Slashdot Mirror
The Boeing 727-200 Airplane Home
Alien54 writes "As seen at AirplaneHomes.com: 'We are offering a B727-200 aircraft for reuse as a home. It is our intention to deliver and set the airplane up on a column and bearing arrangement so it weathervanes. We have tried to define what we consider a "basic" airplane home. This project has all the complexities of a normal home and we will try to deliver and install it to the buyers needs, within the following limitations.' Be sure to also check out the owner's flight manual for more technical details."
The previous 727 as a home story is here
Patriotism is the opium of the masses
There are at least two of them for sale on ebay right now - here and here Too bad the missle silo home is already sold.
Guess I'll have to settle for a double-wide.
He has never sold anything over $10 on ebay. All of his feedback on ebay is mostly from selling Get Rich products. Now he has several higher price auctions listed. Feedback --> http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?MfcISAPIComma nd=ViewItem&item=1779168967
Currently Selling --> http://cgi6.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewSellersO therItems&userid=microsell&completed=0&sort=3&sinc e=-1
http://doomx.net/airplanehomes.com/
Enjoy.
To reply to the inane comments about the airplane whipping around in winds and such -- the webpage explicitly gives three functions the base can do: -Free Rotate (with smoothing of motion) -Motor Rotate (you control its rotation) -Completely locked I'd imagine that being completely locked would prevent said 'rotating like a pinwheel' effect in high winds.
They have some, umm, sketchy keywords in their meta tag on that site:
airplane homebar restaurant nightclub cabaret
titty
727 aircraft house
girls drinks topless
hurricane earthquake flood proof
rotating unique
mile high club
resort timeshare
sports pub
classroom simulator
What exactly am I supposed to type into Google to have this show up?
four nine eighteen twenty-7 thirty-nine forty-7 fiftyeight sixty-nine seventy-9 eighty-8 one-hundred-and-nine one-twenty
I would assume they'll either remove the wings all together, or use spoilers of some sort. To weathervane, they don't need wings: just the tail.
The site claims to offer rails for the wings if you want. It said it would hold like 70 people per wing at 175 lbs apiece. They seemed to base this on flight charicteristics.
I can't believe these people are for real. They don't seem to have an existing converted plane to photograph and made a horrible digital rendering.
Sure, 727-200s are tough and made to take stress, but the ones in service go through regular scheduled maintenance checks mandated by the FAA. Aircraft maintenance hangars have ways of checking for metal fatigue and replace parts as needed. Also they are designed to take stress through the wings and main landing gear; I don't know how the body would do stuck up on a column year after year. Then there's the danger of galvanic corosion where your presumably stell support structure connects to the aluminum airframe.
Of course in the US an HOA cannot legally prevent you from putting up an antenna for TV reception. You might be talking about some other kind of antenna, perhaps.
There won't be high crosswinds, the swivel base lets it weathervane into the wind.
I've had enough abrasive sigs. Kittens are cute and fuzzy.
Could you please explain how this is fishy? If I was going to sell something this big, I would register a domain too. And I don't feel particularly subversive when I only register my domains for a year at a time... what if you don't want it in a year?
Yeah, I'm sure the owners of those planes would love that idea. FYI: these aircraft still contain parts that can be used, which is the sole purpose of keeping them around. A majority of aircraft however is just mothballed until better times come around. There are times it's not economical to operate them but that doesn't make them worthless. Even if they'd give away the fuselage, who would pay for (a)removing all sellable parts (b)transportation (c)the swivel system (d)the interior??
You're exactly right -- and not only that, but the planes are actually owned by somebody. What a concept. They're not junk, they're just excess supply.
My mother does work in equipment leasing, and the bank she works for has quite a few airplanes in use, but they also have quite a few sitting in these mothball fleets, waiting for airlines to expand again. It is actually quite expensive to keep the planes there, as they aren't junk, but must be sealed, etc, and then checked and maintained regularly. In fact, if the banks could collect the insurance money (say, if the whole mothball fleet was destroyed), they'd be much happier. While the idea of using these planes is worth considering, I'll bet that to acquire the planes for use as shelters you're going to have the pay a lot more than $300,000 -- the bank will try to recover it's costs. And stripping the valuble parts out is going to be expensive too...
I read about these a couple of years ago. They install spoilers on the wings to eliminate any lift.
Not all that well insulated? I dont remember seeing too many heaters in the last plane I flew in, and I am pretty sure the air outside at 30000 ft was damn cold.
Actually, you probably did see the heaters. They were hanging out there on the wings; they're called "engines." The air for the pressurization comes from the "bleed air" from the compressors in the engines. Bleed air is extremely hot; in the King Air I fly, the temperature is typically 700 degrees Celsius (redline on that airplane is 725, IIRC, but we run it at 700). Even passed through intercoolers, that air is still very hot. We have to run the air conditioning in that airplane nearly coonstantly to keep the temperature even remotely comfortable. So yes, the air is heated.
As to the insulation, well, usually the plastic overlay on the wall feels warm, but that's because that plastic always feels warm. If you feel the metal wall behind it, you'll notice that it is very cold at altitude, often producing frost; on the ground, it can get quite warm if the airplane is left in the sun, or cold, if the ambient temperature is low. Short answer is, little to no insulation. Considering that the environmental systems are very good, insulation is unnecessary, and adds weight, which is the bane of aircraft designers.
Moderate drunk! It's more fun that way!
That converted missile silo has been on sale for a year or two now. See MissileBases.com, a real estate broker who deals in old missile silos. This new guy may be a broker. Or not; I don't see a "licensed real estate broker #nnn" anywhere.
If you would actually visit the site, you would notice that they say that they remove lift surfaces from the wings and tail excatly for this reason.