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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."
A lot of the loss of fun has to do with deregulation. When the airlines all have to compete on price they're going to squeeze things as much as they can get away with. For most people air travel is expensive enough that they'll put up with it to get the cheapest possible prices.
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.
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.
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!?
Try finding a 1960s aircraft that is rated to fly for 208 minutes, or nearly 3 and a half hours, on one single engine. Thats how far the technology has come, its extremely reliable.
Well, there was this one:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spirit_of_st_louis
It managed more than 33 hours, on a single engine, in 1927.
Now get off my cloud.
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.
How about the result of consumers winning out? I think people forget just how expensive air travel used to be - no wonder you were treated like a king. Free food, free drinks (some airlines even had free alcohol)...
The fact of the matter is that airline travel is a *lot* cheaper and more accessible to the average person than it used to be. This is a good thing. It also necessitates us changing our expectation from "floating sky-palace" to "flying Greyhound bus", which is a more appropriate modern analogy.
If you want the service of yonder years, you can still get it. In fact, you can still get it at approximately the same prices *you used to pay*.
I for one welcome the democratization of long-distance travel.
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 fly long distance (London->Beijing, London->Dallas, about ten hours for either trip) quite frequently, and usually go British Airways. The BA long-haul planes are usually 777s, and carry four classes:
Food and alcohol is free in all classes, and in fact these days, even in economy the food is pretty good. Snacks, drinks etc can be had for the asking; they encourage you to go to the galley rather than ring for a steward. Personal TVs all round, laptop power everywhere but economy. What's best, the staff have always been uniformly friendly and polite to me --- although it helps that I've flown enough to know how everything works and so know how to behave so I don't make their lives harder.
BTW, if you're ever travelling long haul, go visit seatguru.com. It'll tell you everything you ever need to know about where the best seats are. (On these 777s, you want the front row premium economy seats. Extra legroom and storage and you can get out without climbing over your neighbour! Pity that these days they send me out economy class...)