LCF made its first test flight in August 2006, and three of them have been modified and delivered to EVA International Airlines for operation. LCF is designed to transport the semi-finished fuselage of Boeing 787 Dreamliner, which is a special cargo plane developed to save manufacturing time and cost.
Boeing 747-400LCF is the world's first super cargo plane (LCF) modified from 747-400 passenger plane. It is mainly used to transport the fuselage, wings and other large composite parts of Boeing's newly developed 787 Dreamliner to Boeing's Everett factory in Washington, USA for final assembly. The modified 747- 400LCF has a loading capacity of 65,000 cubic feet (1.845 cubic meters), which is about three times larger than the original 747 cargo plane (the loading capacity of 747 cargo plane is 24,900 cubic feet, and it can load 1 15 tons). 747-400LCF adopts the world's first swing tail design, which makes the loading and unloading of large composite components in the future faster and more convenient.
Boeing Company confirmed the basic configuration of LCF as early as June 5438+1October 2004. Its fuselage structure is jointly managed by Boeing's structural design team in Puget Sound, Washington, USA and Boeing Rocket Power Laboratory in Canoga Park, California. The Boeing Design Center (BDC) in Moscow, Russia is responsible for the upper fuselage, the rear fuselage and the triangular transition structure connecting the enlarged fuselage and the original fuselage structure. Spain's Comesa Airlines is responsible for designing the horizontal cargo door at the tail of LCF, while the Dutch company Stork-Fokker is responsible for designing the pressurized firewall that separates the cargo compartment and cockpit of LCF, and finally it is delivered to Taiwan Province EVA Aerospace Science and Technology Company (itself EVA Airlines and GE * * *) for modification. Different from the open-top (also called "flip-top") cargo door commonly used in large cargo planes, the cargo door of LCF is opened horizontally when loading and unloading goods, which makes the loading and unloading of large parts of 787 passenger plane simple and fast and shortens the production line time.
In addition to the main modifications on the fuselage, the wing design of LCF has also changed slightly. Before the test flight, the wing of LCF was still in the shape of 747-400, but after the test flight, the data showed that the winglet would cause irregular disturbance, so Boeing decided to remove the winglet from the final design. In addition, when flying, only the cockpit at the front end is pressurized, and the cargo hold at the rear end is not pressurized.