I fly the 747 every two weeks. I have for over the past 10 years. I think I've sat in every seat in a 747 over the years. It does have a very long take off. It does take a while to really get accelerating. However, it has tremendous power after take off. It just keeps going and going. The 747 is still one of the fastest commercial passenger planes in the sky. The 747 is one of my favorite planes. I've flown on the Airbus 380 and it's just wonderful. But, it leaves me cold somehow -- without personality. The 747 still looks like it was designed by men and not computers.
Please let me have your job. I only recall being on a 747 four times (roundtrip) in my life. TWA 747-100 (twice) Iran Air 747SP (once) South African Airways 747-300 (once) Had an awesome time on all trips. South African let me see the view from the cockpit during flight...incredible.
Twins usually accelerate faster than three and four engine jets. Airliners are certified to lose one engine on take-off and clear all obstacles. In the event of an engine fail, a twin needs to be able to climb out on 50% power. A four engine jet gets 75% power to make the same climb. When all engines are running the twin usually has a better power to weight ratio. It is true that a jet may use nearly all of the runway to take-off but that does not mean they can't climb out with an engine fail. If an engine fails, and you decide to continue, you effectively already have flying speed. The questionable part is if an engine fails just before your "decision" speed. At this point you have to stop on the remaining runway and everything had better work perfectly. Dave
I had a 3 star on board and he did not do very much for moral for the crew. Most of them especially the Captain of the ship were still so shocked to even notice or care. They were glad to be going home. 17 coffins in the belly made for a very somber flight for all. It was an honor and a privilege to be their PIC. Usually on takeoffs like this we do a two stage rotation to avoid a high deck angle and potential tail strike, I rotated and it just sat there, it finally broke ground at 10 degrees pitch and firewalled throttles. Major pucker factor! Of course off of runway 26 In Muscat lies a hill off the departure end of the runway, one of the few hills in that area! The advent of EFBs in the flight deck and using actual payload weights have made W&B issues much better and not so much a wag. Prior to actual weight we used combat equipped troop weights of 225 lbs, and luggage weights of 60 lbs and carry on 30 lbs. Have you seen a Navy seabag? they weigh more than 30 lbs! Cheers
Paul- That must have been what the pilot said when I asked him and he probably said they shut down one bleed to the APU, not one APU. He said the air conditioning would be marginal until a higher altitude was reached. On hot summer days (actually most days) taking off to the east out of Albuquerque, the 727s would turn south after take-off to gain enough altitude to clear the Sandias (10,300' max) before turning back east. The 757s just blasted off straight ahead and climbed easily over the mountains, as do the new 737s. Taz Terry Phillips
My pleasure! Thanks for reading it. I hope i never get that close to the envelope again! I dont mind doing test flights where there is a known quantity, but surprises like that are not cool at all! Thank God I had a long history with the DC-10 prior to this! She has never let me down in 8000+ hours of flying her............. I hope the same remains true for the Boeing fleet? so far so good. I finally am beginning to swallow a brown flight deck! Whats up with that? Switches? Cheers
If you're talking about off-load volume, the KC-10 is indeed a mucho tanker and bigger than the 767 but if you're talking about more booms in the air so that you can off-load to more fighters at the same time , then the smaller tankers in greater numbers is what the war fighters want. And that's from the mouth of a tanker flier. Forgive me but I don't follow you on the the brown flight deck comment. Switches
Terry, I have to admit that I have a few holes in my recall and I have been crunching away at the 727 APU operation. The 727 APU was not an after thought but a part of the original 727 concept to provide an airplane that was self reliant when it served unimproved airports, hence the aft air stair AND an APU. The APU cannot be run in flight so it could not affect the engines. If I remember correctly the APU does not take any bleed from the engines BUT provides starter air, air conditioning air E/C, and hydraulics. The only thing that I can think of is engine bleed for air conditioning that would be shut down on take off. The 757 was one of the best airplanes that Boeing produced but the narrow body wasn't welcomed. Switches
Here's a stupid question, what does the second set numbers refer to in a planes description. Eg 747-400 ?
There's a little park on Vista Del Mar (Street that runs along the ocean, just at the end of the runway) where Eric and I go to lie on the grass and watch the planes go by. The 747's are definitely the highlight. They seem to be so close he can almost touch them.
That isn't a stupid question, really. That second number signifies a modification to a basic model. The 747-100 was the basic model, then as improvements and growth modifications were installed, the dash number was added to separate the variation from the basic model number. Hope that clarified things for you. Switches
You are out of luck - it's sitting idle at Mehrabad last I saw it. No parts. Iran air is mostly airbus now if I'm no mistaken (couple of Tupolev's left over).
I hate the brown in the flight deck too. Reminds me of the brown leather in my Testarossa. I believe they use the brown as a neutral color with the most contrast for switches and instruments while minimizing glare.
Well, my son answered that one for me. I haven't been in the cockpit of any of the new birds so I wasn't familiar with that color that you mentioned. Being an artist , a brown tone will not join or fight with other colors. Almost any color will contrast with it and brownish tan is an earthy warm soothing color. I sat in the cockpit of a Russian airliner, an IL-62, and the steam gage era panel and surroundings were turquoise ( with hand-brush painted lettering on it) and it was rather bright. The entire airplane was an expression of 70's Russian technology and techniques, plank and bolt approach. The people were delightful, however. Switches
Bob, about how many different aircraft types have you ever been in? It must be quite a list! You remind me of British test pilot Eric Brown, who has flown 487 different types of aircraft, and is still around at age 91.
according to this link, the 747-400 ER which we were on has takeoff roll of 10,100 ft. at gross. so we only had 1-2,000 feet of runway to work with assuming we were at gross. I would bet a ramp weight would have been over based on the average passenger weight numbers.
That makes sense, more than what I was thinking that it had something to do with the amount of passengers, but that doesn't make sense. I was going to ask if anyone had flown on a Russian airliner and then I saw your post in which you have. I saw on a docu that the pilots bring the planes in on a much more sudden and steep decent and allot later as opposed to the more gentle and long decents that most of us are used to.
I don't think that anybody can come close to what Eric Brown has done and also a lot of my friends. I have only flown 40 different types of airplanes and messed around with only 39 different types. Not much of a list, really. The weirdest was getting to look in the cockpit of the Avro Vulcan. For an airplane that size the cockpit was almost impossible to get into. It was designed to be a single pilot bird and then in typical British style they added another crew up there and it was a staggered seat position with a console between. Horribly cramped. Interesting, though. Switches
Jim, you got me to thinking about all the airplanes that I have had something to do with and it has grown a little bit as my recall groans into action. When I look back on it all I did was to run around and take a taste of anything that was available except for the airplanes that I was associated with during the war. From 1935 to 2007 i have either flown or had experience with 79 airplanes. First was an Aeronca C-3, last was an Aviat Husky (one of my most favorite to fly). Again, I did nothing with it that is of any importance other than the pleasure of being a part of it. I have flown with some really fine people and not so fine people. I have met and befriended a few notably famous fliers and still today I am fortunate enough to meet men like John Penny, Steve Seghetti, and many many more. I enjoy AV-Chat because it keeps it alive for me now that I can no longer threaten the groundlings with my flying. Many good people here. Switches
