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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."
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
FYI,
Standard cruise on a 747 is .85 Mach (567MPH) and a 777 is .84 Mach (560MPH).
Both of these planes are capable of much greater speeds, the limiting factor..... the sound barrier. They are not designed for the shock wave build up such speeds will generate.
If you were watching the NatGeo special on Air Force One, you'd of saw the interview with the Air Cap F-16 pilot who had to radio AF1 to actually slow down so he could limit his fuel burn. AF1 was cruising at .90 Mach at the time.
Don't think for a second these lumbering giants can't get up and move... Those cruise speeds are chosen for maximum efficiency and to limit air frame fatigue.
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
...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.
And how would this be different from any other industry today?
Uhm, what? Lets have a look at the 'entirely new' aircraft to have been launched in the past 20 years:
1. Airbus A330. Fantastic success, sold over 1,000 airframes and continues to sell well.
2. Boeing 777. Fantastic success, sold over 1,000 airframes and continues to sell well.
3. Airbus A380. Debatable, yet to be seen.
4. Boeing 787. Fantastic success, yet to fly, sold over 900 airframes to date.
5. Airbus A350XWB. Fantastic success, still 4 years to EIS, sold over 450 airframes to date.
Clean sheet designs are still massively profitable.
Given the current distress of the airline industry, I don't think the hyper cost cutting that happened after dereg is working, and it won't be too long before airlines realize that they will have to offer a good experience to get customers, as they used to.
Making customers happy is long term good business, and works fine in a deregulated market. The companies have to realize this on their own, though.
Actually, the A380 is selling fairly poorly. Because of the production problems their recovery number is probably up at around 700 frames. They are nowhere close to that number now. Worse, most of their orders are from Emirates, and with the collapse of the middle eastern economies (on average 40 percent down so far) these orders are not likely to be completely fulfilled.
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.
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.
But the prices were high enough that many people just didn't fly.
Precisely. By deregulating the airline industry, we made it possible for many more people to afford air travel.
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
Have you ever seen a C5 take off? It looks incomprehensibly slow as it lifts off the ground. I still watch large commercial and military jets with a sense of awe at what we achieved. Granted, it costs us a few hundred people every decade or two as one crashes...
Help fight poverty: Punch a poor person.
I think they could change this if they took a different approach to those on vacation - specifically creating routes for vacationers and everything they expect. Get them started on their vacation early by providing them with large seats, good food, good movies. For the commuter or typical traveler they could offer a more traditional approach.
But imagine you want to fly to Japan from NYC. That's quite a long flight. Why not offer people on holiday the option to pamper themselves while flying? Give them a more leisurely route, better service, and better seating. Think a "cruise line" in the air. I bet people like myself would opt for it over the "sardine can to Asia" and be willing to spend the money on it. Sure I can fly first class now, but this whole everyone is the same approach is the past, we need more niche airlines that cater to specifics. I feel like a piece of cattle when flying, like somehow I'm not the consumer anymore and I'm just at the whim of the airline/FAA/TSA/various global agencies. It's become a "privilege".
BTW, I love to fly. So much I decided to learn how to fly and get my own private pilot's license. But I hate flying the airlines. It's not the same. One is a chore, the other is an experience everyone should try at least once.
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.
It depends.
A 747 can't cruise on 2 engines - it needs at least 3 (depending on which two are left it probably could hobble back to a controlled landing after quickly dumping fuel - more of a powered glide than flight). So, a double engine failure on a 747 isn't really much better than a double engine failure on a 777.
Now, what was an issue prior to ETOPS was how long the jet could run on one engine. Prior to ETOPS a 777 could only reliably run on one engine for a short time - plenty to land if you were near an airport, but it wasn't designed to cruise for an hour or two. A 747 could run on three engines for a long time.
The issue is that jet engines become less reliable at their max rated speed. At cruise those engines might be running at 90-94% N1. If you lose an engine, even at the reduced cruising speed that remaining engine might be running closer to 100%. And at the reduced speed it takes longer to get to an airport. With three engines losing 25% of thrust isn't as big a hit on the remaining engines as losing 50% of thrust is.
However, being that a 747 still needs 3 engines to stay aloft I'm not sure that it becomes any safer than a 777 on an engine-out scenario. If anything I'd say that the 3 remaining engines are 3X as likely to fail as the 1 engine on the 777 - all things being equal.
In any case, those big planes are just way too heavy to control with engine power. On a glide their decent rates are very high so pulling off a landing without engines is a heroic matter indeed. Pulling it off in water is near-miraculous.
You are right, but only because the French and the Brit Govs wrote off the development costs.
"Concorde flew regular transatlantic flights from London Heathrow (British Airways) and Paris Charles de Gaulle (Air France) to New York JFK and Washington Dulles, profitably flying these routes at record speeds, in less than half the time of other airliners."
However:
"With only 20 aircraft ultimately built, the costly development phase represented a substantial economic loss. Additionally, Air France and British Airways were subsidised by their governments to buy the aircraft.
Wikipedia, of course, so it must be true.
But they *do*. It's called first class! I know people who *do* pamper themselves when flying to their vacations, and it's a wonderful way to fly - but it's not for everyone, or indeed even a large portion of the traveling public.
I think you're suggesting that the cost of first class be lowered - and perhaps it can, I'm certainly not privy to the finances of major airlines. I would like to point out, though, that most people I know only consider spending good money on *the vacation*, and not the means of getting there. I don't know about you guys in the US, but up here in Canada we have "vacation airlines" that service only popular vacation routes, and completely redefine "cattle class" (in the bad way). Consumers are clearly more about cheap than comfort, and unfortunately the airlines are giving them precisely what they want.
To add to your comments about the C5 -- it can actually partially retract the landing gear on the ground squat down to truckload height, as well as drop a ramp for drive-on loading.
details here.
Though they no longer have this capability, when they were first built they could caster the mainwheels up to 18 degrees for crosswind capability: the aircraft could take off at an 18 degree angle to the runway. That must've looked incredible. Castering mains was a big fad in the 1940's and many commercial aircraft had it, but the complexity and uncertain ground-handling characteristics (they tended to break loose when taxiing) meant that the C5 was the last major airframe to have them, and even it lost them when upgrading to the new (now! with less cracks!) wings used on the -B model.
Nostalgia's not what it used to be.
I've used Greyhound. Took me 8 minutes to walk from my house to the Greyhound terminal. Try that with flying.
Plus, there's more legroom, and the "crammed into a bus with a bunch of ex-cons and alcoholics" is not nearly as bad as it sounds, especially when retrieving your checked baggage doesn't take an hour.
Did I mention that I didn't have to take off my shoes to get on the bus?
Plus, a six-hour, 300-mile Greyhound trip to the nearest big city (Atlanta) doesn't seem that slow when you consider:
Bus: 8-minute walk, show up 30 minutes early, 6-hour ride, and 5 minutes to get my luggage. Total time: 6:43
Flying: 30-minute drive to show up 2 hours early for a 1-hour flight, 20 minutes to get off the plane, 1 hour for luggage claim, and 30 minutes to get into the city. Total time: 5:20
So I'd be saving 1:23 by flying. No thanks.