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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."
Boeing's business must have gotten REALLY bad after 9/11...
== Jez ==
Do you miss Firefox? Try Pale Moon.
If ya buy one of these things. Are they going to have jet parks in Oklahoma to park these bad boys, put some primer on them, and put bricks under the missing wheels?
---
When you come to a fork in the road, take it! --Yogi Berra--
You could join the mile-high club in comfort of your own home...
sig:- (wit >= sarcasm)
During high winds, wouldnt the natural lift of the wings put stress on the column holding it down?
This
Out in California, there are mammoth junk yards of nothing but a century of airplanes gone to waste. Many are used for movies, stripped for spare parts, and so forth, but it's good that they're finally being used to provide shelter.
However, $300,000 is a bit steep, though it's a nice novelty item. Instead of selling them to the eccentric, the planes out in the junk yards of California should be given away converted into homeless shelters and low-income housing using the company's swivel technology.
This has to be one of the stupidest house ideas I've ever seen. I've seen aircraft being turned into diners, railroad cars being added on to places, but to use an old 727 as a house/windvane? It's hideous! Your neighbors would probably hate you. Birds would fear your house. And god forbid you live in a place that gets hurricanes. Yipes!
On the other hand, their other auction is pretty cool.
There's an "AirPlaneHomes.com"?
Computer Science is no more about computers than astronomy is about telescopes. --E. W. Dijkstra
The previous 727 as a home story is here
Patriotism is the opium of the masses
Reserve not yet met...
Karnal
Domain Name: AIRPLANEHOMES.COM
Registrar of Record: TUCOWS, INC.
Record last updated on 16-Oct-2002.
Record expires on 16-Oct-2003.
Record Created on 16-Oct-2002.
Homer: "Kids, there's three ways to do things: the right way, the wrong way, and the Max Power way!"
Bart: "Isn't that the wrong way?"
Homer: "Yeah, but faster!"
or is that picture obviously photoshopped?
The GeekNights podcast is going strong. Listen!
Does it come with a monogrammed shirt?
It is our intention to deliver and set the airplane up on a column and bearing arrangement so it weathervanes.
Hm, this will be tons o fun in a hurricane or severe storm. Now, not only will you be able to lose power, you'll also get to experience the kind of nausea and vomiting that only being whipped around about a central axis point can provide!
- A.P.
"Remember when the U.S. had a drug problem, and then we declared a War On Drugs, and now you can't buy drugs anymore?"
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.
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.
If you believe everything you read, you'd better not read. - Japanese proverb
As for the neighbours, I would have to agree. You'd have to be pretty rich and eccentric already to not become the hated neighbour by this (i.e. you already are...)
Had to say it!
TANSTAAFI: There Ain't No Such Thing As A Free iPod.
Too bad these beauties weren't for sale a few years back when various individuals were so freaked out by the Y2K scare that they built undergound shelters in the woods.
Sure, the airplane reminds me of my old railroad appt. in NYC, but it sure beats the school bus David Koresh had buried in his backyard as a bunker.
--- have you healed your church website?
Is anyone else entertained by the fact that this is made available by "Max Power Aerospace, Inc."?
I couldn't tell if you were experimenting with poor-man's cryogenics or looking for the orange sherbet.
Ok, so it's hurricane proof. But imagine what that pivoting base would do for you in a tornado. I hope they don't sell many of these in west Texas.
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
... to attract cute flightless chix into your shiny nest.
But that opportunity comes at a heavy price, not even getting into dollar figures: how many of us are used to changing our outlook (and I mean WYSIWYG through your actual windows) according to the wind direction.
Worst of all, when the going gets tough, you might find that your chick was nothing but a fair-weather friend!
Should invading one's peaceful neighbours be opposed, or rewarded with trade deals?
A couple of high school kids decide to be mischiveous and tie one end of a rope to your plane, the other end to a truck and do some donuts in your yard turning your home into a G-force simulator.
Whats more frightening than 3 am earthquakes? 3 am Wizzard of Oz flashbacks.
-- AcquaCow
up 12 days, 22:30, 2 users, load averages: 993.20, 994.21, 994.56
*makes note to limit user processes...
http://doomx.net/airplanehomes.com/
Enjoy.
The structure spins around, but the entrance is in the tail? If I go out to get the paper on a windy day, will I be stuck chasing my front door around for the following two hours?
A whole 727, probably up around 100,000 pounds stripped, on a 4' column?
I think I'll hold out, and make an offer on the second one.
Does anyone else remember when Homer Simpson changed his name to Max Power?
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.
The plane has been stripped of everything that can be sold for spare parts. What's the point of having an airplane if the cockpit has been gutted of the seats and instrument panels?
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
From the bottom of the ebay auction page:
A functioning cockpit can be installed, based on the Microsoft Flight Simulator. This is offered by a third party and is in the $10,000 area.
Um. Says it all really ...
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.
A couple people have compared this "airplane home" to the concept of silo homes. The difference between the two is that a silo home has tons of usable space. I would jump at the chance to have a home built on top of an old silo, which effectively serves as an enourmous basement. Forget the paranoid bomb shelter aspect (although, it's only funny until bombs start dropping), think of the square footage. Especially if you could get one cheap a government auction. I once saw a guy on one of those "unusual home" shows on TLC or something, that bought a silo at auction for $40,000.
One of these airplane homes goes for what - $300,000? - and you're getting 1200 sq feet of living space. I'd pay that for an apartment off Central Park West or something, but for a plane on a stick? Eh, I think not.
--your home owners association has no say on whether or not you can put a ham tower up. Get a ham license, then put up your "ham tower" get it? heh... It's illegal for them by federal law to restrict you. The state can't, the county can't, a city can't, and the home owners association can't. If they try, seems to me you can sue them, maybe they will pay off your mortgage by settling out of court?Perhaps even the feds might arrest them?
Don't know, don't care, good luck on your antenna*, And next time (friendly advice, not trolling or flaming)think twice before moving into such a restricted area, freedom-loss is nothing to actually pay cash for, lotsa other "living" opportunities out there.
* I needed an antenna,hmm... went out back, dug hole, installed three section tower, ran cable, done....
On one of the home and garden type channels it was a house that was essentially a 'bird house', but was meant for humans. It was easily 5 to 10 feet off of the ground and it could actually rotate. It was an elevator to get up to the house.
This would definately help get rid of door to door sales people.
Q: Would you ever want a house like this?
What we see depends on mainly what we look for. -- John Lubbock Now search for that bug slave!
--was living in florida for a short time frame in the 70's. Some guy there (st pete beach) had a GREAT mod, he took an airplane, took the wings off, added two pontoons to it, had this nice catamaran. It was some flavor large commercial plane, but no idea the make/model. It was just too dang slick.
Yah, you say it isn't a problem, until you realize it IS a mobile home. Forgetting for a second that it's a 747...
-It's a tin can.
-It has wheels.
-It's not on them and never will be again.
-The dates you'll get by living there are nothing to brag about.
That, my friend, is a mobile home. The twister's acomin' son, and you're next!
You are checking your backups, aren't you?
Can you imagine sitting in that thing as it tracked a frisky storm with shifting winds? In the right conditions you'd be doing 360's, perhaps with significant centrifugal accelerations at the ends. OK, maybe you'd turn off "free swivel" mode at this point (stripping the gears) as you woke up, screaming, but what if you weren't home to do it?
BTW, a typical jet is not intended to be operated in a hurricane. The folks who study hurricanes use Orions, I think, and are very respectful. Of course, glued to the ground structural failure is not your main concern -- a wing can fall off for all you care -- but that gimbal, well...
Your front door would always be in a different place? A 727 is pretty long (~150') and that could mean long walks with the groceries (the 727 does have that unique "air stair" in the tail, a la D.B Cooper). Maybe you can rotate it on demand.
Yes, safeties could be designed for most of these things, but no safety is a match for human error or bad luck.
OK, I've heard of dumber ideas, but this one is a contender. They auctioned off a small square piece of cardboard recently, and it did quite well.
...I just don't think this idea will fly.
Some terrorist crashes a building into your plane!
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
You could use it as a guest home on your missle silo estate. (I don't need the karma, find that story yourself. Valuable prizes!)
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
1. You have way too much money and don't know what elese to do with it. (you're an idiot)
2. You enjoy living in coastal regions where everyones overpriced home gets destroyed every few years due to hurricanes. (you're an idiot)
3. You like to live in places with no ordinances about how ugly or fucked your neighborhood can be. (you're an idiot)
4. You've always wanted to live a trailer home but felt like your income made you too exclusive for a trailer park. (you're an idiot)
5. You enjoy long drives for a loaf of bread. (you're an idiot)
I can think of a lot of other reasons someone might like this, but they all include being a complete idiot.
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
For some reason, I can see this somehow being connected with Terry Gilliam. The concept of a home needing a braking mechanism is just surreal.
This sig no verb.
I don't understand how these things would be hurricane proof.
An airplane like a 727 can handle 500+ mph "winds", because that's how fast it moves through the air when it's flying. However, that is smooth airflow along the longitudinal axis of the aircraft.
One of these sitting close to the ground would be subject to changing winds from all directions. During a hurricane, as the winds eddied wildy over the ground's surface, it'd be similar to flying into severe turbulence.
Obviously, being able to weather-vane would have the thing pointed predominantly into the wind, but that pivot point would have to absorb the energy of any lateral and vertical components of the wind striking the aircraft.
It seems to be a pretty bold claim, with little or no research to back it.
Note that refitting the cockpit for MS Flight Simulator is one of the options that they offer.
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
Reassuring pilot -- but suuuuure, what's he going to say? We think we'll be OK but my co-pilot just wet himself and passed out? :)
Apparently the military spends a couple million US$'s a year repairing storm damages. They may push their luck a little more. And I linked a story elsewhere in this thread about a BA pilot getting burned in the cockpit by lightning.
The biggest danger from Hurricanes would be the flying Debris, quite possibly.
The Aircraft is certified as not being able to fly, due to control serfaces, etc being removed, etc. Check out the Owner's Flight Manual
"It is a greater offense to steal men's labor, than their clothes"
The cool thing would be that all your expense goes into ambience -- go for that classy old Pam Am style, and maybe have the maitre 'd wear a leather jacket. If the food sucks, hey, so what, your customers will be expecting that anyway -- as long as they're being charged less than a hundred bucks for the experience of getting out alive with a full stomach, they'll leave happy.
Dammit it could work, all you need to do is find places in or near major cities & you could start a chain to rival Hard Rock Cafe or Planet Hollywood. Zoning laws could be an issue, but hey in that case just stay out of New England at first -- I know of placed in Smyrna Tennessee & Florence South Carolina that would be happy to help get you started...
tee hee :)
And before anyone goes knocking these people for being crackpots to sell airplane homes (hey, I think it's a fun idea but I know damn well I could never talk my fiance into it :), check out their last auction: 2.1 million dollars to sell an ICBM silo home. Yow!
DO NOT LEAVE IT IS NOT REAL
When you can buy one of the space shuttles and convert it to your home. Nothing beats having a huge robotic arm lifting in the groceries...
What I want to know, is how they expect me to believe they towed an aircraft of that size thru those hills (per the ebay "photo").
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
Gives totally new meaning to rich trailer trash...
J:
Not just galvanic corrosion, but as trailer dwellers sometimes discover, after 30-odd years exposed to weather, aluminum can become porous; also the seams stretch due to thermal and flex stress, and no amount of resealing completely fixes the resultant leaks. I've got a travel trailer of 1961 vintage that despite many layers of sealant, has this very problem -- the roof and walls sortof ooze in spots. (Similar problems affect some aluminum siding used on regular houses.)
Trailers are not maintenance-free by a long stretch (particularly the roof, floors, and plumbing). I'd expect an aircraft has similar issues.
~REZ~ #43301. Who'd fake being me anyway?
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.
The WIND SHIFTS...! Oh I can see it now, I'm going down my stairs, headed for work on a blustery day, and then a 40 mph wind takes a 45 to 90 degree shift. Gee, I'm gonna love trying to explain this one to my health insurance agent. "Ya see sir my house is designed to rotate in the wind, and well it was a very windy day...."(health insurance agent tries to keep from snickering out loud while reaching for the record but and waving the rest of the claims agents over). Not to mention that if the area where you live is particularly wind does that mean that essentially everything in the house has to be bolted down or secured in some way?
Oh ya, can survive a hurricane, but don't trying this in the tornado belt.... And you thought this plane would never fly?
I'd like to see the disclaimer on this guys contract.
And the scary thing is... Someone bought one and is actually living in it?!?!
O'k, guess it takes all kinds. In situations such as these - please refer to my sig.
Did you guys know they just took 'gullible' out of the dictionary? No, seriously!
I mean, come on - can't you tell a photoshopped image when you see one? (and it's a pretty bad one at that).
And the text just reeks of '16 year old's prank'.
Excerpt:
Question: How does the drinking water run up, waste water run down and the electric wires hook to the airplane if it spins around? Won't the wires get twisted?
Answer: We use a device called a multi-port swivel.
A 'multi-port swivel'? Sure it's not a 'flux capacitor' you're talking about?
And the fact that the wings are perfect for parties of 71 people or more, and can be refitted with railings.
To *anyone* who took this seriously...you need hitting with my 2x4 cluestick.
-Nano.
That's kind of funny if you think about it. The zoning department doesn't care that you put a junk air craft on your land, an eye sore for all the neighbors, and a potential hazard in high winds. Yet, they do care about how you divide your living room from your bed room. Maybe they have their priorities mixed up?
I used to live in Kingman, Az. There is a large airport there that was used during WWII that has long runways. There was also a company at the airport that flew decommissioned planes in and stripped all saleable parts. There were always more than a dozen planes there.
/. is about sharing ideas, so if you've got the resources, have at it. Just be sure to post some pics and an URL. If someone actually does this I sure would like to see it - either option.
I had the idea back then that I might be able to buy a stripped fuselage for the scrap value. Never did find out how much that would be, but I had some ideas about how to use one of them as a home. I would like to have been able to buy one of the widebodies. I never thought about putting one up on a post to swivel, but the following are two ideas that I had.
First, I thought that I might coat the exterior to prevent corrosion, remove all wings and stabalizers and bury it. Not completely, but about 80 - 90%, just enough so that I could put skylights along the length of the top. Using an L-1011 for example (interior dimensions of 18' x 135'), would give over 2400 square feet of living area not counting any of the below-deck stuff like luggage, galley, or storage areas.
It would already have bathroom facilities (well, toilet and sink anyway, you'd have to add a full bath somewhere) and a heating/cooling system. The 18' width would also give more options for the layout of rooms and other divided areas. This would be earth-sheltered and since (I believe) these are well insulated, it would not require much heating and cooling.
Entry would be through a stairwell down to any entry door one would choose, or, with the right lot, maybe the terrain would provide for a ground level entry with the rest of the structure earth-sheltered. I figured that it could be done for not much more than a conventional home.
The second idea was a little more involved but would make for a real artistic curiosity. Purchase the aircraft including wings and all stabalizers. Purchase a piece of land which is a hillside, preferably which breaks on two sides. Land of this type is somewhat less desirable than a flat piece which is easy to build on so it would likely be cheaper. This might be hard to visualize, but I'm no artist, so the concept is only in my head. This will all make sense at the end of the description.
Make most of the living space of your home inside the hill, underground. Hollow out living areas, make sure it is supported just like a horizontal shaft mine - think NORAD but without the bomb shelter capacity (unless you've got a lot of money burning a hole in your pocket.)
The primary shaft would be on both sides of the hillside and then another perpendicular to the first shaft. Cut loose the front section of the fuselage with the cockpit and put it in one end. Cut loose the tail with the vertical and horizontal stabalizers and put in the other end. Have a doorway out of the perpedicular shaft and anchor one of the wings (appropriate one) at the door and supported horizontally out into the air away from the hillside.
The end result is to have it appear that the entire aircraft is imbedded in the hillside. The wing is a patio, the cockpit could be a breakfast nook and the tail could house the bathrooms and heating/cooling equipment, etc. If the terrain were right, you could even have a pool partially shaded from the sun under the wing.
I had the idea back in a time when the feds weren't under republican control, so I figured I might even be able to get a National Endowment for the Arts grant or maybe even a National Science Foundation grant to defray some of the cost, as this would be much more costly than the first option.
Well,
War is Peace. Freedom is Slavery. Ignorance is Strength. - George Orwell or George Bush?
These airplanes are designed to stay afloat. Now I live in Amsterdam, where some people live in nice boats on the typical canals, surrounded by beautiful 17th century buildings. Now imagine this ugly floating plane on one of these canals.
A local cause celebre in London is the guy who stuck a plastic marlin on his roof... years of court appearances, driving a pink tank around the city and newspaper headlines followed...
Sheesh, we get major battles here over the size of hedges (Leylandii is not liked by those overshadowed by it).
The last prime minister (John Major) once had the job of ensuring all house doors remained painted grey (apparently someone dared paint their door another colour; the council painted it back).
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.
On an operating aircraft the wing have to support the fuel load when on the ground and the plane plus 150 or so passengers plus a margin of safety when in the air.
Happy Fun Ball is for external use only.
B727s have all three engines in the tail. (One in the rear of the body, two side mounted, with a T-tail arrangement. There are no engines on the wings.
There is nothing so silly as other peoples traditions, and nothing so sacred as our own.