Today is the 40th birthday of a feat of engineering that never fails to amaze me – the Boeing 747. Aircraft continually amaze me, I could sit for hours and watch them take off and land – not in a geeky rain mac wearing sort of way – just staggered at how such a huge thing (the 747 weighs over 160 tons) gets off the ground and thousands of feet into the air.

Flying is now something most of us take for granted, the same as much of our technology. When you switch on your mobile to make a call, send a text, check your email or pull up google maps, do you actually think of the complex technology that makes this possible? I know I don’t. We are so used to everything working well that we don’t actually appreciate the work that goes into it. In fact the only time that we really pay attention to it is when it goes wrong or doesn’t work properly.

So next time you’re on a plane, checking your emails or listening to MP3s, take a minute to think just how amazing the technology at work really is, and just think how far we’ve come since the 747 made its first flight 40 years ago – who knows what sort of technology we’ll all be using 40 years from now when the Airbus celebrates its 40th.