Edditt Publishing

Jumbo: The Making of the Boeing 747 by Clive Irving

The never before told story of the nuts and bolts that brought the 747 into being

Available in the following formats:

Paperback £14.99
ISBN 9781909230149
Through Amazon as a paperback

Amazon Kindle ebook £8.99
9781909230163
Through Amazon / Kindle

Apple ebook £8.99
ISBN 9781909230156
Through Apple / iTunes (search for title on iTunes bookstore)

Special Offer through The Great British Bookshop – Buy the paperback at £12.29 and save £2.70, plus FREE P&P (UK)

Rarely does a machine change the world beyond the intention of its makers. Yet none of the men who fathereed the Boeing 747 airliner foresaw that it would – like the Model T Ford more than half a century before – become one of the twentieth century’s great enablers.

The arrival of a 747, with its distinctive profile, altered landscapes. Airports became the concourses of the world; new highways to serve the airports had to reflect the prestige of their builders. New hotels too- hotels usually and deliberately fashioned as extensions of the safe and familiar cultural capsule that a passenger found when he entered the 747 cabin. The introduction of the 747 allowed the world to become everyman’s plaything.

The men who designed the Boeing 747, had, however no such grand scheme. As Clive Irving reveals, a raw commercial equation impelled the idea of the airplane, to lower by at least a third the cost of carrying a passenger across the oceans. It involved a reckless financial risk. It was pressed ahead at an imprudent speed. And the whole enterprise was driven by two old men conscious that it would be their last achievement – or their greatest failure.

What began as an underrated task went on to devour all the resources, technical and human that Boeing company could afford. Against all odds it ended up becoming the longest loved airliner in the history of aviation, with a usefulness extending well into the 21st century.

Clive Irving is senior consulting editor at Conde Nast Traveler in New York. He writes about aviation for that magazine and for Newsweek and the Daily Beast. He began his career in newspapers in London, where he was the founder of the Insight investigative reporting team at the Sunday Times. He subsequently became managing editor of the Sunday Times and executive editor of IPC magazines. He was also creative consultant to David Frost and a founder of London Weekend Television. He moved to the U.S. in 1980. He has published three novels and five non-fiction titles and wrote the story for A Dangerous Man, Lawrence After Arabia, starring Ralph Fiennes as T.E. Lawrence, which won an International Emmy for drama. He lives in Sag Harbor, New York, with his wife Mimi, an editorial researcher.

Press Release for Jumbo: The Making of The Boeing 747