Boeing 707-320 Intercontinental

Updated: October 2026 – Four engines, a slim fuselage and, on top of the vertical stabilizer, a pointed spike aiming forward: if you see this silhouette, you are looking at a Boeing 707. The 707-320 Intercontinental and its developments, the -320B and -320C, turned the first Boeing jet into a true long-haul aircraft. Lufthansa entered the jet age with it, and even though the type is long history as an airliner, its airframe keeps flying in the military. Here you will learn how to tell the variants apart and where you can still get a 707 in front of your lens today.

What is the Boeing 707-320?

The first production version of the 707, the 707-120, was designed for American domestic routes and short Atlantic hops. It lacked the range for fully loaded nonstop flights between Europe and the US. Boeing answered with the 707-320 Intercontinental: the fuselage was lengthened, the wing enlarged and given more fuel capacity, and more powerful Pratt & Whitney JT4A turbojets were added.

Boeing showed how capable the result was in May 1959 with a nonstop flight from Seattle to Rome: about 5,382 miles in a good eleven hours. In August 1959 Pan Am put the Intercontinental into scheduled service – for the airline that had already introduced the 707-120 as launch customer, the next big step across the Atlantic. You can read more about Pan Am’s role in this phase in the Pan Am story.

In parallel came the 707-420, technically a -320 with Rolls-Royce Conway engines. It was of interest mainly to airlines that preferred, or had to prefer, British engines, including BOAC, Air India, El Al, Varig – and Lufthansa. In total 37 examples of the -420 were built.

The variants at a glance

The -320 family was the real bestseller of the 707. Of the good 850 707s built (not counting the Boeing 720), most were the Intercontinental and its offshoots.

Variant	Engines	Special feature	Built (approx.)
707-320	4 × P&W JT4A (turbojet)	First long-haul 707, scheduled debut 1959	69
707-420	4 × Rolls-Royce Conway	-320 with British engines, including Lufthansa	37
707-320B	4 × P&W JT3D (turbofan)	More economical, quieter, new wingtips, first flight 1962	about 175
707-320C	4 × P&W JT3D (turbofan)	Convertible with cargo door, first flight 1963	about 335

The figures for the -320B and -320C vary by one or two aircraft depending on the source, because conversions and special orders are counted differently. The order of magnitude is clear, though: the -320C was by far the most common 707.

707-320B: the step to the turbofan

In the early 1960s the JT3D brought a turbofan that burned much less fuel and was quieter than the pure turbojets. The -320B first flew on January 31, 1962 and entered service in June 1962, again with Pan Am. Besides the new engines it received aerodynamic refinements, including reshaped wingtips that increased the wingspan by about a meter. Maximum takeoff weight rose to about 149 tonnes.

707-320C: passengers, cargo or both

The -320C first flew on February 19, 1963. Its hallmark is the large cargo door on the left side of the fuselage, along with a reinforced cabin floor. Airlines could use it as an all-passenger jet with up to 194 seats, as a freighter with 13 pallets or in a mixed configuration. That very flexibility made it the most-produced 707 – and later the preferred basis for freighter conversions and second military careers.

The 707 at Lufthansa

For German aviation the 707 is a milestone: it began the jet age at Lufthansa. The airline ordered the Conway version, the 707-430, as early as the mid-1950s. The first aircraft was handed over in February 1960, landed in Hamburg-Fuhlsbüttel on March 2, 1960 with the registration D-ABOB and entered scheduled service on March 17, 1960. Lufthansa was thus the first airline to carry passengers on the 707-420.

From 1963 turbofan aircraft of the -320B and -320C series were added (designated 707-330B and -330C at Lufthansa, using customer code 30), which Lufthansa used on long-haul routes and in cargo service. The Conway 707s were retired by 1977, and the remaining 707s flew until December 1984. After that, the Boeing 747 and widebody twinjets took over long-haul.

One of the early aircraft, the 707-430 D-ABOD, was preserved in Hamburg for a long time: it served as a training aircraft for the technical staff and later stood as an exhibit at Hamburg Airport. It was scrapped in June 2021. In the same year the 707 displayed in Lufthansa colors at the former Berlin-Tegel Airport also disappeared – a former El Al aircraft that had never flown for Lufthansa. More about the site is told in the history of Tegel Airport. You can therefore no longer visit a complete civil 707 in Lufthansa livery in Germany.

The bigger story of the 707 – from the Dash 80 prototype to the end of scheduled service – is told in the article Boeing 707: history of the first Boeing jet.

How to recognize the 707-320

The 707 has become rare in the field, so a reliable identification matters all the more when one does turn up – usually in military gray.

Mix-up risks: DC-8, KC-135, 720 and VC10

The Douglas DC-8 is the direct competitor from the same era and looks similar at first glance. Its vertical stabilizer ends without an antenna spike, though, the windows are larger, and the wing sweep looks a bit shallower. The Boeing KC-135 Stratotanker was developed in parallel from the same prototype but has a narrower, shorter fuselage and hardly any windows. The Boeing 720 is a shortened, lighter 707 derivative for shorter routes. The Vickers VC10 is ruled out immediately: its four engines sit at the tail. The Convair CV-880 is clearly shorter and slimmer.

Military derivatives: where the 707 lives on

Because the 707-320B and -320C were robust, roomy and available worldwide, they became the basis for numerous special military aircraft. Boeing built new-build military aircraft on the 707 airframe until the early 1990s, long after civil production had ended.

Derivative	Basis	Role	Status (as of October 2026, as far as known)
E-3 Sentry (AWACS)	707-320B Advanced	Airspace surveillance, 68 built	In service with NATO, the US, France and Saudi Arabia; the UK retired its aircraft in 2021 and passed some on to Chile
E-6 Mercury	707-300	US Navy communications aircraft, 16 built	In service, successor E-130J planned
E-8C Joint STARS	used 707-300	Ground surveillance	Last flight in November 2023
VC-137C (Air Force One)	707-353B (-320B)	Presidential aircraft	Museum pieces
Tanker conversions	707-320B/-320C	Aerial refueling	Including Israel and Iran, numbers declining

E-3 Sentry: the 707 with the mushroom

The best-known 707 of the present carries a large, rotating radar dome on its back: the Boeing E-3 Sentry. It is based on the 707-320B Advanced, and the NATO version, the E-3A, flies with TF33 engines, a military variant of the JT3D. For spotters in German-speaking countries it is the most important 707 of all, because NATO operates its E-3A fleet from Geilenkirchen airbase near the Dutch border. According to the available information this fleet comprises 14 aircraft; NATO has chosen the Saab GlobalEye as the successor, and with a service life extension the E-3A is to stay in service until around 2035.

How best to photograph there is shown by the Teveren spotters’ hill at Geilenkirchen airbase and the guide Plane spotting in Geilenkirchen. How to tell AWACS from other reconnaissance aircraft is explained in the article How to recognize AWACS and reconnaissance aircraft.

E-6 Mercury and Air Force One

The US Navy’s Boeing E-6 Mercury is the last new-build line based on the 707. Unlike most 707s it flies with modern CFM56 engines and serves as a flying communications center. The E-130J, based on the C-130J, is planned as the successor, but the E-6 is expected to keep performing the mission into the 2030s.

The 707 also made history as a presidential aircraft: the VC-137C with the designation SAM 26000, technically a 707-353B, now stands in the National Museum of the US Air Force near Dayton, Ohio. Its successor SAM 27000 is on display at the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library in California. How US military serials are structured is explained in the article on USAF serials.

The end of civil service

With the Boeing 747 and later the efficient twinjets, the 707 lost its role on the big long-haul routes from the 1970s. Civil production ended in 1978. Many aircraft kept flying afterward as freighters, charter jets or government aircraft, mainly in Africa, South America and the Middle East. Noise regulations increasingly made life difficult for the older turbojet and early turbofan versions in Europe and North America.

The last scheduled passenger flights on a 707 ended in April 2013 with Iran’s Saha Airlines. The airline then kept flying its 707s for the Iranian air force. In January 2019 a Saha 707 crashed on a cargo flight near Tehran – according to the available information, civil operation of the type ended with it. Since then the 707 has been a purely military and museum aircraft.

Museums and spotting tips

For the civil 707, the trip today almost inevitably leads to the US. In the Seattle area, where the 707 was developed and built, the Museum of Flight at Boeing Field shows an early presidential 707 (a derivative of the shorter 707-120) – a good place to compare the proportions with later Boeing types. The VC-137C in Dayton is the most prominent surviving example of the -320B line.

For photos of the E-3 at Geilenkirchen: the aircraft are large and comparatively slow, so a medium telephoto is usually enough. You get the radar dome best from an angle in front or from the side, with the sun behind you. When the light fits and how the departure direction plays out depends on the wind – so plan your session around weather and runway direction, as at any other military airfield. The article How to recognize historic aircraft offers tips on identifying older types in general.

Conclusion

The 707-320 Intercontinental made the 707 a global aircraft: only with it did nonstop connections between Europe and North America become routine by jet, and Lufthansa entered the jet age with it in 1960. As a passenger aircraft it is history, and the civil exhibits in Germany are gone. If you want to see the airframe today, look to the E-3A at Geilenkirchen or travel to the museums in the US. You will find more about the manufacturer on the page about Boeing.