A shout out to J Burton Berlin, who designed the stab trim system on the 747. He mentored me a lot on the 757 system. He showed me his design notebook on the 747 design, quite a treasure. All done in pencil with a slide rule. An engineer's engineer. He had many entertaining stories about the B-47 design.
I saw one up close and personal for the first time recently, and was caught off guard by just how genuinely huge it is. I kind of expect things like "famously huge X" to be a disappointment in real life, but no, I was viscerally reminded that it's (at least!) a three-story building on wheels, and that's not even counting the extra story or so of space beneath it as it rolls. My younger airplane-obsessed self would have been pleased. Hopefully an air museum or three picks one up before they all go out of service.
IMHO the 747 is the tech that changed australia more than any other post the shock of european colonisation, conquest, settlement, whatever you want to call that.<p>The world suddenly got a lot smaller and closer. Visiting foreign lands became a thing accessible to a vastly larger proportion of the population and that was all most needed to get out there and see some of it.<p>Closely followed by satellite comms, then fibre, then the web & consumer internet. (Skype and its ilk).<p>The A380 is great and drew a crowd for its first landing in aus. Somehow its still not a Jumbo Jet for all that it is even bigger.<p>Which areoplane is winning the kilogram kilometers per Litre of jet fuel for long haul nowadays?
I used to fly over to the US a couple of times a year for family holidays (from the UK) and almost always went on a 747, the difference in comfort was massive.<p>We often flew with a small little airline called 'Travel City Direct' who have since been merged into Virgin Atlantic. They leased two 747's from a charter company, one of them was all dolled up in their own livery, the other was just white and a looked super ropey on the outside...but inside it was still night and day a better experience than anything else.<p>We were fortunate enough to be in the 'bubble' on that one so had a great upstairs view - it was still only economy, but felt more like premium.<p>I later found out that the blank white plane we flew on so many times ended its days as the white 747 you used to see at Dunsfold - where Top Gear is filmed. Yep, that 747. The one they modified and used in the 007 film Casino Royale and Quantum of Solace to be the Skyfleet S570.
Hard not to feel nostalgic, as most of us on this forum probably associate the 747 with international air travel.<p>However time marches on, and it’s also nice to notice how much nicer and quieter the 787 and A350 are, not to mention more efficient.
In previous posts where the 747 has come up, I've been able to say that I once flew top deck on a 747 and what a privilege it was to do so before it ended service with U.S. carriers, not knowing how close I was to missing that chance forever.<p>And here I am, sitting in Berlin, reading this article about the last 747, happy in the knowledge that I will once again fly on the top deck of a 747 in exactly a week. Lufthansa's still flying them, and I could not pass up the $500 upgrade for the flight home.<p>I'll make sure to savor every moment.
I was fortunate enough to travel in a Lufthansa 747. I have never felt so joyously overwhelmed by any other vehicle. The newer A350s and A380s unfortunately don’t carry the same appeal for me personally.<p>The A380 looks real ugly for me resembling the beluga.<p>747 looks beautiful, majestic and aesthetically very pleasing.<p>Sad to see this plane approaching the end of its life.
<p><pre><code> Boeing’s final 747 rolled out of the company’s cavernous factory north of Seattle Tuesday night as airlines’ push for more fuel-efficient planes ends the more than half-century production run of the jumbo jet.
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The B747-8 is pretty fuel-efficient. As is the A380.<p>The smaller two-engine jets have grown bigger and fly now further. Therefore the B747 and A380 operate mostly between the big hubs far away with many passengers, fitting the design profile. Deutsche Lufthansa and Korean Air operating happily with the B747-8i and the plane works reliable.
Reliability:
The B777X is delayed, the B787 suffers quality problems and "lost tools", paint goes off (both B787 and A350), the engine problems on the A320neo seem solved some time ago and then the MCAS on the B737-Max is another sad story.<p>Lufthansa solved it delivery issues with the B787 by buying used ones. And the B747 just looks like a Queen, graceful and elegant :)<p><pre><code> The end of 747 production was “inevitable but it would be a little more palatable if they were making something new,” said Richard Aboulafia, managing director at consulting firm AeroDynamic Advisory.
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Let us hope so. At some point aging existing feels need replacement and transportation between big hubs remains important. My recommendation about the 747, watch the freight loading before boarding. It is incredible how much freight (I don't mean baggage) fits into this plane while traveling across the Atlantic and transporting 450 passengers at the same time.
There are 3 retired 747s on an airfield 10 miles from my house (in Surrey, southern England). It isn’t open to the general public most of the time but two weeks ago I ran a charity 10km around the runways and perimeter roads. So beautiful to see these birds up close. You can get a feel for it on the gallery page of the run’s site: <a href="https://jigsaw.run/gallery/" rel="nofollow">https://jigsaw.run/gallery/</a>
What blows my mind is that the grand ocean liners (Four Funnel Liners, like the Titanic) were all built over a span of 25 years. So the jet age is already at least twice as long as the era of production of those great steam ships was.
I like the A380 because it’s so quiet and smooth, but if I had to deal with the 747 noise I had a soft spot for the Rolls-Royce RB211 engine like Qantas used on their 747-400 non-ERs. The triple stage turbofan spool-up sounded and felt awesome.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx-xfwxbpwE" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lx-xfwxbpwE</a>
I flew on the second floor of a 747. It felt posh for some reason. Also the flight was super smooth. I suppose its weight and sheer size helps with that.
If anyone wants to buy a piece of a Boeing 747-400, this parting-out operator at a boneyard in California has a lot of stuff:<p><a href="https://whaletailsales.com/" rel="nofollow">https://whaletailsales.com/</a>
this is a little surreal. one of the first aircraft i ever flew on was a 747. in the 80s and 90s if you were on a long haul 6+ hour flight, it was likely a 747 (if not an L1011 or 767). it was notable for me personally as it was one of the most advanced feats of human ingenuity and engineering that i was able to get close to.<p>notably in the early 90s virgin atlantic was one of the first airlines to offer personal seatback video screens in economy on their 747s. the screens were backlit color lcd (similar to atari lynx), about 3.5" in diameter and had 6 or so channels that were on a four hour loop.<p>edit: here's a link to an image of one for the curious. wild how far we've come. <a href="https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1d5qij/virgin_atlantic_inflight_entertainment_system/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reddit.com/r/aviation/comments/1d5qij/virgin_atl...</a><p>it's a bit sad to see the program end, as it sort of marks the end of an era where the engineering feat of putting something that large in the sky was prized. i suppose that focusing on operating efficiency and environmental sustainability are far more important, but it's hard to not be nostalgic for the long running engineering triumphs of the jet age.
One of the most beautiful objects ever built. I went to NYC from Paris for the first time in 1990, on a 747, and a few days later stayed at the airport a whole afternoon, just watching 747s land. It was splendid, I think I could have spent a lot more time there.
I flew on a 747 only once, a Lufthansa flight from Frankfurt to Denver back in 2006 (returning to the US after being stationed in Germany for 3 years). Absolutely huge.<p>I only fly domestically nowadays. Rarely do I end up on anything bigger than a 737.
According to the article, they built a total of 1574 planes. This number happens to be equal to 2 * 787. The significance of this would be that 787 is also the model number of one of Boeings current generation jetliner, the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. I, as a small-time-wannabe number nerd and small-time-wannabe airplane nerd, reacted positively when I happened to see this connection.<p>I have no idea if there is any intent behind this specific number of produced planes, but I suspect that there would be people at Boeing who feel the same kind of mild satisfaction as I did when I saw the number of aircraft produced.
The ability of the cargo version of the 747 to swing up the nose (that's why the cockpit is in the bulge on the top) will be missed. Cargo versions of currently produced airliners will not be capable of doing this.<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VZO8Lt78Go" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1VZO8Lt78Go</a>
Meanwhile, the longest scheduled nonstop airline flights of 13,000 to 14,000 km are all operated with large twin engine aircraft:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_flights#Scheduled_services" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Longest_flights#Scheduled_serv...</a>
The irony being that because air traffic keeps increasing and airport capacity doesn't (in term of runways), those cancelled jumbo jets (B747, A380) will be needed again in a few years.
Aside from the engineering this plane came out at exactly the right time.<p>What made 747 special was enabling cheap flights for mass tourism. Four hundred passengers to Acapulco and Benidorm.