Boeing 747SR
The Commuter Jumbo
“A 747 built for 45-minute hops.”
Boeing · commercial
The Boeing 747SR is the jumbo jet nobody expected: a short-range 747 reinforced for the brutal cycle counts of Japan's domestic trunk routes. Fuel capacity went down, seat count went up — past 500 in some cabins — and JAL and ANA flew them packed between Tokyo, Osaka, and Sapporo until 2006.
One ex-Japan Airlines 747SR got a second life as NASA's Shuttle Carrier Aircraft, ferrying Space Shuttles across America on its back.
The type retired from airline service in 2006, and the last registered airframe is almost certainly stored or preserved. If a B74R ever paints on your radar, be suspicious — then be delighted.
One might be overhead right now.
Bogey turns the The Commuter Jumbo from a dot in the sky into a card in your logbook.
