Yay!! My favorite plane of all time!! I fell in love with the 747 as a child seeing a Pan Am 747 at LAX, and I couldn't make my mind believe what my eyes were telling me - that this giant airplane could get airborne. I fell even further in love with it in "Airport '75", with those magnificent air-to-air shots of N9675 (leased and barely-disguised-from American Airlines) making whatever schlock the filmmakers wanted to put on the screen almost irrelevant.
I have only flown three:
August, 1987: TWA flight #840, LAX-JFK. I'm almost positive it was a 747-100, as that was more common, but unfortunately, I didn't know to record my planes at the time. And since the only difference between the -100 and -200 models' interiors was the addition of one addition row (row 80 after row 28), I believe I would have remembered seeing row 80 so out of place on our way to row 34, so I'm confident that was the case.
May, 2004: United flight #118, N199UA, a 747-422, LAX-ORD. Actually routed SAN-LAX-ORD, the agent at the commuter Terminal asked me, "why aren't you flying the non-stop?", to which I replied, "because domestic 747's are about to disappear entirely, and this might be my last chance!". She understood immediately, and gave me a knowing smile. "I love that plane, too!" I told one of the flight attendants about my love for the 747, and I got a tour of the plane during the trip and got to sit in the cockpit afterwards. Cooler than words!!
July, 2017: Lufthansa flight #457, D-ABYD, a 747-8(30), LAX-FRA. From the day in 1980 when I learned in my German language class in Bakersfield, California, that Lufthansa flew from LAX non-stop to Germany, I vowed that whatever my first trip to Europe turned out to be, it would begin at LAX, and it would be on a 747. And although circumstances didn't allow me to travel internationally for many years, when the opportunity came along, I held to my vow, and I made it happen. LAX-FRA was booked, in business class, on the 747-8, with the seats I wanted on the upper deck, 85 J & K.
Ironically enough, someone asked me if I was going to fly the A380 on this trip. I replied, "nahh, I vowed to fly on a 747 on my first trip. Besides, those A380's of Lufthansa aren't going anywhere anytime soon, so I'll get that on my next trip!"