As a species, we have certainly had more than enough to shed a tear over of late: A pandemic killing hundreds of thousands around the world, depression level unemployment, the whole tragic George Floyd situation and its aftermath and by no means least, the virus’s terrible repercussions on the industry we love.

With all this to lament over, I could never have guessed that a picture of an airplane being ripped apart could possibly have brought a (big) lump to my throat – at least not until I saw this heart-rending shot of a once splendid Virgin Atlantic Boeing 747 being broken up for scrap.

The last flight of Boeing 747-400 G-VBIG, aka “Tinker Belle” was a short hop from London Gatwick to St. Athan (DGX) in South Wales. As well as being home to an Aston Martin factory, the quaint little Vale of Glamorgan town of St. Athan also hosts eCube Solutions, an aircraft ‘recycling’ specialist that sees off around 60 ‘end-of-life’ aircraft every year. The former RAF station there boasts one 6,000 foot runway – barely long enough to land a 747, but short enough to ensure that once on the ground it will never take off again.

Over the years, Virgin Atlantic has operated a total of 29 different Boeing 747 variants and at the start of this year had just eight 747-400s left in its fleet. Last month however, the COVID shutdown forced the company to accelerate the scheduled 2021 retirement of its remaining ‘Jumbos’ and grounded the remaining seven. Lamentably, the same thing is happening at a slew of 747 operators around the world as the ‘Queen of the Skies’ – along with the A380 which in 2005 stole “the biggest” crown – looks to be headed for the history books in the not too dim and distant.

The reason I, more than most casual observers, get can get so sentimental about such a seemingly nondescript event, is that I was there when Virgin operated its very first flight in 747 in June of 1984 – almost exactly 36 years ago. Coming as it did right on the heels the Falklands/Malvinas fracas with Argentina, we didn’t publicize the fact that our first aircraft was a 747-200 leased from Aerolineas Argentinas! It came with a spiral staircase to the upper deck, where we’d installed a lounge at the rear of the cabin. The crew working the Upper Class cabin were designated as ‘butlers’ but that was short-lived after their tailcoats were found to be dangerously impracticable – particularly on that spiral staircase!

When “Maiden Voyager” (G-VIRG) made that first flight from Gatwick to Newark, I started the day in London. When Richard Branson headed to Gatwick, I sped to Heathrow to jump on a BA Concorde in order to be in place to meet the inaugural on its arrival at EWR. I’ll never forget the thrill of seeing that big bird – our entire fleet at the time – with its distinctive Virgin logo on the big red tail – taxi onto stand. Then Richard discovered he’d left his passport at home – but that’s another story.

For me, it had been a case of ‘love at first flight’ some years earlier on a Pan Am 747 from New York to London, – a love affair that continued in my time at Wardair which introduced ‘the whale’ to its fleet in the mid seventies. I could never get over the airplane’s immensity. As Clive Irving related in his wonderful book, ‘Wide-Body – The Triumph of the 747’, “The walls are almost vertical because the cabin is so wide – 20 feet wide. Nine feet high – for the first time you’re in a room not a tube.”

But then, when I first got to stand on the ramp underneath a parked 747, it was simply mind-boggling. You were looking up at a cruise-ship not an airplane – how could something this gigantic ever escape gravity’s pull? In 1903, when Wilbur and Orville Wright first got their ‘Wright Flyer’ into the air, it was an amazing feat but the empty weight of their airplane (i.e. sans pilot) was a meager 605 pounds. Just 66 years later, the empty weight of the first 747-100 at 360,000 pounds was almost 600 times that of the Wright Flyer! The average two pilots and one flight engineer on an early 747s probably weighed more than the Wright brothers’ entire airplane!

So, in the grand scheme of things, I suppose it’s just another aircraft type that has almost run its course – and 50 plus years ain’t at all bad. I am however left with a boatload of wonderful memories of the gentle Jumbo that forever changed the world of long-haul flying.