The last 747

[javadog]

Originally Posted by speeder

The Concorde was about speed, no luxury involved. Never flew on one but know plenty of people who have.

NO luxury? Ha!

The seats were nice and cushy, not that they were overly large. Food was very high-quality, served on Limoge China with a nice cuvée. Attractive stewardesses.

[stevej37]

[speeder]

Originally Posted by javadog

NO luxury? Ha!

The seats were nice and cushy, not that they were overly large. Food was very high-quality, served on Limoge China with a nice cuvée. Attractive stewardesses.

I should have qualified that a little better. Back in the early 2000s, a First Class ticket on Air France roundtrip from LAX to Paris-CDG was ~$10k, Concorde the same price. The difference in luxury was enormous, favoring the 747, of course. The Concorde was loud and cramped in comparison but the luxury involved time and (lack of) jet lag.

Not that I would know from experience, just what the AF agent told me. I paid $1200 RT to be on the same plane and the food in coach wasn't bad in those days! I still remember the prices; $6500 for business class and $10k for 1st class.

[Jolly Amaranto]

I only ever flew on a 747 once between New York and Frankfort on Pan Am. I had a window seat. I always try to avoid the center section of any wide body aircraft. Got to have my window. Was okay but nothing memorable. The flight home on that trip was a miserable experience. A Lufthansa DC-10. The smoking section was the right side of the cabin and the non smoking was the left. Why bother with that. The whole cabin was a choking cloud. And just when the right side of the plane was running low on cigarettes, the duty free carts came out and resupplied them. Worse than any bar or dance hall I ever was in.

[Baz]

[javadog]

Originally Posted by Jolly Amaranto

I only ever flew on a 747 once between New York and Frankfort on Pan Am. I had a window seat. I always try to avoid the center section of any wide body aircraft. Got to have my window. Was okay but nothing memorable. The flight home on that trip was a miserable experience. A Lufthansa DC-10. The smoking section was the right side of the cabin and the non smoking was the left. Why bother with that. The whole cabin was a choking cloud. And just when the right side of the plane was running low on cigarettes, the duty free carts came out and resupplied them. Worse than any bar or dance hall I ever was in.

I got stuck in the aisle seat of the last row of a DC-10 on both legs of a trip to Hawaii and back. This was back in the days when you could smoke on a plane and the area in front of the rear bathrooms was the favorite smoke hole.

Did I mention the engine in the tail was a loud SOB also?

Worst flights ever.

[Cdnone1]

I flew a 747 into (Toronto) YYZ that got hit by lightning on approach. I was in the upper section and it blew an engine and all the lights out for a second. The pilot came on and said something like for those of you on the right side of the aircraft, yes we did get hit by lightning and we have lost the functionality of an engine. We are okay and fully capable of flying with three. Everything is fine and I will talk to you some more when we are on the ground in a few minutes.
One of the smoothest landings ever

[Walter_Middie]

During the 747 development, they were so concerned that a pilot could not taxi an airplane this big, from such a high viewing perspective, that they built this test rig. Of course they discovered that it wasn't all that hard to taxi the 747.



Also, since it had 4 engines, Boeing would use the 747 to test new engines, like the really big ones for the 787. So the 747 would fly around with one really big engine and 3 of the regular smaller engines.

[flatbutt]

Originally Posted by GH85Carrera

My dad talked about flying on a Pan AM 747 from NYC to LA back in the days before deregulation. He was on official Air Force business, flying commercial, so it was economy class ticket way in the back. He said he hoofed it to his assigned seat and was all alone in the section.

The stewardess was making the pre-flight announcements and and said there is no reason for us to walk all the way back there with so few passengers. Please everyone come up to first class. There were just a handful of customers, and dad said he had a stewardess all to himself, as did all the other passengers. Free drinks, and the first class meal. He payed cards with his stewardess for the entire flight. He said it was far and away the best commercial flight he ever had.

I can't even imagine how much it cost to fly a 747 across the country, likely one reason Pan Am is long gone. No days of course they would cancel the flight and not go. Back then, a scheduled flight had to fly under the regulations.

As I wrote whenever I flew on the BA 747 me and my associates had the upper deck to ourselves. We were so pampered that it was almost, ALMOST obscene. The ticket was approx. $6k round trip. The trade off was working on the flight and straight into the office after the flight.

[Seahawk]

Originally Posted by Walter_Middie

During the 747 development, they were so concerned that a pilot could not taxi an airplane this big, from such a high viewing perspective, that they built this test rig. Of course they discovered that it wasn't all that hard to taxi the 747.

That is really cool....both pics.

[shinrai]

Loved these big birds.
1K was my favorite seat. You could somewhat see down the runway when you planted your face against the window. LH470 a bunch of times. Was on one of the last ones flying to HNL about 5 years ago. Will miss them for sure.

[jyl]

I loved 747s. Current widebodies are okay, the seat pitch is nasty but the A/V entertainment and WiFI are nice.

Am I the only one who has never flown any class other than coach? I flew business class to/from Japan, but that was on work - I am too cheap to pay that much out of pocket.

[stevej37]

Using frequent flier miles, I've been offered first class if there is an open seat. (on AA)

Other than that....I'm happy to ride in the cattle section.

[javadog]

Always coach for me, I won’t pay the first class or business class fees. I’d rather spend the money on something more interesting.

I have flown private quite a bit, from single engine planes to jets. Always on someone else’s dime, more than happy to ride up front in the right seat.

[Jolly Amaranto]

I flew first class from New Orleans to Houston once on British Air. Original flight from London to Houston on a 777 was diverted due to the airport in Houston being closed because of weather. Our crew timed out while we waited on the tarmac in NO and British Air had none available in New Orleans. So spent the night in a hotel while the crew got some sleep. All kinds of issues because all the customs and immigration folks had gone home for the night and there were no facilities for unloading baggage there for a 777. Most people rented a car or found other transportation to get to Houston. The few of us who hung around to finish our trip on BA got to fly first class. The flight was very short so really did not get the full experience.

[3rd_gear_Ted]

Got to tour the UPS Ops @ Ontario CA.
The upper deck of the 747 Hawaii freighters had nice luxury seats that were for dead heading crews.
Lots of airlines dead head their crews with Fed-Ex, DHL, Tiger & UPS.
There were a few surfboards being brought along.
Standing in the cargo hold you can see the two black boxes blinking away mounted below the rudder.

[ted]

Never got off the 747 when I sat in the 3rd row in the nose of a Flying Tiger 747 packed with Military, flew from Fairfield Ca, Anchorage Al, Okinawa and finally to Clark AFB PI.
2 days later flew in the top deck of a C5 to Diego Garcia.
Followed by a C 141 to Mombasa Africa while facing backwards looking at pallets of bombs (and daylight through the cracks in the fuselage).

My best 747 ride was United from Hawaii to SFO.
Started in the jump seat for take off. Seemed to take forever from V1 to V2.
The pilot offered that every minute flying over the Pacific was equal to one day of rowing.
Was offered a soft seat in 1st class with 4 servings of Prime rib, I was young and hungry.

In the 80s the Arabs would fly a stubby 747 into San Diego.
Then use smaller general aviation jets for shorter trips around the USA.

[Ralph3.]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BbDF_2Z3wfM

[flatbutt]

I wonder how much of the tooling used on a 747 can be used elsewhere?

[Jeff Higgins]

Originally Posted by flatbutt

I wonder how much of the tooling used on a 747 can be used elsewhere?

Essentially none of it. The tooling for these aircraft is pretty much model specific. They will keep some of it just so they can continue to support the fleet, but the rest of it will just get scrapped.

I see now that they are planning on manufacturing the 737 Max in Everett, utilizing the space once occupied by the 747 line. They currently manufacture the Max about 30 or 40 miles south of Everett, in the old Renton plant. They have been significantly down sizing the Renton plant for almost 20 years now, with much of its old footprint now occupied by apartments and retail space. I said over ten years ago that they would eventually close Renton. Look for that next.

So, pretty melancholy news for me, obviously. I spent 35 years of my life in that Everett plant. I started out as a backfill on the 747 for the folks going over to support the new airplane, the 767.

I eventually worked on every aircraft coming out of Everett, initially designing the forming tooling on which many of the composite parts were manufactured. Mainly interiors, with some aero surfaces thrown in to keep it interesting, like the wing to body fairing, control surfaces, etc.

While in the Interiors division, my specialty was the forming of the contoured interior panels. Ceiling, window, stow bin, etc - anything that wasn't flat. I actually did much of the surface development for those panels in CATIA while I was designing the forming tools. The last design I helped with was the 787, missing out on the Max, the 747 Intercontinental, and the 777X. Up through those models, however, I'm proud to say that on every Boeing aircraft currently in service, every contoured interior panel you can see from the comfort of your seat is still manufactured on "my" tooling, with contours I translated into CATIA from our design consultant's sketches.

The last 20 years of my career were, however, my most enjoyable. I managed to join the AOG - "Aircraft on Ground" group, who are tasked with the repair and maintenance of the fleet around the world. We fixed things that our customers were incapable of fixing themselves. Everything from crash damage to heavy maintenance to "service bulletin" work (essentially equivalent to a recall in the automotive world). What was kind of fun for me was that while in AOG, during some of the down time we had at home, I was still the go-to guy that Interiors leaned on for the surface modeling required for their contoured panels. That always served to fill my time when things got quiet in AOG.

I not only had the privilege of designing the tools and equipment we used to affect those repairs but, even better, they flew me around the world to assist either our own mechanics, or the airline, or the MRO's (Maintenance, Repair, Overhaul facility) mechanics and engineers. What a glorious job for a guy like me. The 747 was, of course, a large part of that.