J. Jensen (United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

There have been many books written about the 747, but none of them tell the human side of taking one of the largest aircraft off the drawing board and into the skies in two years time. Joe Sutter is the consumate engineer, he engages you in a voice that keeps you interested all of the way through the book. He does it in such a way that makes you feel that maybe you where there. Boeing bet the company on the 747, if it had been a failure the company would probably be a footnote in history. The company put their trust in one single man, who claims he and Boeing grew up together. Joe also includes the stories of many others along the way, he never takes credit for himself but always makes you aware that it was a team effort. In fact he leads off with a disclaimer that if he remembered it wrong he was sorry.

The book arrived just in time for the bi-annual Farnborough airshow in England, he was asked by several reporters to critique the A380. Being ever the gentleman he declined to take the bait. But he is straight forward on his views of NASA and the Challenger accident, still just as analytical when he was half his age. His love of the 747 is evident, he is excited to see it exist today and hopes with newer technology that it will be around 50 years from now.

If you love big airplanes, or want to know what it took to build something that changed the World. This book will capture you for every page. Straight from the man who's shoulders carried a company and probably most of livelyhoods of the Pacific Northwest. It is a joy to still have Joe around to tell his story. To me the 747 will always be the greatest airplane ever built and Joe will always be the greatest airplane engineer that ever lived.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Building The Greatest Commercial Airliner Yet, January 26, 2008

By	Dianne Roberts (Los Angeles, California United States) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This review is from: 747: Creating the World's First Jumbo Jet and Other Adventures from a Life in Aviation (Paperback)

747 is simply a must for anyone in the aerospace design industry, or for people who are just interested in how the 747 was built. Joe Sutter, the airplane's director of engineering and the one most responsible for its actual design, has written a trim, quick, and enjoyable to read history of the 747 program encased in a semi-autobiography.

After a few chapters exploring the author's early life, including his college time and Navy life, the book spends its bulk on a 50,000 foot overview of what was going on with the 747 development program from its inception until its most recent incarnation to fly in the form of the 747-400 family of derivatives. The final chapters sweep the remainder of the author's professional career including his service on the Challenger Disaster commission. Joe (and after reading the book you definitely get the feeling he would prefer to be called that then Mr. Sutter) has certainly led a very interesting life, and has had the privilege of experiencing a truly gilded age of aviation from the peaks of its ambitions and the lows of its difficulties and uncertainty. But the star of the book is truly the magnificent 747 aircraft and even his more autobiographical chapters tie into the aircraft and its design.

Much of the author's life exerted an inexorable influence on the design philosophy he brought to the plane. As an early child he grew up in Seattle and watched, literally from his neighborhood, as Boeing would roll out new aircraft through the twenties and thirties and try to push aviaiton forward and make the world a smaller place. Caught up in the majesty of flight Joe wanted very badly to design airplanes, but as WWII dawned when he was in college that would have to wait for more important world events to be sorted out. Joining the Navy he became a deck officer on a destroyer escort in the Atlantic, where he had a formative experience. Returning to Boston Harbor his ship started to become glazed with rapidly growing layers of thick ice in the midst of a storm, making the ship dangerously top heavy. With no anti-icing system and no ability to get people out on deck to hack off the ice the crew had to just ride out the storm praying they wouldn't die. From this moment on the author decided safety would be a primary criteria of anything he designed.

The legacy of the 747 is one of carrying on Boeing's legacy of leading the pack in aviation with an unparalleled record of safety, thanks to smart design and brute force quadruple redundancy. (Brute force is by no means meant perjoratively here!) The 747 came about during an amazing time in aviation history. It was the first wide body airliner (against the initial full double decker narrow body wishes of its launch customer), the first turbofan (or fanjet as they are sometimes called) powered airliner, and it was designed by a slimmed down workforce in the shadow of the ill fated 2707 SST, while the 727 and 737 were also absorbing significant company resources, and while Lockheed's L-1011 and Douglas' DC-10 provided competition. The story of how this giant came about and triumphed in spite of the decidely low expectations Boeing clearly had for it at the begining is a truly fascinating one, filled with such aviation luminaries as Juan Trippe, Bill Allen and Charles Lindbergh. Joe's life on the program is also filled with equally amazing events including state department sponsored dinners with the Soviets in Paris at the height of the Cold War (in the spirit of "Detente"), and trips all over the world ranging from the expected places like Japan and New York, to Baghdad.

In addition to being a great story well told, there are real gems here for aviation program managers and aircraft designers about how to make a successful airplane. Absolutely worth reading, and would be something I would like to see as a textbook for aeronautical engineers, perhaps in an aerospace history course, to give them some real world perspective that is so often lacking in modern engineering degrees.

An outstanding book, highly recommended!