Hand-over of Boeing 747 SOFIA Flying Telescope

In the next days, Lufthansa Technik will hand-over SOFIA, a modified
Boeing 747SP that is operated jointly by the USA’s National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the German Aerospace
Centre (DLR) as a “Stratospheric Observatory for Infrared Astronomy”.

Over the past months Lufthansa Technik has performed a major overhaul
of the aircraft. The company has one of the widest and longest
experiences at maintaining this aircraft type, with only a handful
747SP worldwide still in service.

In parallel, Lufthansa Technik is currently also completing two
Head-of-State 747-8 aircraft and is in concrete talks for completions
with further 747-8 customers.

The finalization of the two 747-8 completion projects will be the
latest milestone in Lufthansa Technik’s unique long-term experience
in technical services for the Boeing 747 family and will increase
Lufthansa Technik’s completion record on this aircraft model to 19.

Lufthansa started the first interior completion of a Boeing 747, a
747SP model, on the request of a Middle East Government Customer, in
the mid’ 80s. Since then, Lufthansa has completed 17 Head-of-State
747 aircraft including the models 747SP, 747-300 and 747-400 and has
additionally performed a large number of major modifications or
refurbishments on the “Jumbo” family.

Beside its expertise as a single-source completion center, with a
total of around 100 interior cabin completions and conversions of
narrow and wide body aircraft, Lufthansa Technik has also been able
to gather extremely comprehensive know-how in all areas of
maintenance, repair and overhaul services for the 747 family.

Lufthansa airline has been operating different models of the Boeing
747 for more than 40 years, starting with the 747-100 in 1970 up to
the newest model, the 747-8. Over the whole period Lufthansa Technik
has maintained the airline’s aircraft as well as an increasing number
of external customer aircraft and worked closely with Boeing to even
improve the different models of the 747.

Currently, Lufthansa Technik has more than 70 747 aircraft under
exclusive service contracts. With this background Lufthansa Technik
is one of the most experienced Maintenance Provider for the 747.

The latest product in Lufthansa Technik’s service portfolio for the
747-8 is the Aircraft Production Inspection Program (APIP). Lufthansa
Technik is offering this independent production inspection to all,
VIP Customers, airlines and leasing companies.