Boeing vs Airbus - Cleared for Takeoff | 2

Business Wars

Wondery

History, Business, David Brown, Management

4.6 • 13.2K Ratings

🗓️ 8 January 2020

⏱️ 27 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

It’s 1970 and the Boeing 747 is finally airborne. But bringing this behemoth to market has taken Boeing to the edge of collapse. And it will take years of belt-tightening and perseverance to overcome this jumbo hangover.

Luckily, the Seattle manufacturer’s competition is in disarray and its major American rivals, Douglas and Lockheed, are in even deeper trouble.

But across the Atlantic, a new threat is brewing. Europe’s government-backed Airbus is finally ready to fly. But the European consortium behind this new jetliner is about to discover that making planes is easier than selling them.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Hey, prime members, you can listen to business wars, add free on Amazon music.
0:04.8	Download the app today.
0:07.0	It's December 1969, and above Seattle, Boeing test pilot Ralph Cochley is at the controls
0:21.2	of a plane many thought would never fly.
0:24.4	The plane is the 747 jumbo jet, and it's the biggest passenger aircraft ever made.
0:30.3	Cochley radios the airport's control tower.
0:32.9	Retten tower, November 732, Papa Alpha, on approach requesting permission to land at Runway
0:38.7	15.
0:39.7	November 732, Papa Alpha, retten tower, you're cleared to land on Runway 15.
0:45.1	Retten tower, November 732, Papa Alpha.
0:47.9	The 747 weighs 170 tons and can carry more than 400 people from LA to London non-stop.
0:55.6	Some said it was way too heavy to get airborne, but now it's just weeks away from entering
1:00.4	service with Pan Am.
1:02.5	Cochley swings the 747 over Lake Washington.
1:05.6	Through the rain running along the windshield, he can see the lights of rent and airport
1:09.1	below.
1:10.4	On the ground, Boeing mechanics are waiting.
1:13.6	The Cochley lands, they're going to strip out the test equipment, install the interior
1:17.6	and deliver the finished aircraft to Pan Am.
1:21.1	Cochley starts the descent.
1:23.0	He's conscious that Renton's runways too short and that no one's landed at 747 there
1:27.4	before, so he goes in low.
	...

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