From the dawn of the U.S. jet age

And remember guys no matter how stretchable that dc-8 was I don't believe there are any that are flying right now in the states. The military still has the kc-135 however!

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When I was in 727 f e training, it was a joke that went around that I didn't quite appreciate at the time but I've come to love and tell whenever I have a group of Pilots around that have flown that airplane. It goes like this...

How many mechanics does it take to change a lightbulb in a 727?

The answer is five.

One to change the lightbulb, and the other four to talk about ...what a great light bulb it was!

I'm meeting with some friends tonight for dinner. I'm going to silently have a toast one for the 7:07 and another toast for the 727 both Great Plains made by great people at one of the best times in aviation history. Going to be signing off for tonight talk with you all soon

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Bob,
When I was much younger (still in school) and the 707 was new... I thought that the 707 would have been a 'piece of cake' for Boeing, after all, you'd done the B-47 about 10 years before and the B-52 about 5 years before.

Was there any value in having done the bombers prior? Or are they so different that there was none?

Can't think of a Douglas plane that even had swept wings at the time they did the -8

 

The B-47 and B-52 provided tons of useful data for the 707 and subsequent models. One important thing that the B-52 wing solved was that a thickened inboard wing near the root did not cause a catastrophic drag rise and paved the way to design wings with enough shear inboard to better handle loads. If you look at the B-47 wing it is thin right up to the body and required humongous strength and heavy structure. Dutch Roll and Mach Tuck (weren't engineers) were some problematic issues as was flutter at first. I worked on the KC-135 from day one and it also presented and solved quite a few problems. The worst was the deep stall that put the airplane on the back side of all the curves and once it was locked into it there was nothing that you could do to get out of it. Hence the Kruger flap that solved that problem. Again, sharp wing leading edges were good for high speed cruise but could bite hard when flow separated. The 707 used the Kruger and the 727 used the Kruger in combination with slats, less efficient Kruger inboard and more efficient slats outboard so that the root stalled first and the stall slowly progressed outboard.

 

Steve, the book is on Amazon, entitled "From A Crystal Set To High Speed Jets." I appreciate your airline service and fulsome comments. I think that stability has always been a Boeing trademark. I flew in B-17's and when they were trimmed up, they stayed that way. I got to fly a 1933 Boeing 247 and the PIC said that it flew like a baby B-17. I flew in B-29 FIFI and the pilot, late Tom Cloyd said the same thing about the B-29, trim it and it flew like it was on a track. Very good bombing platform.

 

Yes! I'll never forget at the all hands meeting in the beginning of the program when the VP in charge of finance in the program came charging on stage of the theater that Mulally rented for the meeting. The VP was of Scandinavian descent ( can't remember his name) and he roared in dressed in full Viking regalia including a helmet with horns. The place went wild and that set the stage for the 777 effort. I can tell you that it worked.

 

You're welcome. My old head is full of a lot of stuff and I should empty it and spread it around.

 

I will look for the book, and will need you to sign it. Apparently that is a mark of the Boeing aircraft family. Once you get it in its... Slot... It is almost like it is on autopilot. What a great airplane that was. By the way, a crystal set? I built those when I was a kid before I went into CB radio in the 1960s and ham radio in 1967. My calls are WA2DDL; had them for 51 years. Great talking with all of you, I am truly humbled by the experience that I am surrounded with

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Steve, I have one book left and I will send it to you if you like. People have complained about my signing it with an "X" so I will have to learn how to write again. Send me a PM with your address and I will get it in the mail.

 

Tell you what, that sounds like such a deal that I will need your address too and I'll send you my book in return! Boy, we've got a lot of authors around this place, LOL

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I have mentioned it before but I worked for Hammer at the same time that Jim was there. I was working on the pressure sealing drawings in the fuselage and I'll bet we were almost next to each other and didn't know it. I was working next to an older person who was designing the connection of the "pickle forks" in Section 44 I think. In 1979 I was offered a job in PD and stayed there until 1992 in the 777 program. Went back three times after I retired.

 

PM sent

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Haven't received a PM yet but I was thinking that since we are trading books, forget the 25.00

 

I got the PM, thanks.

 

Yes I remember them. I still fly with ex Braniff pilots and FA’s.

 

The 727.....

Remember the first time I flew on a 727; coming in to land the wing literally de-constructed itself... like a transformer. Flaps, slats and probably a bunch of other stuff.
The 'wing' that was left was a tiny little thing. It seemed it was just a place to store all the other pieces.... Amazing.

A good friend was a FA on one for Continental.

 

They were shutting down APUs at Albuquerque in the summer for takeoffs late in the 727's career.

 

When I was conducting tours for airline pilots that would eventually fly the airplane they were always shocked when they saw the high lift system deployed on the mock up. All of the slats and flaps fully extended with plenty of air showing in between. One of the pilots exclaimed that. " You guys will never get all that Sxxt working together at the same time. It turned out to be one of the most reliable systems on the airplane. To make it work, however, it required 80% thrust If I remember and one United Airline pilot forgot that and ended a steep approach flat on the belly because there wasn't enough thrust and airspeed to flare . many comments to the effect that the 727 was the only airplane to re-assemble the wing after take off. Initially, the airplane was designed to hop and skip from one small airport to another and to have medium range, too. So, it was able to take off from short unimproved fields, climb quickly to cruise altitude and then dump everything and land at the next field. Also designed to be self supporting with an on board powerful APU and aft airstairs to unload and load without ground support equipment. It had a triple 3500 PSI hydraulic system and all powered flight control system. I was told that it had a rate of roll faster than a P-51. I saw the design evolve from a three engined DC-10 type configuration to the three engined final configuration. Engineering didn't like having the hydraulic system, fuel system, and bleed air system spread all over the airplane so they positioned the three engines together in the rear. The horizontal tail went from lower fuselage position and incrementally climbed up the vertical tail to the top. This posed some heavy loads on the vertical fin and it became the major design element. Most of the front spar was a massive forging and it looked like a canoe paddle with a hole in the paddle , through which the center engine intake duct passed. The rear spar was similar. Heavy ribs and a skin that was .063 and thicker in spots took the loads from the horizontal stab that was wiggling around at the top of the vertical fin. The vertical fin went deep into the 48 Section where it was trapped by four heavy torque boxes. There was never a problem with that arrangement. The center engine intake duct did pose a problem from the sharp change in direction inside and when Lew Wallick was making the first take off the duct started some loud booms. The copilot said that Wallick calmly retarded the thrust on number two and continued the take off. I watched that take off on a cold but clear Feb. day ( if my memory is right) and I heard the duct stall when the airplane started the roll. It was fixed with vortex generators. I worked with all the engineering disciplines when that airplane was being designed and I'll always remember the deep involvement of most of the lead engineers who were on or at the board with those that were designing things. One of the best was the wing lead engineer , Omar B. , who one day was working with the group designing the wing skins and with red pencil in hand was changing the design of the pad-up areas and his comment at the time was." I don't care what stress said, I want this pad -up to extend to the next rib!" An old timer with intuitive feel who told me that," This stuff is as much black art as it is numbers." He was never wrong, I was told.

 

Having obtained my flight engineer certificate on the 727 through Braniff, I seem to remember that the 727 had Four hydraulic systems and not three because the B hydraulic system was divided into the regular B system and a backup B system. So you actually had an A system, B system, backup B system, and standby.
I remember the first question of my oral exam rather well. I think it was to weed out the remainder of the oral... if it went well they probably figured you knew your stuff and took it easy on you for the remainder, I don't know. It went something like this...

You're flying in the (727) airplane and you have an A system hydraulic overheat. After you've taken care of that you immediately have a complete electrical failure on the 727.

Question, at that time are you in manual reversion?

Tricky I know, but if you realize that the A system pumps are electrically held into the non pumping position and spring loaded back to the pumping position you would know that upon losing your electrical system those A system pumps would snap back to the pumping position. Yes you would have hot hydraulic fluid in the A system because of the overheat but you would not be in manual reversion.

Tricky little group huh? I got to tell you Braniff really went to the nth degree to train their pilots.

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I didn't include the standby hydraulic system and didn't mention the automatic manual reversion in the flight controls. . That airplane had a lot of stuff and it all worked. I have a lot of stuff in my old head but sometimes it doesn't work.

 

Jim, you may be referring to the Salt Lake City incident where the UAL pilot didn't have the power set up enough to drive the high lift system.

 

I just remembered that when they were initially configuring the hyd. syst. they had 4 utility systems and a standby to boost the reliability but the probability people took a look and said that it would increase the possibility of having less reliability because of the higher number of things that could fail. In the old days that "stand by" system would have been called the emergency system but they decided to eliminate that from the terms associated with the airplane.