Unusual Queens: Top 10 coolest special mission Boeing 747s

The Boeing 747 is an icon of the jet age, a giant aircraft that democratized air travel for the masses and shrank the world throughout the latter 20th century. The final 747 was delivered to Atlas Air in January 2023 after a 54-year production run, with 1,574 aircraft built. 

More than 200 of those aircraft remain in service as cargo carriers, and around 50 are still flying passengers today. Lufthansa is the world’s largest passenger operator of the type, while Atlas Air flies the largest fleet of freighters.

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But not all Boeing 747s had such straightforward careers. The huge airframe, generous range, and extensive customization options made the 747 perfectly suited to unique and unusual missions. Many ended up in interesting configurations, and several were placed into interesting roles throughout their life. 

We take a look at the top 10 coolest special mission Boeing 747s from the past, and present.

1. Boeing 747 FTB (flying testbeds)

Although the Boeing 747 is a quadjet, it occasionally flies with five engines on board. This is because the giant airframe is the perfect flying testbed for engine makers to test out their products. 

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General Electric uses a Boeing 747-400 registered N747GF, a 30-year-old airframe originally delivered to Japan Airlines in 1994. GE has flown it since 2010, basing it out of Flight Test Operations (FTO) in Victorville, California

GE AerospaceBefore the 744, GE used to fly one of the oldest 747s in the world, with its Boeing 747-100 flying testbed which was built in 1970. N747GE was acquired by the company in 1992, taking it directly from the fleet of iconic airline Pan Am. But it was withdrawn from use in 2017 and is now preserved at Pima Air & Space Museum in Tucson, Arizona.

Over the course of their combined time in the air, the two 747s have certified 12 different engine models and multiple variants, including the GE90, CFM56-7B, CF34 (the -8C and-10E), GP7200, GEnx (the -1B and -2B), LEAP (the -1A, -1B and -1C), Passport and GE9X.

Rolls-Royce purchased its Boeing 747-200 engine testbed in 2005 from Air Atlanta Icelandic. The aircraft was already over 20 years old, having originally been delivered to Cathay Pacific in 1980. Based in Tucson, Arizona, it can have various engines fitted under the wing to give them a test run and gather valuable data.

Rolls-RoyceNow sporting the registration N787RR, it continues to undertake testing missions for the company, with its last flight from Tucson in September 2024. The registration of the Boeing 747 should leave a clue as to its first and original mission – testing the mighty Trent 1000 for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.

Although its official name is Spirit of Excellence, Rolls-Royce affectionately calls its flying testbed ‘Hefty Bee,’ explaining the moniker as “derived from FTB, the industry acronym for flying testbed.” It’s racked up more than 800 hours in the sky from over 250 flights so far, and continues to be a key piece of equipment for the manufacturer.

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Deborah Robinson, Director Test and Experimental Engineering, said: “Our FTB is a great asset to us as it has a wide range of test capabilities that help us ensure our engines do everything we say they will. Computers and rig tests can achieve a lot, however in the air we can take it that step further and perform a wide range of tests to further confirm the results of our extensive ground and rig test programs. We can take the opportunity to test the corners of the flight envelope and feed back into our extensive models.”

Rolls-Royce does have another Boeing 747 waiting in the wings. N747RR is a former Qantas aircraft (VH-OJU) and was acquired by Rolls-Royce in late 2019. However, plans to convert it into a second testbed were shelved in 2022 as the company struggled financially. It retains the aircraft and could revisit these plans down the line.

Not satisfied with one flying testbed, Pratt & Whitney has a collection of two. Both C-FPAW and C-GTFF are Boeing 747SPs and aged around 45 years old. They arrived in 2009 and 2010, having originally been delivered to CAAC Airlines and Korean Air.

2. Boeing VC-25A ‘Air Force One’

Technically only ‘Air Force One’ when the president is on board, these two Boeing 747-based aircraft are some of the most famous in the world. Sporting tail numbers 28000 and 29000, the VC-25As have been transporting heads of state for the US since 1987. 

With interiors designed by First Lady Nancy Regan, the 747s are created to be like a flying White House, with huge amounts of space for meetings, conferences, and working. The upper deck houses the communications center and cockpit, while the 4,000 square feet of floor space on the main deck is configured for presidential duties.

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USAFOn board, the president has an executive suite with sleeping quarters, a bathroom, and a private office. The ‘Oval Office in the sky’ can host an address to the nation if need be, something that was added after the September 11 attacks. 

Beyond the presidential suite, a long corridor connects the other spaces on the aircraft. These include a conference room with a 50-inch plasma TV, office areas with 87 telephones and 19 TVs, a medical annex with a fold-out operating table, and two fully equipped galleys capable of catering for up to 100 people at a time.

With the two aircraft rapidly approaching 40 years old, they’re becoming less cost-effective to operate. As such, the USAF is in the process of replacing them with newer Boeing 747-8s. Work began on the conversion in 2020, and delivery was supposed to be in 2024. However, the project is behind schedule, and the latest update expects the first VC-25B to be delivered in 2027.

3. Boeing 747 rocket launcher

One of the coolest ways for a passenger jet to extend its lifespan has to be in a role that involves shooting rockets into space. G-VWOW, christened ‘Cosmic Girl,’ was a Boeing 747-400 that operated for Virgin Atlantic from 2001 until 2015. In commercial service, it flew more than 2.5 million passengers on more than 8,000 flights.

But when it came time to retire from commercial service, the aircraft was acquired by Virgin Atlantic’s sister company, Virgin Orbit. The new job for the jet was to strap a rocket under its wing and send small satellites into orbit. 

VirginUsing a technique called ‘air launch,’ the 747 would fly to 35,000 feet over open ocean. There, it would pitch up by about 30 degrees, and the rocket would be released. The pilot would bank the 747 away from the rocket, and after five seconds, it would ignite and take the payload the rest of the distance into orbit.

The thought behind this was that the vast majority of the energy used in launching a rocket is consumed just to get it off the ground. Aircraft are designed to lift efficiently, so by taking the rocket to a higher altitude, satellite launch could be achieved with lower fuel consumption (and lower cost).

Sadly for Virgin Orbit, a disastrous launch in January 2023 saw the company struggling to raise new funding, and it filed for bankruptcy in April 2023. But it’s not the end for G-VWOW yet.

In October 2023, Stratolaunch, the company that flies the crazy twin-boom Roc, bought Cosmic Girl, renaming her Spirit of Mojave and giving her a new registration – N949SL. It’s currently undergoing modifications for its new owners, but will continue to fire rockets into orbit if all goes to plan.

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4. Boeing E-4B Nightwatch – the ‘Doomsday plane’

While the VC-25As provide a tactical control center for the president and their entourage, they aren’t the only airborne command posts in town. The USAF also operates four modified Boeing 747s as E-4B ‘Nightwatch’ Advanced Airborne Command Posts, colloquially known as ‘Doomsday planes.’

USAFBased on the 747-200, the E-4Bs are long-range, high-altitude vehicles with aerial refueling capabilities. On the main deck are areas for command work, conferencing, briefing, operations work, communications posts, and rest areas. They can accommodate up to 111 people on board.

In case of a national emergency, the E-4B provides a highly survivable location from which to direct forces and coordinate civil authorities. It’s designed to survive an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) and even has nuclear shielding. It is designed to remain airborne for a full week in an emergency, and requires two fully loaded KC-135s to refuel. 

USAFHaving been introduced in 1974 it’s fair to say these E-4Bs are veterans of the USAF. Plans are in the works for a replacement, known as the E-4C Survivable Airborne Operations Center (SAOC), although they’re unlikely to be introduced before 2032.

In April 2024, Sierra Nevada Corporation (SNC) was awarded a $14 billion contract for the five aircraft required under the project. The company has already purchased five Boeing 747-8s from Korean Air for modification, and plans to begin work on converting them later in 2025.

5. Boeing 747-400LCF ‘Dreamlifter’

While Boeing 747s have been called upon to protect, to launch, and to test, Boeing uses its groundbreaking aircraft for something a bit different. Officially known as the 747-400 Large Cargo Freighter (LCF), the Dreamlifter is an extensively modified Queen with an immense cargo volume of 65,000 cubic feet. 

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Boeing developed the Dreamlifter when it concluded that shipping by land and sea was too slow for the assembly of the 787 Dreamliner. As the parts were too large for standard 747s and even the An-225, Boeing would develop its own outsize transporter to ferry subassemblies from Japan and Italy to South Carolina and Washington for assembly. 

WikimediaThe four aircraft to be converted into Dreamlifters were acquired from airline customers including Air China, China Airlines and Malaysia Airlines. Modifications were made to the aircraft to install a swing tail for easier loading, and the upper fuselage extended for more cargo capacity.

The end result was four 747s with three times the cargo volume of a 747-400F. Three were in service by June 2008, while the fourth joined the fleet in 2010. Operated by Atlas Air, the fleet has an average age of 34 years. Nevertheless, all four are in daily use and are sure to be lovingly maintained for optimal availability.

The registrations of the four Queens with this very specialist job are:

N249BA

N718BA

N747BC

N780BA
6. Boeing 747 Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA)

NASA acquired its first Boeing 747 in 1974, buying a 747-100 from American Airlines. Although N905NA was only four years old, American was having trouble filling its planes, and was happy to dispose of the jumbo.

NASA used the aircraft for wake turbulence studies, but in 1977, it was converted to its Shuttle Carrier Aircraft (SCA) configuration and began its important job of ferrying the Enterprise orbiter. It began these missions still sporting its American Airlines cheatline, and looking very much like an AA aircraft. By 1983, N905NA had its NASA livery.

NASAThis SCA was the first and only shuttle carrier used by the space shuttle program until 1990. It flew 70 of the 87 ferry missions, including 46 of the 54 post-mission ferry flights from Dryden to the Kennedy Space Center. 

But in 1989, the SCA got a sister. JA8117 was a 747-100SR that had been flying for Japan Airlines since 1973. When it was retired by the airline, NASA took it on and had Boeing convert it into a second SCA. When it entered service in November 1990, it took on the registration N911NA.

NASAThe modifications to these two Queens were extensive and included:

Removal of all interior furnishings and equipment aft of the first door

The addition of three struts to attach the orbiter

Addition of associated interior structural strengthening to support the struts

Installation of specialist instrumentation to monitor the orbiter during ferry flights

Two additional vertical stabilizers on the end of each horizontal stabilizer

Replacement of Pratt & Whitney JT95-3A turbofans were with JT9D-7J gas turbine engines
Upon its retirement in 2012, N911NA had made 386 trips as a shuttle carrier, 66 of which had a space shuttle mounted on the top. The aircraft is now on display at the Joe Davies Heritage Airpark in Palmdale, California.

Perhaps for sentimental reasons, NASA retained N905NA a little longer, using the aircraft to ferry Discovery, Endeavour, and Enterprise to museums for display. The SCA was finally retired in late 2012, and is now on display at the Space Center Houston.

7. Boeing 747SP ‘SOFIA’ flying telescope 

The Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy, or SOFIA to her friends, is absolutely one of the coolest and most unusual uses of a Boeing 747 to date.

Based on the baby of the family, the Boeing 747SP that would become SOFIA started life at one of the most iconic airlines in history – Pan Am. Delivered in May 1977, N536PA, or ‘Clipper Lindbergh’ as the plane was christened, was operated in a premium-heavy configuration of 47 first class, 100 business and just 86 economy seats. 

It transferred to United Airlines in 1986, where it was reconfigured for a more economy-focused operation. It flew with 18 first, 62 business and 164 economy class seats, much more suited to the late ‘80s market. But in October 1994, N145UA was withdrawn from use and stored in Las Vegas.

NASAIt wasn’t until three years later that NASA acquired the aircraft, re-registering it N747NA. The 747SP was the perfect aircraft for the mission NASA had in mind – flying a huge telescope into the stratosphere to study the solar system in ways that aren’t possible on the ground. 

The SP, or ‘Special Performance’ 747 was designed to fly further, faster and higher than any other aircraft in the family at the time. Modified from the 747-100, sections of the fuselage were removed and other parts adapted to save weight, giving it a dinky length of just 184 ft 9 in, and a range of 6,650 NM. Its service ceiling of 45,100 ft also made it an appealing choice for the mission.

Raytheon installed the huge 18 ft tall door in the aft fuselage, mounting the telescope here behind a pressurized bulkhead. Beyond the bulkhead, in the pressurized section of the aircraft, the focal point of the telescope arrives in a scientific suite, where researchers are able to study the universe in ways that were never possible before.

NASADesigned by German company DLR, the telescope is a 8.2 ft reflector with an oversized 8.9 ft mirror. As it was exposed to turbulent winds and vibrations, it was mounted in bearings in pressurized oil to steady the view. 

In the eight years the 747 flew for NASA, this flying telescope led to the discovery of many notable things, including:

Water on the moon

Oxygen on Mars

Helium hydride (possibly the first molecule to form after the Big Bang)

New information on magnetic fields in space

New understanding of how stars form
Touchingly, NASA invited the grandson of Charles Lindbergh, Erik Lindbergh, to re-christen the aircraft ‘Clipper Lindbergh’ in 2007, just like its old Pan Am days. SOFIA was retired in 2022 and is on display at the Pima Air & Space Museum. 

8. YAL-1: The Boeing 747 Airborne Laser

Perhaps the weirdest-looking Boeing 747 on this list is the YAL-1. Rather than being acquired from an airline, YAL-1 was built as a 747-400F, taking its first flight in January 2000. It was then handed over to Boeing Defense, Space & Security for conversion, at which point it was given the registration 00-0001.

USAFAt the heart of this unique Boeing 747 was the megawatt-class chemical oxygen iodine laser (COIL). The unit comprised six different modules, each weighing 6,500 lbs and about the size of an SUV. According to Tech. Sgt. Eric M. Grill in 2007, the COIL “produces enough energy in a 5-second burst to power a typical household for more than one hour.”

Primarily designed as a missile defense system to destroy tactical ballistic missiles, the system had its first inflight test firing in March 2007, and the high-energy laser successfully intercepted several missiles in tests in 2010. 

Sadly, although the project was largely a success, in December 2011 it was reported it would be ended after 16 years and $5 billion invested. Discussing the reasons behind the cancelation, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said,

“I don’t know anybody at the Department of Defense, Mr. Tiahrt, who thinks that this program should, or would, ever be operationally deployed … If you were to operationalize this you would be looking at 10 to 20 747s, at a billion and a half dollars apiece, and $100 million a year to operate. And there’s nobody in uniform that I know who believes that this is a workable concept.”

USAFIn February 2012, YAL-1 flew for the final time, landing at Davis-Monthan AFB, where it was ultimately scrapped. But even though YAL-1 is no more, its legacy lives on.

Since its retirement, studies have been ongoing to apply the lessons learned with YAL-1 to unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). By 2015, the Missile Defense Agency began working to deploy a laser on a high-altitude UAV, concluding that this platform would be more efficient and more effective than an airliner.

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Unfortunately, the project was ultimately shelved, but missile defense using lasers is today an established practice. Commercial airliners flying for Israeli carriers like EL AL sport laser defense systems, as does Germany’s new Airbus A350 presidential transport plane.

9. The Boeing 747 Supertankers 

When you’re dealing with an aircraft as big as a 747, it pays to think big. Certainly, that was what was on the mind of Evergreen International Aviation when it responded to a request for information on next-generation air tankers. Responding to the US Department of Interior in 2022, Evergreen proposed to convert four of its Boeing 747-200 freighters into Supertankers.

FlickrHaving received a positive response, Evergreen converted the first 747, registration N470EV, into a giant aerial firefighting machine. It made its maiden flight in January 2004, but by mid-2006, Evergreen was still waiting on certification from the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and was $40 million in the hole for the project.

Installed on board was the capacity to carry up to 19,600 US gallons of water or fire retardant, making it the largest aerial firefighting plane in the world. According to the company, the aircraft was capable of laying down a swath of fire retardant three miles long and as wide as 150 ft. FAA approval was granted in late 2006, but the first conversion never entered service.

The second, tail number N479EV, did enter service, fighting its first fire in Cuenca, Spain in 2009. In 2010, it was deployed to Israel to fight the Mount Carmel forest fire, and in 2011, it arrived in Arizona to tackle the Wallow Fire.

WikimediaBut developing the Supertanker had taken its toll on Evergreen. It ran into financial difficulties, and on November 30, 2013, it shut down operations. But it wasn’t the end for the Boeing 747 Supertanker; not quite.

In 2015, Global SuperTanker Services, a company resurrected from the ashes of Evergreen, bought all the physical assets and intellectual property of the defunct company. Everything, that is, except N479EV itself. The new company transplanted the sprayer tank system from the 747-100 onto a newer 747-400, registered N744ST.

The Global Supertanker was deployed on a respectable number of missions, including to Santiago in 2017, to Israel in 2016, and to various emergencies for Cal Fire, among others. Unfortunately, Global SuperTanker Services also ran into financial difficulties and shut down in April 2021, selling N744ST to National Airlines to be converted into a cargo aircraft.

10. Boeing KC-747 aerial refueler 

Way back in the 1970s, Boeing proposed an adapted 747 to be an aerial refueling tanker. The Advanced Tanker-Cargo Aircraft (ATCA) program called upon manufacturers to create a heavy tanker–transport aircraft that was suited to the current climate. 

Boeing went up against versions of the DC-10, Lockheed’s C5, and the L-1011 for the contract. Ultimately, the DC-10 was selected and went on to become the venerable KC-10. But Boeing had made this plane and marketed it anyway as the KC-25/KC-33. Just two were built, and both went to the same buyer – the Iranian Air Force.

The Shah of Iran, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, thought these aircraft would be perfect to refuel his extensive fleet of F-4 Phantom fighter jets. As of today, one of the two Iranian KC-747s has been lost in an accident, but the other one is still serving the Islamic Republic of Iran Air Force (IRIAF).

It’s the world’s only KC-747, and if you happen to be in Iran on a parade or flyover day, you’re likely to see it thundering overhead.

The KC-747 was thoroughly tested by Boeing, even refueling one of the fastest planes in the world – the SR-71 Blackbird. It used the refueling booms from the KC-135 to prove its capabilities, but was ultimately considered to be too big and too expensive. As such, the IRIAF operates one of the rarest 747 modifications in the world.

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