Originally Posted by
artvandalay
It made such a difference being able to get on a plane in SFO and when it landed, you were in HKG...no changing in NRT. On my first flight, I remember looking down as we passed 35,000' over NRT marvelling at the distance it was able to travel. Thank you UA and Boeing.
Looking the history of 747SP, a lot of credits goes to the joint venture set up between Pan Am and Iran Air back in 1973 asking Boeing to build a plane capable of flying New York to Tehran non-stop as it would have been the world's longest flight at the time). The rest is in the history.
It is fitting that Pan Am operated the first ever commercial 747SP flight and Iran Air operated the last commercial 747SP flight.