Inside a Boeing 747 freighter

More from our visit to Lleida-Alguaire airport (in the previous post we showed how Boeing 737 MAX are stored and old aircraft dismantled there):

Our visit to this airport gave us a chance to peek into an aspect of the aviation industry that is usually off limits to the general public, cargo aviation.

A Boeing 747-400C (a freighter version of the popular wide-body airliner) was on location, so we were able to get onboard and see how the “Cargo Queen” is in the inside.

Here two views of the cargo hold. Above, the nose, where first class seats usually are in the passenger version of the jumbo. And, below, the view of the rest of the cargo bay, towards the tail of the aircraft.

The cockpit is on the upper deck (you access it through this yellow staircase), which makes it possible to have the whole lower deck as a clean, spacious cargo bay, from nose to tail. The door at the end of the fuselage opens vertically and the cargo palets can then be conveniently slid horizontally.

And this is how the upper deck of a Boeing 747 freighter looks like. Note how there are some seats for the odd passenger. True, the seats are not state of the art, but, hey! seat pitch is not bad at all!

the view from the cockpit. For more info about the two other aircraft that are visible from here (another Boeing 747-400 and an Airbus A330) check out the previous post.

In case you were wondering…there’s also a sleeping pod for the pilots right behind the cabin!

And…surprise, surprise! who knew the Boeing 747F has a roof hatch!