Slashdot Mirror
Convert a Boeing 727 Into a Home
Numeric writes "Wired is reporting a story of a man who has converted a Boeing 727 into a home. The conversion project contains journal entries as well as some photos of his new home. Strangely, this will not be the first person who has moved into a converted airplane. Another company, Max Power Aerospace,
has three Boeing 727s ready to be converted into two- or
three-bedroom homes. The houses will sell for $290,000 and will include two bathrooms, a small kitchen and a large living area in the middle. So is that a starter home or what?"
Personally I'd _want_ the plane to act as a big weathervane, and you'd better believe I'd keep the cockpit totally untouched- not even display screens. Well, maybe sit a CRT in front of the window and it'd be my desk :) *typing to slashdot as the huge jet slowly swoops around to a northeasterly heading* hey, I'd put it on a mountaintop, especially to get good winds :) and leave all the wings and stuff intact. It'd be a giant live-in artwork :) actually, a Lear would do as well. At the other extreme, imagine years from now when the 747s are all being decommissioned? ;) however, there are some _damn_ good reasons for building an underground house, and it doesn't have to withstand a nuclear hit for it to still be a good idea. Heating costs are incredibly cheap even in the harshest winter as the ambient temperature is a bit below 60, _always_. Same with summer- heat? What heat? And there's another thing- nothing gets through the earth. Not RF, not sound, nothing. So you run a wire if you want to use your TV- but if you want the total opposite of ambient noise, this is it- an underground house is so silent it can be disturbing, takes some getting used to. Think hobbit-hole for some of the positive aspects- also, there are some unusual building techniques that could be used in this situation. For more information on underground houses check out TAB book #1172 :) :)
The other point, brought up by a slashdot poster, about the missile silos, is very interesting. One wonders if there are any undeveloped silos around since that company seems hellbent on turning them into tatty redwood luxury homes
Thanks, Slashdot, this article kicks arse!
I'd worry about the day my 9-year-old kid hotwires it in the middle of the night, and the family and I wake up in Tokyo!
My Freakin Blog
I know this house in an airplane idea isn't anything new, but it is still is exciting. With a little bit of innovation here there could be some truly magnificent uses of this kind of living space. Take the cockpit for example. Imagine having projection screens where the windows used to be, and high quality flight simulator controls where the real ones used to be. There you go, an awesome flight simulator environment, right in your own house. Also, don't discount the number of hamsters that could fit in those small storage closets where they keep the airplane food. I can see it now, a HamsterHavoc style hamster-in-a-ball rolling around an airplane. The hamster, being unsophisticated, thinks it is on a real airplane, so starts bouncing around, hoping to use its extreme weight to make the plane experience turbulence. Man i wish i lived in a giant mouse inflated into a house. The house-is-mouse. Err.. i'll stop now before i get severely off topic.
Hamsters are at least as feathery as penguins. HamLix
Those bunker houses look pretty cool, but you'd want to get an elevator for decent access without going up and down 400 stairs every day.
BTW, a fully decked out 747SP (the short version like AF1) is about $240M. Corporate jets are never over $10M and even at $500/night, it takes a lot of nights to get to $290M, plus you don't have to worry about the mess you leave the room in.
Dan. -- So what if it's spelt wrong, nobody's perfect
You could get this :a ker.pl?/e/services/executive/xxl/dia2.html
http://www.lufthansa-technik.com/cgi-bin/framem
A 727 has a taller body (about 12" taller), and has wings that are 72' longer. It has 4 more engines, all with more power (around 120,000 lbs of thrust). The 727 also has much more room for seating and cargo than the 747 (or any other model for the matter). Get your facts straight.
A 727 has 4 more engines? For a total of 8? You are seriously deluded, a 727 has 3 engines at the tail.
From the Boeing 727 web page.
The versatility and reliability of the Boeing 727 - first trijet introduced into commercial service - made it the best-selling airliner in the world during the first 30 years of jet transport service.
Tri-jet means three engines.
From the stats section.
Advanced 727-200 Specifications
Wingspan 108 feet (32.91 m)
Length 153 feet 2 inches (46.69 m)
Tail Height 34 feet (10.36 m)
Gross Maximum Taxi Weight Standard: 191,000 pounds (86,600 kg)
Optional: 210,000 pounds (95,300 kg)
Power Three Pratt & Whitney JT8D turbofans:
-15 rated at 15,500 pounds thrust
-17 rated at 16,000 pounds thrust
-17R rated at 17,400 pounds thrust
Cruising Speed 570 to 605 mph (890 to 965 km/h)
Cruising Altitude 30,000 to 40,000 feet (9,144 to 12,192 m)
Range 1,500 to 2,500 miles (2,750 to 4,020 km)
Passenger Capacity 148 to 189
Fuel 8,186 U.S. gallons (31,000 L) standard at lower gross weights
9,806 U.S. gallons (37,020 L) standard for 208,000 pounds
I have no idea what commercial jetliner you are thinking of, but it sure isn't a 30 year old 727.
George
I was on-topic. I was writing my critique as I read the page. Sorry for reading the site. And I'm quite on-topic; I was ruminating about the site linked to.
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
The Egyptians thought of building a restaurant at the Cairo airport years ago. It's across the street from the airport Moevenpick hotel. It's kind of tacky and has corrosion in places. If I remember rightly, it is (was?) a 707.
I went there with some friends, all airline employees on business in Cairo, for dinner. The memorable part was when a guy laughed so hard after a joke someone told that he ripped the seat from the floor and fell in the aisle. Oh well, you had to be there...
I think this is a residence built with Californians in mind.
It's undersized, overpriced, has high-tech allure, and is frequently subject to the laws of motion!
Just substitute rotation for the Californian shake, rattle & roll ...
Yeah, I'd like to see that. The plane needs an angle-of-attack of about 1.5 to fly straigt and level at 0.79M (>400mph) and 33,000'. So, assuming this thing never cops a wind gust high enough to upset it's 1.5 angle-of-attack in a hurricane (which is what they're marketing the thing to hold out in), It could literally be 'flying' through the hurricane.
Now, in flight, a birdstike is like a speed hump, not much chop, mostly annoying more than anything else. A flock of birds is a little more dangerous, but not deadly. However a flying 36' yacht just may put a small dent in your lovely new house.
Oh, one other thing. These planes were all built between 1964 and 1972, and designed to safely last 10,000 flight hours. In 30 years, most of them have exceeded 30,000 hours and have had some sort of damage. For all this guy knows, it's held together by paperclips and he's just pulling them all out.
I'll stick to bricks and morter.
Dan. -- So what if it's spelt wrong, nobody's perfect
I should know better than to feed the trolls, I really should.
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
On the missile silo, I especially love the fact that thet specifically mention that it can survive direct nuclear hit!
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Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
Actually assuming the internet holds to its original purpose, perhaps you might be able to frag the few remaing souls in a Quake death match.
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Am I the only one who thinks Microsoft is a misnomer? Perhaps Macrosoft would be a better fit?
I thought I saw this ages (perhaps years) ago on TV. The guy lives in some rural area right? And he was pulling a plane through town. Funny. Actually, I'd love to have a house decorated as an airport. That would be cool. Then again I'm a military brat and spent half my life in airports.
It's 10 PM. Do you know if you're un-American?
First, you wouldn't want it in an area where the wind tends to change direction rapidly. They specifically mount it on a column which allows it to rotate (if I understand the page correctly) so that the wind always blows through the house in the same direction (using the tail to direct the plane). If this is the case, then your house is basically a weathervane. (Also, good luck getting in and out of it.) Of course, I could be misunderstanding it and maybe the tail is sufficiently-large to redirect all wind around the plane, but that doesn't seem aerodynamically possible.
Second problem: the wings are high off the ground. No sweat, they put railings on them - but that won't stop kids from jumping/falling off the wings, either accidentally or on-purpose. And I don't know about other people, but it's not height that gives me vertigo so much as the threat of falling. Also, the wings give you 1200 square feet of balcony (which is quite a lot) but it doesn't seem to be in any sort of usable shape. And don't forget that you're standing on top of an airfoil - even with the deflector you're still likely to get some major windspeeds going over the wing, thanks to the principle discovered by Bernoulli which keeps planes in-flight to begin with. Though at least the wings can each withstand a good-sized party (but can the railings? :)
Hm. Lots of windows to be broken by the neighborhood baseball games. And they can't be cheap to replace...
In the meantime, 727s are relatively huge, especially as airplanes go. I'm sure the cargo holds would be useful as an 'attic,' and of course there's the electrical and engineering bay which makes a convenient basement.
I'd hate to try cooking in one of the galleys. My apartment's kitchen is too small for my likings, and it's HUGE in comparison.
I like the way they deal with the hallway problem, though... use the cargo hold as a corridor. I imagine there's stairs or ladders or something.
Two neighborhoodly problems: first, I don't like the thought of my home getting hijacked by terrorists. :) Also, I bet ignorant neighbors/visitors to the neighborhood keep calling the police with reports of an airplane having mysteriously landed (that'd be especially common in water-mounted houses as they show). Also, for the waterbound houses, I imagine you need a boat. It'd be far too easy to get stranded inside or outside your house in that case... and stairs from the shore would get blown over... it just seems so risky... maybe that's why this is for adventuresome homeowners. :)
I seriously doubt it's up to fire codes. The emergency exits are easily-accessed when everyone's upstairs and there's a nice aisle going through the whole plane, but with these modifications, one fire and you're stuck. I certainly wouldn't be able to squeeze myself through a window.
Ah, reading further I see that you can lock the column in place and rotate it slowly using motors or have it act as a weathervane. Okay, so hopefully the gears don't get stripped, or you lose power during a nasty storm, or else you could be in puke city, though it claims to limit the free rotation to be very gradual. So how does one get in or out? A rolling ladder?
At least this house would be VERY easy to move (they even say so :)
Man, this IS very intriguing though. And it's a lot cheaper than building a normal house, and a lot cooler... I'd be concerned about the things I mentioned above, but all in all, man, I hope they can ramp up production by the time I can afford a house of my own. :)
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
Oh, this is awesome!
Now when my home is overrun by all my loser friends on movie night, I can force 'em to rent those crappy plastic headphones ("Sanitized for your comfort...") and make a handy, airline-style profit!
Thanks, Slashdot!
-A.
What did the walrus say to the penguin? "No soap, radio."
If the gas tank "goes off," this will ruin your day, whether you're at an altitude of 5 feet or 50,000 feet...
If you're not part of the solution, you're part of the precipitate.
Wonder how much a stripped L1011 would go for...
I've never been in a 747. Those things are multi-story, right? That'd be ubercool.
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"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
"'Is not a quine' is not a quine" is a quine.
Quine "quine?
...I still like the Missile Silo Home better. Not only is it in posession of massive quantities of "geek chic", but what better place to carry out your experiments that defy the laws of nature?
I do like the plane on a post idea however. But this begs one question: Will my AIBO (No link, just look for the banner ad...) be waterproof??
Hmmm... I think I'll just save up for the Condos on Mars... Maybe a Boeing 727 in a Bomb shelter on Mars... WoooHooo!
~Jason Maggard
"A house flown by a drunken pilot cannot stand." ~Abe Lincoln
If I were doing it I wouldn't have it on wheels. I'd have it buried about wing level, with hedges and flower gardens around the perimeter. Low profile. But that's just me :) I like his ambition. One man, one wacky idea.
I wouldn't worry about going the whole hog. As these planes drop out of service (at an astonishing rate mind you) the simulators that the operators owned will become obsolete just as quickly.
BTW a 727 sim is about 16x16 feet, and requires computers in about 18 7' racks to run it. Pity all that space has the power of your current Mac G4.
Dan. -- So what if it's spelt wrong, nobody's perfect
... it gives a whole new meaning to the term mobile home!
-- Erich
Slashdot reader since 1997
1. I'd rather live in a functional 747. It would be the ultimate home for someone who travels a few hundred days a year. Hell, I'm a bit surprised now that I think about it that some company hasn't bought one for their frequently-flying execs. Bill Gates spends a lot of time abroad (even when he's not getting pied) -- if he were like me, he'd prefer framiliar surroundings to even a ritzy hotel. I think a more homey Air Force One would be gangbusters -- convert the press and secret service areas into a master bedroom and a living area. Once I had it set up, I could continue with my scheme to finance SETI work and send Jodi Foster to the center of the galaxy...
2. This place can't hold a candle to the outfit offering the converted missile bases . The ability to have a T1 installed and to withstand a direct nuclear hit is just overwhelming. If those BATF guys think they had trouble getting the Branch Davidians to come out, just you wait until I lock this thing down for the evening.
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Every year during my review, I just pray the words "slashdot.org" aren't mentioned.
avionics or electronics
wiring
hydraulics
seats
galleys
engines
etc,
is the same price as 100 tons of used 7072 aluminium alloy. So, at about $25,000/ton, you'd have to expext to be paying $250,000 for a totally worn out airframe.
As for the tip top exterior, just wipe off the oil stains and paint over them!
An L1011 would be heaps better, short and fat.
Dan. -- So what if it's spelt wrong, nobody's perfect