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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."
It used to be fun to fly, not any more.
Is this thing on? Check. Check.
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?
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.
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.
If the A380 is a modernised 747 'knockoff', then the Boeing 787 is a modernised Airbus A300 'knockoff'. Doesn't detract from the fact that either plane is simply fantastic.
Consumers have voted with their dollars, and apparently they prefer traveling in "cattle class" to traveling on the Concorde. Who are we to criticize the airline industry for giving the customer what they want?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
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
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.
It was a 1960's hour. You have to adjust for inflation and ADD in 2008, that's over a month in 2008 time.
Do you Gentoo!?
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. I prefer the 777 because they have more modern amenities in coach like seatback entertainment systems instead of a single giant screen for the whole cabin like its 1981 or something. *SOME* airlines (NOT UNITED) have actually upgraded their economy class on the widebodies in the past 20 years.
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
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.
With hindsight getting the civilian market was the bigger prize.
sed -e 's/Chuck Norris/Rajnikant/g' joke > fact
Joe Sutter has written a awesome book on the 747. It really goes into how the plane was developed. It was kind of the black sheep at Boeing - everyone was focusing on the SST - the big brother of the Concorde.
They spent a lot of time looking at the behavior of the plane well before manufacturing. These engineers have passed from the scene, and given how much both Boeing and Airbus have screwed the pooch with the A380 and 787, the engineers after them have not yet lived up to their mentors.
The 747 was not the first double deck plane, there were several multiple deck aircraft before it - the Boeing 377 being an excellent example.
And you really are doing many many engineers a great disservice...
Both of these planes are capable of much greater speeds, the limiting factor..... the sound barrier...and to limit air frame fatigue.
That's certainly true. Citations are not certified for mach speeds but test pilots routinely take them right beyond the barrier, as an experimental flight, immediately before being certified. Remember, each plane is tested before delivery by a test pilot. This is true of all planes. In an accident it is pretty easy to exceed their Vmax speed, which is near the barrier, and they want to know for sure the plane will hold together before they place it in the hands of less experienced pilots.
Certification speed should not be confused with what an airframe is capable of.
Maybe we shouldn't consider the airline at fault for not changing seat sizes rather than mainstream america (or UK, or Canada, or Australia) for changing ass sizes.
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.
AA, UA, NWA, USAir, Delta, Southwest - they all suck as far as economy class treatment goes. Shitty seats, dirty cabins, nickel-and-diming you for a bag of chips or box of shitty food. All of the major carriers are pretty bad. The smaller carriers do a slightly better job.
Nope. Turns out it was a firetrap.
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.
No it isn't, not remotely.
The airframe is superficially similar but is probably made of advanced composites. It's also aerodynamically more efficient.
The engines are now high bypass turbofans with increased efficiency and reliability and reduced noise.
The avionics are unrecognisable compared with 40 years ago. Flight controls are electronic. The cockpit is a few CRTs instead of hundreds of mechanical dials. Navigation systems include GPS. The plane can now be flown by two people instead of three. Actually, technically, the aeroplane can be flown by the onboard computers. It doesn't need humans at all.
In the cabin, the seats are.... well, the seats are the same - possibly worse, but even in cattle class, every seat has its own entertainment centre with on demand video and computer games.
So modern airliners are all identical metal tubes with wings stuck on and engines stuck to the wings in turn, but when you think about it, that description fits the Douglas DC3 from the 1930's. Appearances are only skin deep.
All I want is a secure system where it's easy to do anything I want. Is that too much to ask ~~ Randall Munroe
If you're so confident that other like minded people would pay it in a heart beat, then why would you have to ensure that all airlines did it?