747-8: Flight Report

A couple nice pics from a helicopter
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I'm not biased... really I'm not...

But, the B747 is the most beautiful plane ever created.

It is, the Jumbo Jet!

Congrats to Lou!

 

in the right photo it looks like you were about 1" off the center line, what happened?
jk, lol. I love this thread. Thanks, Lou.

 

Hey Lou, is this you tearing up the Whitehorse runway?

(Skip to 11:30)

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YH2ncIk0QKo]Boeing 747 takes off at Whitehorse, Yukon - YouTube[/ame]

 

Yeah, felt like we were a little off.....crosswind?? LOL

 

Not me in Whitehorse. Our crew did a good job on that flight. They got a CARGO FIRE warning during cruise flight. Luckily, it was a lower cargo fire warning. They followed the checklist and landed at the nearest suitable airport. I believe between the fire warning going off and touchdown was approx 20 minutes.

Fires on cargo aircraft are a little different. The lower deck (normal cargo area on a passenger airplane) is a sealed compartment. Arming the fire switch and then pushing it shuts off air to the compartment and then shoots a bottle. The second bottle is shot off either later during the flight or after landing automatically.

Main deck fires are a little different. When you arm the switch and fire the bottle, the main deck depressurizes to 25,000 ft in an attempt to put the fire out. There is no fire suppression. So no bottle fires. An oxygen mask is required.

Luckily in this case, it was a false warning. No fire or evidence of a fire was found.

Yeah, I believe they actually blew off some ashpalt on the next mornings takeoff.

 

That looked like a pretty impressive rate of climb !

Lou are they very light for some reason? or is that your standard departure ?

 

I think the noisy HS748 with it's R.R. Dart's made 10 times more noise than the 8F. That's alot of airplane for that skinny runway. I know the guy who took those LAX landing shots. I am suprised they can still do it in this day and age of overzealous govermental types.

 

Can you depressurize the main deck and keep pressurization on the upper deck?

Inflight fires are certainly nothing to mess around with! Good job by the crew.

 

The modern engines are so quiet that they're incredible. I was leaving work one afternoon from our big assembly building, and I heard a jet going by south of the runway, which was on the far side of the building and thus out of sight. When the aircraft finally climbed enough that I could see it, I was amazed to see that it was a C-5M! Granted, the engines were at little more than idle speed, but to see an aircraft that large that was that quiet was quite amazing!

 

Yeah, the 747-8 sounds like a vacuum cleaner at takeoff power from the cockpit.

The upper deck is considered part of the main deck as far as pressurization goes. In fact, there are quite a few "blow out" doors that open in case of a rapid depressurization. This way the upper deck and main deck don't have a differential pressure, which could lead to a structural failure. I'll take some pics and next time I'm at work.

True, inflight fires are nothing to mess with. I read something somewhere once, saying that you typically have 18 minutes to get the airplane on the ground if a real fire exists. Not sure how true that is, but that's not an option on most of my routes.

 

I've read 15 minutes is the golden rule (probable rounding to be safe). The UPS Dubai flight-6 wasn't able to make it back in time.

I realize not many pilots want to ditch a 747 in the ocean to keep it under the magic number, if that situation presents, because either way your career is likely over (politics not facts). But, it becomes career vs. Life.

May you never be presented with such a choice.

UPS Airlines Flight 6 - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Lithium battery fueled main-deck fires are nothing to be fooled with. I understand Fedex developed their own bottle system to extinguish. Blowing pressurization to 25K isn't always a cure for lithium fires.

 

Yeah, we have 2 schools of thought it seems amongst our pilots. Some prefer to run the checklist and wait at 25,000, others think it's best to head to the deck immediately. Personally, I'd try the checklist and 25,000, then descend and ditch if necessary. Definitely a choice I hope not to have to make.

We carry quite a few lithium batteries. They definitely carry higher risks. I believe a Korean Cargo 747 also went down recently due to lithium batteries catching fire.

 

As mentioned in another thread, here are pics of the decompression doors on the -8. The 400 also has some, but not nearly as many.

The main upper deck entry door has a small door on the lower part of it.

The crew rest area has 2 doors, with the blue tape on them. The middle door is a coat closet.
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Under the bunks.....pretected by mesh screens.
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Next to the passenger seats....
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That reminds me of the " People Strainer" on the KC-135 in the flight deck so the crew wouldn't be sucked out of the cabin when the emergency exit door was ejected. And the 707,767, and pax 747 had a blow out grid along the whole length of the pax cabin just below the windows in case pressurization was rapidly lost in the cargo compartment. Thin foil over the grid.

 

Random shots with a friends Nikon. I usually just use my my phones camera.....
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I recently flew a commercial Lufthansa 747-400, 747-8I and a A380. I got to go business class all the way thanks to using my points on United

Liked the 747-8I the best - it had the most room and seemed the quietest - albeit I was probably the furthest away from the engine. The A380 had the tiniest bathrooms of the three. Very surprising.

 

What commercial airlines are already using 747-8 ?

 

Every time I read this thread I get so bummed that "they" got rid of our freighters.

 

Freighters have the same decompression venting along the entire length of the cabin. Freighters can actually have worse decompression events than a pax when the main deck is empty as there is a larger volume of air.

 

Just read that ANA is officially ending the 747 in pax service altogether...

Freighters are still flying...

 

Yeah, NCA will have the only 747's in Japan. JAL already got rid of theirs. ANA will park the last 2 this month I believe. While NCA used to be part of ANA, it hasnn't been for awhile. A company called NYK owns NCA. Apparently it's huge company in Japan.

Anyways, some of our pilots are looking for other employment opportunities as they realize the 747 rating won't be of much value to them in the future.

An example, China Southern is currently hiring captains into the 777 and 787. They will take you if you are rated on either of those planes. But if you have a 747 rating, you need to get in now before they won't "credit" the 747 rating.

So what would you rather fly? 747? 777? 787?

While I'd like to fly all of those, it comes down to money and days off. NCA's been good to me, but China Southern does have an LAX 777 base.

Having the 777 rating would give you many options in the future if needed.

The 747's been good to me, so I'll probably stay on it.

What would you fly rather fly? Forget pay or days off. 747? 777? 787?

 

777