It was with immense sadness that I read about Air India’s last remaining Boeing 747 making its last flight. Since the aircraft had been phased out gradually and the last passenger flight was in 2021, the event passed mostly unremarked. This last flight was a cargo flight. And thus, something truly great and beautiful passed into India’s aviation history. The plane was originally designed to carry heavy cargo for the US army. But in 1966 the now defunct Pan Am, known earlier as Pan American Airlines, decided it wanted an aircraft that could carry 250 passengers and with engines that consumed 25 percent less fuel than the old Boeing 707. In 1966 it placed an order for 50 jumbo jets, as the 747 came to be known.