It is truly incredible what we could once accomplish (and in such a short period of time!) with just pencils,paper,draughting tables,slide rules and the people who knew how to use them.
The 747 was,and always will be,one of the most remarkable achievements in aviation history,but the kind of people (at all levels in the process) who could bring a project like that to fruition are (mostly) long gone.And sadly,I believe we'll never see the likes of that level of skill,dedication and competence ever again.
Bombardier and the CSeries debacle are proof of that
I remember being at SFO once when an asian '47 was on takeoff roll and an obvious aviation buff was telling his friend there 'ok that ones heavy', I turned to them and said 'they are all heavy....' nearly a million pounds some of them...
Flown in every model and even got to fly the DC-3 back in the mid 70's in original WW II dress as the CDN Air Force was still flying them! Will sure miss the 747!