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The Boeing 747 Is Heading For Retirement
schwit1 writes: After 45 years of service, Boeing's 747, the world's first jumbo jet, is finally facing retirement as airlines consider more modern planes for their fleets. The article gives a brief but detailed outline of the 747's history, and why passengers and pilots still love it. From the article: "The 747 was America at its proud and uncontaminated best. 'There's no substitute for cubic inches,' American race drivers used to say and the 747 expresses that truth in the air. There is still residual rivalry with the upstart European Airbus. Some Americans, referring to untested new technologies, call it Scarebus. There's an old saying: 'If it ain't Boeing, I ain't going.' A comparison to the European Concorde is illuminating. The supersonic Anglo-French plane was an elite project created for elite passengers to travel in near space with the curvature of the Earth on one hand and a glass of first growth claret on the other. The 747 was mass-market, proletarianising the jet set. It was Coke, not grand cru and it was designed by a man named Joe. Thus, the 747's active life was about twice that of Concorde."
Typical dicenuts
Come on editors. I know this site is US centric, but do we really need the flag waving? Aside from anything else it will polarise and divert the debate from the real topic, the 747.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
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Last time I flew with jumbo jet from Amsterdam to L.A. (and back) I thought its front wheel assembly will fall off at every lift-off and landing. Brrrr.... really scary sounds... A-380 is unbeatable comfort and quietness. Haven't yet tried Dreamliner thought...
And carried about a jillion times more people and cargo.
(In fact, it was *designed* as a cargo plane.)
"I don't know, therefore Aliens" Wafflebox1
As a frequent flyer, I'd much rather fly on an Airbus or a 777 than a 747. The 747 is noisy, it vibrates, and it's just generally unrefined. Sure it was an impressive plane several decades ago, when the competition was trijets like the DC10, but the world has moved on. In a way I'll still be kinda sad to see an icon of 20th century aviation go. It's also a far more elegant-looking on the outside than the A380. The A380 is pretty ugly front-on, but the 747 has nice lines.
'There's no substitute for cubic inches,' American race drivers used to say and the 747 expresses that truth in the air.
Not only is there a comma missing from that sentence, but it's there's no replacement for displacement. You ignoranus.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
That "summary" is just a rambling pile of words.
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The current trend in the airline sector seems to be away from the very large aircraft. The A380 is tanking in sales terms (only Emirates has really plunged into that market) and there's talk that Airbus might look to drop the line sooner rather than later. The 747-800 is also finding things slow going. The hot sellers right now in the wide-bodied aircraft stakes seem to be the 777, 787 and A350.
The problem with those ultra-large aircraft is that they can be thirsty in terms of fuel, crew-intensive and, except on a small number of really "thick" routes, quite hard to fill. With the airline business mostly operating on quite thin margins, efficiency matters and the smaller, single-deck planes are looking better in that regard right now.
Plus the A380 requires specialised ground infrastructure at airports for efficient operation, which translates into limited operational flexibility and/or higher landing charges. Also its Code-F designation means that in theory, it requires runway/taxiway widths and separations etc to be built to higher standards (though many airports are using derogations for this right now).
The ultra-large aircraft may yet make a comeback, of course, but if they do, it's more likely to be a currently under-developed market where new very "thick" routes spring up (eg. domestic connections between Chinese cities).
Pepper your article with "old sayings" you don't actually remember or understand.
No. The phrase is "there's no replacement for displacement," and they still say it. Displacement is the measure of the volume of the cylinders that's "displaced" by the movement of the pistons (cylinder area * piston travel distance), and so measures how much fuel/air mix the engine holds (and so relates to power). Because it's a measure of volume, it's MEASURED in cubic inches (or frequently cubic centimeters, even in the US). But it's referring to the interior of the engine, not the interior space of the vehicle. You have no idea what the phrase means. Please stop using it.
Citation needed. I do not believe anyone has ever said this.
There's a typo in the summary, you missed out "USA, we're number one! USA we're number one! USA! USA! USA!"
according to my dad the only reason the Concorde failed is because Boeing lobbied to the government to ban it. With its routes banned it couldn't make money.
Why didn't Lockheed made Galaxy C-5 into a passenger jet :p ? It would had been even greater success.
... my first flight on a 747. It was 1973, on a nonstop flight from JFK to San Diego, as I jetted off to college. What a magnificent airplane! Definitely a room rather than a tube!
It depends which model of the 747 you're on. There's a big difference in terms of noise and vibration between a 747-400 and a 747-800. They may look very similar from outside, but there are massive differences in engines, as well as substantial refinements to the airframe on the later models.
In a way I'll still be kinda sad to see an icon of 20th century aviation go. It's also a far more elegant-looking on the outside than the A380. The A380 is pretty ugly front-on, but the 747 has nice lines.
It'll still be around for a while yet, as quite a few are operated by cargo lines as cargo jets. Watching one of those take off is pretty cool though: they rotate about halfway down the runway then stays in that position almost to the end before it gets enough lift to start gaining altitude. Looks like it's doing a wheelie down the runway. And funny you should bring up the A-380. A coworker of mine has promotional material from Boeing back from the 70s/80s where they were trying to push a fully double-decked 747. That design really is hideous no matter who makes it.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
(In fact, it was *designed* as a cargo plane.)
Imagine if you could let everybody take their seats out of the plane, buckle their belts, and then complete cabin floor with seats and passengers in them is towed and loaded into a cargo plane in one single move. That would be efficiency at its best!
That concord has failed for two reasons: american protectionism and petrol crisis.
I have no idea why the comparison between the Concorde and the 747 was even made in the first place. The 2 jets were made for entirely different purposes.
The Airbus A380 would be a better comparison, since it has the same intended purpose as the 747 (massive amount of seating and cargo space for cheap flights)
Also, Boeing was working on it's own version of a luxury supersonic competitor to the Concord (the Boeing 2707 SST), but the project ended up being cancelled before it was ever mass produced (mostly due to to all the sonic-boom issues related to flying over land)
Comparing the 747 to the Concorde is like comparing a double-decker bus to a stretch-ferrari limousine
Can't quite retire the 747. Not at least until the 787 and 777-X get their ETOPS 330 ratings. The most efficient routes over the South Pacific can only be flown by three or four engine jets for the time being.
That's a completely stupid comparison to the concorde.
They were both bets on how the technology was going. At the time of intitial development, engines were not efficient. People didn't know how to make better compressors, and high bypass turbofans were unproven technology.
Boeing went with a large plane and high bypass turbofans.
Concorde went with ram compression, and more journeys per day. Bear in mind that by the standard of the day the Concorde was efficient.
In terms of commercial potential, Boeing called it right, though it wasn't an obvious bet at the time and the 747 nearly bankrupted the company. Of course it didn't help the concorde that the US decided to block it in the name of protectionism. Ultimately though sub sonic, high bypass turbofans were to be more efficient either way.
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Look, I'm an American but the summary is a ludicrous troll.
Some Americans, referring to untested new technologies, call it Scarebus.
Maybe some people working for Boeing. I've never once heard anyone use that term in my life.
There is still residual rivalry with the upstart European Airbus.
"Residual rivalry"? Uhh, no. Try huge and ongoing rivalry between the two biggest players in the industry. This is Coke v Pepsi. Ali v Fraser. Ford v GM. The notion that the rivalry isn't still alive and well is simply absurd.
"Upstart"? A company with revenue of 60 Billion Euros is hardly an upstart. For comparison Boeing has revenues of about $90 Billion. It may have been an upstart many decades ago but upstart isn't a description that has fit for a very long time.
A comparison to the European Concorde is illuminating.
No it really isn't. It would be hard for it to be less illuminating. The Concorde was an experiment that didn't work out as well as hoped and likely was a bit ahead of its time. Had it worked out better we might very well have seen more supersonic aircraft. It was truly a first of its kind. The 747 was in many ways far more conservative and conventional - just a bigger and incrementally improved version of stuff we mostly already knew how to do. We'd already made aircraft that large (see the B52 which is about the same size and came 15 years earlier) and while the 747 was impressive it wasn't unprecedented. Ask anyone if they'd rather fly on the Concorde or a 747 and I'm pretty sure you wouldn't find many takers for the 747.
The whole article reeks of some supposed American superiority, and suggestions that European technology is inferior or unsafe. What a joke. Have we forgotten about the Dreamliner fiasco already, to name one?
The version of the story I was told was that at the time it was on the drawing table, supersonic transport was the future for passenger travel for everyone. But cargo was not expected to go that way and Boeing felt they needed to split their offering into an efficient giant cargo aircraft and a supersonic transport for people. They designed the cargo transport to have an elevated cockpit so it could have maximum internal space (which became the 747's top deck), and the supersonic transport was ultimately canned. The 747 ended up just as popular for passenger transport as a happy coincidence.
It's not about Europe's elite vs American pluralism. Go over to Europe and see just how elite their airlines are... the US is the one with classes. Going out on a limb, the 747's ability to isolate the classes and provide a swanky bar for those of distinction probably had something to do with it's success. The US pulled the plug on supersonic transport before it ever had a chance to prove itself or not (look up the supersonic airport that is half built in the Everglades, it's still there!).
However, Boeing went round the world complaining about the noise it made. Funny that
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Some thoughts regarding the 747:
* indeed, a biggie. It needed new infrastructure, as does the A380 now
* contender against the C-5 Galaxy for a military transport, against which it lost
* developed with money from the military, but nooo, never got subsidies (as is always held against Airbus)
* ultimately sank its first customer, Pan Am, as they never really recovered from the costs of introducing that airplane
I did fly it between Europe and the East Coast, early 90ies - not the kind of flight you want to have in Economy Class, when you're 1.90m tall.
Now, I usually only see cargo versions, heavily used by the local cargo airline (happens to be launch customer for the last few -F versions). They do seem to be quite happy with it, as they have been using successive versions exclusively for quite a while. The only exception I'm aware of were a few tests with an AN-124, the logistics side not being up to their standards.
Just yesterday, I showed videos of Nasa's Shuttle carrier, with Shuttle and F-18 escorts to my 5-year old son, who was quite impressed that this was for real.
Why didn't Lockheed made Galaxy C-5 into a passenger jet :p ? It would had been even greater success.
They tried.
But the C5 is a fuel hog. I don't think it can even cross the Atlantic without refueling.
So no one bought it.
Not to mention the Concorde augured into a French bed and breakfast, turning everyone inside into well done human hamburger.
As if no 747s have ever crashed. Oh wait 3748 people have died on 747s since they entered service.
You really want to go on making pointless comparisons between completely different planes?
Growing up I would go on an occasional flight with my parents, but because they were always short-haul local flights they were on a 737 or DC10 or similar. The 747 was always that huge plane I saw at the airport with that iconic top deck and I always wanted to fly in one.
Later I did finally get the opportunity to fly in a 747, and you might say that cattle-class is cattle class no matter what airplane you're flying in, but I always enjoyed flying in a 747 more than other aircraft, probably just for the nostalgia factor.
I do understand why the plane is going into retirement. Airlines don't want them anymore, they are too heavy and use more fuel than more modern planes and the large passenger capacity means that the airline has to fill more seats to make a profit on a flight, hence the reason that the slightly smaller 777 is more popular with airlines for long haul nowadays, and the big plane sales are going to the more modern airbus A380 and 787s now.
That said, I will always have a bit of a place in my heart for the 747 and will miss having the opportunity to fly in them.
Windows is a bonfire, Linux is the sun. Linux only looks smaller if you lack perspective.
TFA seems to be talking about a possible end of production. After that, it'll take 25 years for first-rate airlines to write them off, and some operators may run them longer still.
So I'd say we're decades away from retirement, but I guess that's par for the course for this article. What a load of drivel.
Yeah, ticket prices were way beyond what most people could afford. But the Concorde was viewed by a lot of people as being the first of many passenger jets that would be supersonic. In fact if you've ever seen a FedEx, UPS, or DHL 747 unloading, you can see that one of the design parameters for that jet was to carry freight - which some designers thought would be the main use of subsonic jets in the near future.
Damn_registrars has no butt-hole. Damn_registrars has no use for a butt-hole.
-At the time of the 747's creation AIRBUS was an upstart in the industry.
That was almost half a century ago. Referring to Airbus as an upstart at this point in time is just dumb. Calling it a "residual rivalry" is equally dumb since the companies are the two biggest and most intense rivals in the industry. It's almost a zero sum game between the two when it comes to getting sales since there are no other meaningful players in the large jet market at this time.
-Also at that time, there was debate within the industry as to which vehicle was the way forward: faster or larger.
And larger was the safe bet. We had built jets roughly the size of the 747 15 years before it hit the market. (see the B52 which was built in the early 1950s). The 747 was basically an incremental improvement on already proven technology. The Concorde was a much more risky bet on technology that had never been used in civil aviation.
The Concorde was an experiment really and it used technology that worked but probably wasn't sufficiently developed at the time. Had the engines been more efficient and able to supercruise the Concorde may have made more economic sense and had follow on aircraft. It served for nearly 30 years anyway so if it failed it didn't fail badly.
That's 2/3 of 1% of 1% of 1% of total passengers. (approx 5,700,000,000 according to the article).
Way to miss the point. Other than the single crash of Air France Flight 4590 at the end of its service life the Concorde had zero passenger deaths. That's almost 3 decades without a single fatality. Aviation is a safe way to travel, news at 11... Got any other pointless comparisons to make?
The upstairs cabin is very quiet, and thus reserved for business or first class :). Unfortunately my only experience up there was somewhat marred by flying through a typhoon, so it was a tad bumpy! Almost found out what that baggie in the seat pocket is for.
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But the 707 had no sonic booms !
The 747 is still a good plane for long trips (US to Asia).
But some of the old ones (I'm looking at you United) are looking long in the tooth.
A newer one or one that has had the refurb is comfortable, though I prefer a 777.
(Disclosure -a former Boeing employee)
747 has nice lines.
Dude...you need better porn.
The 747-400, that has been flying for world airlines since around 1989, is being retired.. The new 747-800, only on the market, in the last couple of years is not being retired... Wish these writers could get their information straight....
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grand parent claims to be a frequent flyer, hasn't flown on any modern 747 variants....
million mile club'er here, definitely some good 747s out there! still love the 777 and definitely the 787, but a nice 747 is fine too :)
Just a guy from a family that almost all members used to be pilots.... any day or night I will chose Boeing over Airbus why, well in Boeing pilot actually have to say the last world and they have to be from my point of view better pilots, most of the time Airbus is piloted using a buttons... good luck with that ideology :) As for the comfort, if you are flying on a economy who cares you are cattle anyway...
'There's no substitute for cubic inches,' American race drivers used to say and the 747 expresses that truth in the air.
What?
I mean... what?
systemd is Roko's Basilisk.
The early 707s were SCREAMERS. They had a high-pitched whine that made you hold your ears when they flew over. And that was just landings, I can't even imagine take-offs. As a kid, I lived in a place called Rosedale, just a few miles from JFK airport in Queens NYC.
The Concorde however, was a lower rumble. On landing, they weren't terribly noisy, although you heard them further out and the sound was so distinctive you knew it was coming at least 5 minutes ahead of it being visible. And what a sight! They came in at a high angle of attack, very nose-high, and with the beak of the plane drooped, and the landing gear extended, the plane looked like some kind of bird of prey about to swoop down and grab a mouse off a field.
It does need to be noted that Concorde flew mostly while turbofans were the norm, so most planes were quieter than it. The 707 flew when most other planes were still prop-driven, and it was only in the first few years of Concorde operation that 707s still flew (they were being phased out); but even by that time, they had made some changes to the engines to make the 707s less screechy.
That said, every plane had a distinctive engine sound, and if you lived in my area long enough, you could learn to identify which plane was flying over you simply from the sound. It got to the point where I never even had to look up, and I could name every aircraft coming over the house.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
The correct form of the saying is "There's no replacement for displacement" (which, as you might notice, rhymes); I have no idea how on earth TFA got THAT so mangled.
The upstairs cabin is very quiet, and thus reserved for business or first class :). Unfortunately my only experience up there was somewhat marred by flying through a typhoon, so it was a tad bumpy! Almost found out what that baggie in the seat pocket is for.
At the time, during the eighties you had business class in the forward part of the 747 and then top class on the upper deck. I had the privilege of flying only once in top class on an intercontinental flight and it was beautiful. You were treated like royalty. The only thing that might approach that kind of service is first class on certain A380s.
Later I did finally get the opportunity to fly in a 747, and you might say that cattle-class is cattle class no matter what airplane you're flying in, but I always enjoyed flying in a 747 more than other aircraft, probably just for the nostalgia factor.
Definitely nostalgia. I've flown in 747s and other than the fact that they are impressively large, they are no more pleasant to fly in that any other large plane I've been in, particularly if you are in the middle seat in the 5 seat row. I've flown one from Detroit to Tokyo a few times in a 747 and very much wish I'd sprung for the ticket upgrade. I say this as someone who genuinely loves airplanes too. I can sit at the end of a runway and I turn back into a 7 year old watching the planes take off and land. But honestly there is nothing special about the 747 by today's standards.
That said, I will always have a bit of a place in my heart for the 747 and will miss having the opportunity to fly in them.
They aren't going away for a while yet. I would be very surprised if some weren't still in service for passenger flights 10-15 years from now. Eventually we'll go to something else but it won't be tomorrow.
No, you need to wise up to what beauty is, whether in aircraft, boats, thoughts, human features, or whatever.
For starters, while they are (until recently) of the same type, freight-specific 747's are (usually) sold that way from the factory; many of those freighter features are not present on the passenger versions. In any case, Boeing didn't make the 747 freight-friendly because they thought they wouldn't sell many passenger versions; they made it freight-friendly because they correctly divined that such a big aircraft would be useful for both passenger and freight service, so it would be folly to not make it easy to sell freight-specific versions if they were already making a big jet.
While many aircraft makers thought supersonic jets would become more common, I don't believe any of them thought they would largely replace sub-sonic jets for passenger service; there's no getting around the fuel penalty of high-speed jets.
Its a proven airframe, they've updated the avionics and engines regularly over the years, its got practically every bug worked out of the system. I have a hard time understanding why they would plan on retiring it unless they've got something bigger and better in the pipeline. Air travel is only going up, bigger and more efficient aircraft seem the way to go to limit airport congestion while handling increased passenger counts, and the Airbus A380 is the only other competitor in this market.
Well, Sullenberger did seem to manage with his A320, though. In the end, it comes down to the pilot knowing the plane's behaviour and capabilities.
The 747-8 (freighter version) will still be around until Boeing or Airbus make cargo versions of their popular freighter aircraft (777F/A330F) that hinge at the nose or tail to allow odd shaped cargo (cars, construction equipment, building materials) to be loaded. It is a very limited market, but it is really the only thing the keeps the 747 alive.
As a passenger, only seat configuration (in economy, sadly) matters to me when it comes to aircraft type (love the 767s 2-3-2 config, the A330/340's 2-4-2 is a close second). After that, everything is up to the airline.
Of massive combination of engineering and power to launch up to 700 people down runway and takeoff.
After 100s of flights still love takeoff
"The SR-71 was a flying, leaking fuel tank that couldn't even take off on a full tank"
Please get your facts straight; it was designed that way. Due to the high temperature demands on its airframe and thermal requirements.
Before spurting out anything like that, grab some reference.Please.
So literally, its not a bug, its a feature!
While the A380 is a more modern and fuel-efficient aircraft vs. the 747, it's been a bit of a money-pit for Airbus. The demand for such large planes isn't nearly as high as projected, with only a few carriers (namely the long-haul Middle-Eastern ones) really having much use for more than a handful of the things.
Most carriers have shifted to the 777, 787, and the Airbus equivalents, as passengers prefer to avoid too-many connections, and the smaller planes let them service more routes, which reduced the need to travel through major "gateway" airports such as JFK or LHR to go between foreign locales. In addition, connections often mean passengers have to go out of the way, which costs both airlines and passengers money. One flight is usually cheaper (for the airline, anyways) than two.
Boeing is still making new 747s, still actively delivering them. They still have orders for future planes. Korean Air just last month announced they had placed an order for ten more of them. How the heck does that equate to "heading for retirement"?
Gosh, it felt like MURICA! MURICA! MURICA! Coke vs claret?? Whatever, there is only so much bullshit one can take in a day.
The fact is, if Airbus had not been put together by Europeans, Boeing would still be milking the 747 for all it is worth... Competition has been good for the two companies, I dare say.
And another thing: ''Airbus'' is (and sounds) a lot more democratic and proletarian. After all, Boeing has not been able to put something together against the mighty A380.
Yup, the biggest, most proletarian jet out there is made by... Airbus. Not Boeing. How the mighty have fallen.
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My understanding is that there are 3 generations of the 747 with the most recent being the 747-800. It sounds like more 747s are being ordered than the 787.
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At least back to the Wright brothers 1909 flyer right?
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Upstairs was economy class on SAA. Like a poor man's business class.
It looked awesome everytime I saw a 747. It never got old, over the decades.
That's like comparing apples with pigs.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Time-Flight
Eat that Boeing!
Lockheed did make the L-1011, a very good widebody but third into the market (thanks in large part to bumbling by Rolls Royce)..
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No. Not at all.
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Boeing employees are notoriously assholes(which speaks volumes about their company culture).
The bribes/trade espionage in partnership with the NSA is just one more example that comes to mind of Boeing operating under the same lawlessness as Blackwater/Xe/Academi.
The article talks about the "round dials", as if the 747's are all steam gauges. The 747-400 has a glass cockpit, and they even talk about the 747-400 simulator. The 747-8 is a modern jet, built about the same time as the 787.
Pilots say "scarebus" sometimes, and there is a rivalry between Ford and GM, like Boeing and Airbus.
The 787 may seem more economical, being a twin, vs the 4 engines, but it is complicated. See: http://flyingandtechnology.blo...
More people fit on the 747 than on a 787, so it takes fewer trips to haul the same number of people. The 747 makes a better cargo aircraft for large items. It is complicated. They will continue to fly for the rest of my lifetime I am sure.
Quite a good doco on the 747:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI_xl2cZaw0
The 747 was designed by one guy! That is truly amazing.
I like noisy planes. Put me right next to the engine please. It drowns out all of other non-constant noises - like children screaming and people talking too loud.
X
The 747s are going to be retired? How sad. :-( Now what are they going to fly the Space Shuttles on when they need to... oh... that's right... Nevermind! *in Emily Latella voice*
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A coworker of mine has promotional material from Boeing back from the 70s/80s where they were trying to push a fully double-decked 747. That design really is hideous no matter who makes it.
Concur. However, the never made MD-12 looks pretty nice in concept art and it would also have been a double decker. One of the lessons learned from the 747 was of course that visibility from a cockpit on the upper deck is horrible and just like it would've been on the MD-12, Airbus put the cockpit lower to solve that. But the MD-12 still looks nicer IMO.
they were all about luxury -- even economy passengers would have lots of space, there would be lounge areas, the upstairs would be an open bar area, and so on. saying that it was targetted to being a cattle car is, I think, not quite the case. Yes, it was converted into being one, and Concorde could not be...
> A comparison to the European Concorde is illuminating. The supersonic Anglo-French plane was an elite project created for elite passengers
Massive BS... The Concorde actually flew a few weeks AFTER its soviet rival, the Tupolev Tu-144 supersonic transport (SST) jetliner. Most definitely, being a communist (forced egalitarian) regime's concoction, the Tu-144 plane wasn't a project "created for elite passengers".
It's just few americans of the 1970s felt the need to ever leave CONUS, thus the many hours a 707 or 747 required to cross the Atlantic or Pacific oceans didn't matter much to them. (Most americans still haven't ever been abroad according to 2013 stats...) Meanwhile the USSR's landmass was twice as wide as CONUS, with a lot of very inhospitable places called Siberia in it, hence the perceived need for a communist SST. Otherwise, Western Europe had a lot of business and political connections with the USA, which made an SST link to NY and W. DC. desirable, prompting Britain and France to create the Concorde.
Futhermore, the first Airbus product, the A-300 was a rather large twinjet and had conventional hydro-mechanical contols. It wasn't a midget even compared to the B-747. (I think only Iran has a few A300s still flying.) The later fly-by-wire controlled A320 plane, which made Airbus Corp. world famous, is actually much smaller. But nowadays the A-380 Superjumbo dwarfs even the 747. Actually the current A380 variant has a disproportionately large wing, because Airbus has long planned to built a successor of it with a lenghtened and beefier fuselage, able to pack over 1000 pax in an all-economy layout and they wanted to avoid a wing re-design. If ever built, it will look like a Zeppelin with wings.
It was very disjointed and didn't make much sense.
Was the submitter smoking weed?