Last commercial passenger flight of the 747. Today.

[fingpilot]

Hard to believe. Spent so many years aloft in one of these.

Last landing today, a UAL bird, who knows, might even be a ship in my logbook, since UUL and Continental merged.

I started out in a -200 series (we called them rope-starts). Finished up in a -400.

The only time one of them scared me was in the sim.

Hard to believe they are gone.

Will live on for a while in cargo service. Was the original reason for the upper deck. Nose pivoted up for Ro-Ro cargo loading.

[javadog]

Man, that sucks. I can't believe there are no more in service. My first flight in one was probably 45 years ago. Probably PanAm, if my memory is any good.

[p911dad]

I recently rode one from Shanghi to Chicago. What's the reason for retiring them, economics or age of fleet?

[fingpilot]

Economics.

There are foreign airlines flying passengers in commercial service with a 747.

[rattlsnak]

There are plenty of 747s still flying today in passenger service. Today was United's last 747 flight and Delta's was in Sept, so yes, no more US based passenger carriers except for charters and cargo.

[KNS]

It will live for a long time flying cargo. I believe Boeing still has orders for new 747 freighters.

[t6dpilot]

Originally Posted by rattlsnak

There are plenty of 747s still flying today in passenger service. Today was United's last 747 flight and Delta's was in Sept, so yes, no more US based passenger carriers except for charters and cargo.

Not quite. Flying into DTW last week, I saw a Delta 74 at one of the gates. They will live on with foreign carriers and cargo for a while yet.

[WPOZZZ]

That last flight concluded in HNL. Fond farewell as double-decker jumbo jet arrives at final destination in Honolulu | KHON2

[cairns]

1A and 1K on a 747 were my best ever flights. I didn't want them to end.

[911_Dude]

UPS and Fedex have big orders for new 747-800's. They will be around. Aircraft with more than 2 engines are getting rare tho.

[Porsche-O-Phile]

It's simply expensive to run multi-engine aircraft. Two are required for ETOPS; I'm sure the airlines would find a way to get away with single-engine aircraft if they thought they could (but would people actually fly them?) Fuel and maintenance costs start really mattering the more holes you add...

[GH85Carrera]

Back in the days of federal airline regulations my dad flew from Chicago to LA on a Pan Am 747. It was a scheduled flight so they had to go. It had less than 10 passengers. They just brought everyone up front to first class. The all got the first class meals and each passenger had a stewardess. He played cards with his private stew. I just wonder how much money Pan Am lost on that flight. Bunches.

[javadog]

I was on a flight like that from Asia back to the US, around 1970 or 1972. We just wandered around the whole plane. I think the crew outnumbered the passengers.

[Steve Carlton]

I'd love to pick up a great deal on a 2012-2013 747, but parking around here sucks.

[speeder]

It's a real drag and the end of an era, for sure. The new super jets just aren't the same at all.

In recent years, 747 upper decks were used for regular rows of seats, were they not? On American carriers? There is a great scene in the film, "Nixon Frost", where David Frost is meeting his future GF in the lounge on the upper deck of a 747 crossing the Atlantic.

My brother is a platinum flyer on Emirates and there are some super lux planes these days but those old Pan Am 747s were the shiznit. I have a friend who is a retired Pan Am 747 Captain. What a career he had.

[LEAKYSEALS951]

You are welcome :


edit... I am bummed though. 747's are something special, like steam locomotives. Once they are gone, the airline community will lose a piece of it's soul.

[Jeff Higgins]

I both started and ended my career with the 747.

Way back in 1980, we were cranking out 747's on a three day cycle - a new one popped out of Everett every three "M days", or "manufacturing days", of which there are five per week (M-F). We had a pretty good mix of SP's going down the line at the time, which being a shorter airplane, required major adjustments on the body section jigs used to produce them. Essentially, the "end gates" as we called them - big circular structures that held and located the join rings at the ends of the body sections - had to move. It was my job to figure out a better, more efficient way to do that.

My last job before I retired was to design a boring fixture that would bore the trunnion bushing holes in the main body landing gear beams. These are the pivot trunnions on which the body gear rotate when they retract. At this point in their service life, we were starting to see the bushings that are pressed into the support beams starting to migrate. The original fix was to remove the gear, remove the beam, press the old bushing out, bore the hole on a vertical mill, press the new bushing in, bore it, hone it, and reinstall the beam in the aircraft. Lots of work...

My tooling does all of that in situ on the airplane without removing the beam, right up there in the wheel well. We are boring a 9.5" nominal I.D. hole in 7075-T6 in steps of about .010" over until all corrosion is removed, and holding it within a couple of tenths for diameter, runout, etc. Fun project. I would just now be coming up on my first trips to assist our machinists in its setup and use, if I were still working. They'll spend the next decade wearing out several units of this tool. I kind of wish I could still go with them...

Yeah, what a grand old airplane. Trust me, though, there will still be '47's in the air long after all of us are gone.

[scottmandue]

Originally Posted by Steve Carlton

I'd love to pick up a great deal on a 2012-2013 747, but parking around here sucks.

Group buy!

My favorite plane to fly on to Hawaii, I could lay across four seat and sleep the whole trip after a few Mai Tai's.

[LEAKYSEALS951]

Originally Posted by Steve Carlton

I'd love to pick up a great deal on a 2012-2013 747, but parking around here sucks.

are they OBD-II compatible?

[speeder]

Originally Posted by Steve Carlton

I'd love to pick up a great deal on a 2012-2013 747, but parking around here sucks.

That would definitely land you on Rick Lee's schit list:

Another d'bag needs two parking spaces.