The Boeing 747 Still Uses Floppy Disks For Software Updates: Here's Why

A floppy disk did what thumb drives do, back when we talked about megabytes instead of terabytes. It might seem crazy that the 400 remaining Boeing 747s used by airlines and shipping companies around the world need floppies to update their software, especially since that jumbo jet was in production until 2023, a year when USB, Bluetooth, and Wi-Fi were doing just fine. That's like saying Wikipedia can only be updated via stone tablet or that you still need a mid-'90s Compaq laptop to service a McLaren F1. (Oh, wait, that last part is accurate.)

Here's the kicker, though. Using floppy disks has some serious advantages, at least when it comes to preserving 747s for continued use: maintaining older equipment is easier on budgets than retrofitting new computers, floppies are inherently more secure than the internet or wireless connections, the old software is reliable, and recertifying planes with new firmware is time-consuming and expensive. If it ain't broke, don't fix it — that's the motto here.

And it's not like using old equipment is unique to this jet. Chuck E. Cheese needed floppies to update animatronics until 2023. San Francicso is spending $212 million to ditch the floppy disks that still run its light rail system. The Department of Defense didn't change from floppies to solid-state storage for the computers that control nuclear weapons until 2019. And the FAA still uses computers that run on Windows 95.

While the 747 lineup debuted in 1969, the specific version we're discussing here is the 747-400, introduced in 1988. That year, floppy disks were still very much en vogue, like laser discs, cell phones the size of cinder blocks, and suits with shoulder pads. The disks that the 747-400 uses are the 3.5-inch kind you used to get in the mail with 15 free hours of America Online, which my dad would erase and reuse for work. These disks hold a whopping 1.44 megabytes. Yeah. If you were thinking that maybe the 747 was using Zip disks that could store up to 750 megs, you overestimated by about 520 times. 

What's really going to bake your noodle is that these 1.44-meg disks are used for updating the jet's navigation database. With disks that hold that little, it might seem that updating the database would be an hourly concern. Nope, the 747's database updates only need to happen every 28 days. Still, like installing Wing Commander II on the family 486 PC, it takes a fair number of floppies, sometimes as many as a dozen.

The problem with upgrading a big ol' jet like the 747 is that you can't just slap a new Acer laptop in the cockpit and call it a day. Whenever you deal with massive vehicles that travel from country to country at hundreds of miles per hour, laws and regulations get involved. Retrofitting a 747 with new hardware requires regulatory red tape, in addition to ensuring the electronics will all talk nicely to one another without causing critical issues. The cost can be millions of dollars.

And hey, huge bonus, floppy disks are unlikely to be the medium of choice for a cyberattack. There's no modem access, so someone would have to Mission Impossible into the system directly, and that's just not likely to happen. Old tech sometimes makes things more secure, like how a manual transmission befuddled some Porsche Boxster thieves. 

Perhaps the most important aspect of the 747's floppy system, though, is proven reliability. Software glitches were the culprit in some high-profile 737 Max crashes, but the 747-400 has been cruising on floppy power since before the Berlin Wall fell. We can joke about coach seats that can't recline more than an inch (if at all), surly flight attendants, and charging extra for suitcases, but airlines definitely want their planes to arrive in one piece. If they need to use disks that are too small to individually hold the first episode of the original Doom, so be it.