Slashdot Mirror
The Flying Giant Is 40 Years Old
Ponca City, We love you writes "Four decades ago, Boeing's prototype 747 took to the skies over Washington State for a 75-minute flight that helped bring cheap airline travel to millions of people and would remain the world's largest commercial aircraft for 37 years until the advent of the double-decker Airbus A380. What made the 747 unique was that it was the first 'wide body' aircraft with more than one aisle — a big step towards reducing the sense of traveling in a narrow tube, and inducing a sense more equivalent to flying in a large room with high ceilings. But back in the 1960s, convincing people that the 747 would fly was a tough call. Joe Sutter, the director of engineering on the project, even spent an hour with Charles Lindbergh, going over all the data to prove that the jumbo would not flip over or become unstable at high speeds. Boeing has sold more than 1,400 jumbos in the past four decades, worth, at today's prices, more than $350 billion and although we might complain of traveling in 'cattle class' we have the 747 to thank for being able to do so at affordable prices."
It used to be fun to fly, not any more.
Is this thing on? Check. Check.
What's amazing is that the 747 is still the de facto standard.
The technology behind large capacity long-haul air travel is still the same as it was forty years ago.
It's amazing how Boeing's newest production jumbo, the 777, is slimmer and faster than the hulking 747.
Contrast that with the average width of the American ass, and there's probably some kind of rule that can be proved. I don't know what it is, but also consider that the average airline seat size hasn't changed in the last 30 years and you're looking at an industry that is out of touch with mainstream America.
I hope Obama has a plan to fix our sagging economy!
Many people are skeptical that the A380 will sell. YET, think of when the 747 was launched, and when the A380 was launched... Around the same time with same economics...
I think the A380 will be a success because there will be more cattle to transport at a more effective cost...
Yeah... Great guess which plane I will be avoiding!!!!
"You can't make a race horse of a pig"
"No," said Samuel, "but you can make very fast pig"
Four decades ago:
747 and concorde launched, first manned moon landing. 40 years later, NASA can barely keep the ISS running (or the shuttle from blowing up).
I'm curious - how much better are the new planes compared to the 60s version of the 747 in terms of range, payload and efficiency?
Hello, Mr American? The ruskies would like to have a word with your ethno-centric records department.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An-124
Probably the coolest video of a Boeing passenger jet was the 707's barrel roll. The test pilot got in a bit of trouble BUT WAS NOT FIRED. Needless to say it was only done once.
Conservative, mod down for violating
...Boeing will fire 10,000 workers!
I don't say this to troll. I work in the aerospace industry and am watching bright, talented friends and coworkers get laid off left and right.
Hughes H-4 Hercules
Warning: this article may contain humor, sarcasm, parody, and perhaps even irony. Read at your own risk.
We may very well see 747's in the air for another 60 years. Boeing keeps improving them, and they're wildly popular as cargo carriers. I'm not talking things like airshows, I mean real, frontline service, especially freight service. Is anything better on the horizon? The A380 is, face it, just a modernized 747 knockoff... it simply extends the 747's double decker philosophy completely along the fuselage. Boeing engineers are looking at doing much the same thing to the current design. The parts pipeline is cheap and well established, and the plane is, by accounts of pilots themselves, easy to fly and safe.
This thing will be around a long, long time.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
although we might complain of traveling in 'cattle class' we have the 747 to thank for being able to do so at affordable prices
Ah yes, the age old practice of shafting your customers, but justifying it with "At least it's cheap!"
You can advertise in this sig from as little as £99.99 a month!
even spent an hour with Charles Lindbergh, going over all the data to prove that the jumbo would not flip over or become unstable at high speeds.
Wow, a whole hour devoted to analysing the plane's stability at high speeds? If that is correct, I'm amazed the plane flew at all.
As long as it's cheap I say squeeze me in like a sardine and send me on my merry little way!
what i mean by that is, to do better than the 747, one has to go faster further and cheaper. what mode of transport can outdo the 747 on all 3 counts at the same time?
the 747 is outdone by the concorde in terms of faster, but not further or cheaper. and so the concorde failed because in the end it was a niche tool for the rich: it offered marginally better speed for exorbitant increases in costs. we can't put a nuclear engine safely in an airplane, and so there is no cheaper for the immediate future
if we exclude extraterrestrial transport, transport on earth is pretty much at its zenith in our lifetimes. until some dramatic technological breakthroughs gives us a mode of transport that is, all at the same time, faster, further, and cheaper than the 747. in fact, on one count, further, the 747 can't really be topped. on that measure, the 747 pretty much is a dream: i, as a middle class westerner, can go anywhere on the earth i want in 24 hours. think about the history of mankind: that's a really incredible power. starting with us sitting on the back of horses, up through wheels, carriages, sails, the steam engine, rails, the ICE, jet engines... what else can there be?
so until someone invents a technology that can move us as far as the 747, perhaps 10x faster (to make an appreciable difference since 24 hours is a very comfortable amount of time to go to the other end of the globe), and perhaps 2x cheaper, we are in a golden age of transport that will not be surpassed for a very long time. we already have technologies like ramjets that are only used in exotic military applications, so really the bottleneck is cheaper fuel
until such future time, the 747 is the peak of human transportation technology
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
It's worse than little - its negative progress. Five years ago if I was rich enough I could purchase a ticket on a craft, Concorde, capable of cruising at twice the speed of sound. Today there is no supersonic passenger aircraft in service. Since I understand that a vastly more efficient supersonic aircraft could be constructed today the problem seems to be one of being willing to take an economic risk rather than a lack of technical expertise.
Four decades ago:
747 and concorde launched, first manned moon landing. 40 years later, NASA can barely keep the ISS running (or the shuttle from blowing up).
During the jet age, it was all about higher performance. Higher speeds, higher altitudes, longer ranges, higher load capacities.
Aviation has matured, and now it's only about one thing: better efficiency. Our planes carry no more people than they used to. They go no faster or farther. Cost efficiency is the last frontier of a stable, mature... but boring... industry.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
... or maybe not.
I don't remember the last time I flew on anything 747 or 747-sized. My flights have all been on CRJ's or EmbraerJets. I really can't say if life is better with more than one aisle, or what it is like to be able to stand up and not hit my head in on the airplane ceiling.
Although when flying alone it can be nice to be able to have a seat that is both a window and an aisle seat.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
The Hindenburg was used for transatlantic flights 20 years before the Hercules was built.
If I have nothing to hide, don't search me
I remember flying from Washington D.C. to Washington state on a DC-10, around about 1990. The flight I was on had a grand total of 10 passengers in coach - the main purpose of the flight, according to a stewardess, was because they needed more planes on the west coast. I got an entire center row to myself - that's something like 6 or 7 seats. Since the arm rests flip up, I was able to stretch out and even lay down for most of the flight. They even had extra meals - I was a young guy back then, and quantity mattered more than quality.
I think about that trip every now and then - usually when I'm crammed in coach nowadays with my knees pushing against the seat in front of me...
#DeleteChrome
Apparently the submitter has never flown in a fully-loaded 747 for twelve hours.
What?
and on that judgment, can not be beat (for land transport)
but i can't go to hawaii by rail, so on "further", rail is permanently limited, and as for faster, it sucks taking 3 days to get to san francisco from new york, as opposed to 6 hours
now what we could do is build some sort of global mach 1 maglev rail system so i could take a supsersonic bullet train on superconducting rails to moscow from new york via a bering straight tunnel/ bridge
but then the idea of rail being cheap disappears. building such a system and maintaining it is a colossal cost
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
The earliest use on UseNet was 1990, and the earliest mention in the New York Times is 1999. So I'm fairly certain Galen was the first inventor.
There aren't a lot of airplanes with 40 year production runs. The 757 didn't even go 25, and it's a great airplane.
To put it in perspective, Boeing is still building 747's while the front section of one of Northwest's early ones is on permanent display at the Air & Space Museum.
I still remember watching the first one make it's first take off on TV, then running out to the back yard to see it off in the distance. Now there are 747's in museums.
Man I'm feeling old.
Never shake hands with a man you meet in a fertility clinic.
Nevertheless, since that first flight, the 747 has fulfilled the faith of its designers and has led to reductions in air fares, opening up air travel to many in a way that was previously unimaginable
The 747 was developed for the airline business before the Airline Deregulation Act signed into law by Jimmy Carter. Before that, it was profitable for the airlines to operate under the "hub and spoke" business model: condense a bunch of folks going to a certain destination at a hub and then send them all at once to said destination. Which worked at the time because because all the airlines had to follow Federal rules; which, by the way, the airlines really miss those Government regulations.
Now, the way to be profitabile in the air ravel business is smaller fuel efficient aircraft with schedules more like trucks: Atlanta to Fort Lauderdale to Tampa to New Orleans to Atlanta again - for example. Not get a bunch of people to go to Fort Lauderdale from Atlanta and go back. My point? Big jets for anything other than long haul (Ocean crossings) are not worth it. The 380 is not going to have the market Airbus thought it would have.
New York to San Francisco? Please. The airline that runs the most flights between those cities is going to get the lucrative business travellers; not the airline that has a slightly cheaper fare that runs once a day, at most. Those once a day airlines are going to get the tourist business and you know what those flights are going to be like for a 380: 2 hours to board because the tourists have to figure out where aisle '34' is and where seat 'H' is. And then they have to figure out where they're going to put their trunk that should be checked. Then they'll argue with the stewardess about how this is a carry on, while their little brat is screaming because they couldn't get their French Fries from McDonald's. Then the .....
In the meantime, rich fat cat Wall street Banker Federal Welfare receiver has his own jet and just sails over to San Francisco. Then the SOB has the nerve to comment on how your suit is wrinkled and how your tired and absent minded. ....
747s have broken the sound barrier on at least two occasions. One was during certification, and a second during a in-flight screw up on China Airlines 006. (Powered descent).
Both airframes survived.
With hindsight getting the civilian market was the bigger prize.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
As I understand it, the original prototype mentioned in the parent is still in service today, as a cargo plane for UPS or FedEX or something.
Sort of cooks in its own juices, doesn't it...sure proves the point that the Boeing engineers were not only on to something, they perfected it - right out out of the gate.
let's assume i want to go to new delhi from new york
the concorde can do it in 4 hours, the 747 in 24 hours. but the concorde will cost me 10x as much: speed and fuel cost is not a linear relationship. for me, the extra money is not worth the time savings. sure, to someone it is worth it, but such a person is rich, and there's not enough of them that would make investing the infrastructure to make this possible
avoiding all other arguments, such as safety, a hypothetical concorde that made that trip would burn a lot more fuel than a 747. this is a permanent limitation, not some sort of economics of scale limitation that would make the concorde eventually profitable
besides, 747s CAN fly supersonic. but they remain subsonic because their hull strength can't handle the fatigue of flying supersonic. it wouldn't be that much of a feat to start flying supersonically around the world in modified 747s that didn't shake their occupants. the limiting factor is fuel cost, its not a linear relationship to fly faster, and that's a permanent, hard limitation on the concorde or any supersonic aircraft
there are also schemes to leave the earth's atmosphere and come back in. but then you need to transport half of your fuel, because current airplanes have the luxury of flying through half of their fuel: oxygen
so yes, the 747 really is some sort of transportation sweet spot, a zenith in human technological progress that won't be passed for a long time in speed, cost, and distance (all measurements at the same)
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I'd like to see that!
Except for the Ninnle reference, exactly how is this offtopic? Spot on, if you ask me.
a diesel locomotive requires an order of magnitude less fuel to use compared to something like a diesel truck, and that really matters, especially with fuel prices on a permanent creeping rise globally
at an eventual future higher pricepoint, fuel costs would put air travel out of the reach of the middle class, and make diesel and ICE cars indulgent luxuries. so rail definitely has an important strategic future, and any country that ignores rail is going to suffer for it in the future
of course, as you note, infrastructure investments with rail is enormous. but most of it is upfront cost. maintenance is a real cost, but not unbearable
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Just like your typical USA-Today article, long on human interest, real short on accuracy.
(1) The Boeing 377 StratoCruiser was roomier, with sleeping berths and a bar on the lower level.
(2) The 747 was not suggested by any airline president, but by the development of large high-bypass turbofan engines.
(3) The 747 was not a success for many, many years. The early models had many delays and glitches and the airlines lost tons of money on each one for many years.
(4) Putting your wife by the runway on a first-time takeoff might not be a show of affection.
Nope. Turns out it was a firetrap.
is an idea that has wings (pun intended). incremental technological improvements will get us there eventually i think. a 747 can already fly hypersonic, but your passengers will feel like they are being violently shaken inside a blender, and you would want to fly the 747 more than the 10 flights it would have in it before the fatigue broke it to pieces. but reinforcement makes a heavier aircraft, which costs more fuel, and thats why the current technology versus fuel cost sweet spot is currently subsonic. doesn't have to be in the future though
but suborbital flight has the added problem of needing to carry all of its fuel. yes, atmospheric resistance disappears, but not needing to carry oxygen around is an incredible benefit both economically and technologically. you could just launch the thing and let it coast on momentum, but all of the upfront fuel cost to get it that high and that fast is enormous, not to mention, as you noted, all of the technological challenges with reentry comfort issues, aircraft integrity issues, landing issues, etc.
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
I don't mind the 747 "cattle car" so much as the vile 737 "chicken coop". Six abreast, one aisle, and no additional overhead space. I would rather travel across the country on a Greyhound; at least there is more legroom.
Gamingmuseum.com: Give your 3D accelerator a rest.
turn it into three middle seats!
The technology exists to make a plane with more capacity and greater fuel economy than a 747, but the economic incentives to do that simply are not there. The design of the new Airbus wasn't driven by pure economics, but rather by massive subsidies from the British and French governments; it is still an open question whether huge development costs were actually worth it. Any private company would simply have ordered a 747 instead.
First off Boeing gets massive subsidies from he US govt through it's military contracts, tax breaks and other kickbacks.
Secondly which new Airbus are you talking about? Assuming you are talking about the A380, keep in mind that when the Boeing 747 first saw the light of day critics like you launched the exact same criticisms at the 747 that are now being directed at the A380. There is no reason to believe that an aircraft that offers better fuel economy, considerably more floor space, savings in crew and maintenance bills landing fees etc... on inter hub routes won't be successful. Especially since the 747 is an obsolescent aircraft.
747-400 still has slightly longer range than 777. The longest flights are still on 747s - Newark NJ -> Singapore (nonstop). Chicago - Hong Kong (nonstop), etc etc.
Incorrect. The longest regular flights today are Singapore Airlines' Newark to Singapore and Los Angeles to Singapore, both of them with A340-500s. The 747 isn't used for any ultra long-haul flights - only A340s and 777s.
Now, as far as amenities is concerned - that is entirely up to airlines. For instance, the aforementioned longest flights by Singapore Airlines only have business class seats.
This Joe Sutter guy mentioned in the referred article should be in jail for having his wife stand in the runway as a guinea pig.
I lived in a Seattle known for companies whose quality, vision and service spread their products around the country, even world: Boeing, Nordstroms. The Seattle I no longer live in is known for evil empires: MicroSoft, amazon.com, Starbucks. What I can't figure out is how the change happened or why?
I haven't thought about this too much but what if they took out some seats and charged more. would you pay?
Let's say it costs $500 for each passenger retail for some flight. Let's say there are 25 rows of 6 seats each (150 passengers). That's 75,000 of revenue.
Now, let's say you take out 5 rows, or 30 seats. That would take a 33" pitch up to something like 40". it would also reduce revenue to 60,000. To get back to the 75,000, the passengers would have to pay 625.
I'd pay it in a heart beat.
Of course, you'd have to ensure all airlines did it, or else no one would. So, let's require 40" seat pitch for all airlines.
I regularly fly business class internationally. In my experience of flying mostly airlines from Asia, there is always a business class in long haul routes. On shorter distances, they usually eliminate the first class and have only a business class.
And the service is excellent even in economy as compared to US carriers.
I'm going to respond to this with a tad more detail (since I have some).
The 747 and A380, while both are large jumbo's, are different classes of planes per international flying bodies (these classes are based on size, wheels, and other physical characteristics). The 747 is a whole class lower (a class V) while the A380 is a class (VI). What this means is that the A380 can land at far fewer airports that the 747 can (something like 300+ less). There are very few airports in the world (as far as I know of - only one airport in the USA that is specifically designed for class VI planes [Washington Dulles in the US]).
When an A380 lands at LAX, in order to accommodate it, a large portion of the taxi-way and surrounding area has to be cleared. This delays all other flights times by 10-15 minutes. Right now LAX can afford to accommodate 1-2 A380's a day, but more than that, and you have issues with all the smaller planes being delayed.
The 787 - the much delayed Boeing plane, is considerably smaller. It can land safely and be used at many more airports around the world. (And upgrading an airport to support a new class of plane, is in the millions of dollars - often as runways, terminals and other items will have to be moved and redone.)
Simply put, the A380 has a significantly smaller usage footprint (somewhere around 385 airfields worldwide can take one normally without interruptions), and as such will sell less, cause airlines are often not willing to pay for additional costs to accommodate the required upgrades to an airport.
There is always a frontier where there is an open and willing mind
Got told off for it. Innocently explained that there was no risk, since it was a simple one-gee manoeuvre. Was told politely but firmly Never To Do It Again. Probably through gritted teeth.
Eric Baird
Fuel efficiency issues will be 'easy' as well?
Boeing and Airbus will be excited to hear the news.
The counter to: 'If you belive that a problem can't be solved then you will not be able to find a solution for it.'
Is: 'If you don't understand a problem the "Solution" is easy.'
John McAfee 'It was like that time I hired that Bangkok prostitute; to do my taxes, while I fucked my accountant'
Cattle prods? Sounds good to me!
Hey, this might just put the fun & excitement back into flying!
And they'd probably be less "controversial" than Tasers.
I bet it'd make some of us slower passengers move a tad faster!
ZAPP! "Ouch! ooo, you are a gorgeous lookin' stewardess, aren't you?"
Zapp! "Ouch! ooo... shagadelic, baby!"
.
-
.
- aqk
F U
This is caused by the low 'characteristic speed'. This is a term I've coined and try to promote: the speed of an object divided by a characteristic dimension (such as the length) of said object. It's a measure for how fast it looks.
A 'characteristic speed' is a psychological measure, not a scientific one, and in fact it is not a speed at all. Its dimensions are 1/s and hence the unit is Hz.
e.g. a 75m long Galaxy C5 taking off at 75m/s has a characteristic speed of 1Hz. A 5 m long car at 25m/s has a characteristic speed of 5Hz. The latter looks five times faster, even though it's three times slower.
I'm not a coward by any name.