End Of An Aviation Era

[fragger]

The final Qantas 747 flew out of Sydney today, headed for California and thence to its final resting place at the "aircraft graveyard" in the Mohave Desert. I'm sorry to see the venerable "Jumbo" gradually being relegated to passenger-airliner history. Such a majestic and graceful aircraft, and the most successful in the annals of civilian air travel. But Qantas' jumbos are getting old, and the airline's wide-body fleet is being replaced by the likes of the A380 Airbus.

747s are being phased out by major international airlines around the world, among them Qantas, British Airways and Lufthansa. 747s are still being manufactured, but almost entirely for the major international cargo carriers such as UPS and Cargolux. The cargo operators are still keen customers, but the manufacture of the 747 series as a passenger airliner has been all but curtailed. The "Dash Eight" model (747-8) prolonged the life of the Jumbo line for a while, but it has been too little too late as far as passenger service is concerned.

I remember when the first Jumbo arrived in Sydney in 1970, almost exactly 50 years ago. It was a big deal, everybody came outside to see it pass over. Qantas took its first delivery of one a year later, and a year after that I had my first flight on one, as a 12-year-old with my parents heading for Fiji where we would live for a year. I remember looking back at it as we disembarked (there were no connecting passenger tunnels at Fiji's airport in those days, you went down steps from the plane onto the tarmac) and marvelling at the size of it, especially considering that I was about two feet shorter than I am now

Fun fact: All 747s are "hand made", i.e. no automation is utilized in their construction. All are assembled at Boeing's massive Everett Plant north of Seattle, and this plant still holds the title of the world's largest building (by volume).

This is an episode of the TV series "Megafactories" about the Everett Plant, and despite the show being made some years ago, it's still worth a watch:

[Art Blade]

impressive plane, as a kid I loved to watch them but I've never flown in one.

[Dweller_Benthos]

Is Airbus taking over the passenger market now, or does Boeing have something else to offer? I don't follow aviation very closely, but still interested in what is flying over my head. My house is on some alternate approach route to the local airport, which is over 25 miles away, mind you, so especially when it's windy or stormy, the planes fly fairly low over my house. Not something you'd expect being out on the woods for the most part. They are still probably at 3-4000 feet above sea level, but since I'm up on a fairly high hill, that means the planes are only a thousand or so feet above me. Sometimes I think they are a lot lower, especially when the weather is particularly bad.

[Art Blade]

low flying planes the size of a jumbo and the possible dangers reminds me of a news article from probably 30 years ago that i still remember vividly, mostly because of the pic of a house with a hole in its roof. That hole stemmed from something the size of a refrigerator but it was something different entirely. It was a frozen block of faeces from the plane's passenger toilet and to make matters worse, it smashed through the roof straight into the house's pantry.

Oh and don't worry too much about it, Dweller.. just make sure that you've got your snacks out when the weather is getting bad

[Dweller_Benthos]

Haha! yeah I've heard the stories if planes dropping stuff from their toilets, luckily that's never happened at my place. I think it takes a malfunction of some sort for that to happen anyway.

[Art Blade]

yeah, I don't think it's commonplace to drop *bleep* on the nearest neighbourhood Although I don't remember more details (if there were any) I can imagine that when they dumped their stuff, it was liquid and froze over on its way down, much like a raindrop turns into a snowflake. Only not quite as pretty.

[PZ]

Sad to see a venerable old friend go. I've flown in the 747 and the Airbus (only when flying to Europe), and primarily because the 747 is a bit dated, I like the Airbus a bit better for travel.

[nex]

I often went on training flights in them. We would do several touch and goes (landing, then running free for about 200m then full
throttle again for take-off) at JHB International where I was stationed, after about five or six of those we would fly down to Durban
or Cape Town, do a few touch and goes there then head back home.

[mandru]

...reminds me of a news article from probably 30 years ago that i still remember vividly, mostly because of the pic of a house with a hole in its roof. That hole stemmed from something the size of a refrigerator but it was something different entirely. It was a frozen block of faeces from the plane's passenger toilet...

I recall that indecent and an article penned by a news pundit who quipped that "The home had been hit by an ICY B.M.." 

[Art Blade]

funny that we remember the same incident (albeit different news articles)

I can't make sense of "B.M." though. Bricks and Mortar? nope. Bloody Mess? Hmm.. Bowel Movement? lol, no.. Bad Manners? Nah..

No idea. Please help me out, mandru

[mandru]

 

Art you had it with Bowel Movement(s).


Where I lived in Seattle through the 70's and 80's I had a chance to take a walking tour of the Boeing Everett Plant.

My father in-law as an employee was able to get my wife, kids, and I into the plant on a family visit event.  He worked in data management over storing and delivering on demand shipping pallets loaded with the tens of thousands of computer punch cards that stored the instructions for the automated mills that produced the various components used to assemble the jets.

From cat walks high above the production floor we were able to view each of the assembly stages of how 747s were built and prepped for delivery.


Paine Airfield where the big Boeing Everett plant is based had an annual Air Show that was always a knockout. 

[fragger]

@nex, that must have been a great experience I had no idea you were ever involved in that line of w0#k. You're full of surprises, mate

I think it takes a malfunction of some sort for that to happen anyway.

Yes, it's supposed to remain stored in a rear area of the plane until after it touches down, then it is pumped out by a special service truck.

@mandru, I'd love to tour that plant. As a young teen, I had a good friend whose older brother worked for Qantas on their ground crew. He once took us on a tour of a Jumbo which was parked for maintenance and he took us into places which the public never gets to see, like down the elevator into the storage areas, into the electronics bay in the nose, and of course onto the flight deck (where naturally we were under strict instructions not to touch anything). There was a hatch in the roof of the flight deck which the crew could use for emergency egress and by standing on one of the seats (or something, I can't quite remember) we could just get our heads through the hatch and look down the length of the top of the fuselage. From that perspective, it looked a mile long

lol @ "ICY B.M." One of those coming through the roof could really put a damper on a dinner party (insert "puke" emoji here).

[Art Blade]

@mandru: nice, that must have been a great event, mandru

And thanks for that B.M.

@fragger: cool, same as with mandru's story, that must have been impressive

And thanks for the info about what normally happens to the B.M. Looks as if my snowflake explanation wasn't so far off. Like, they didn't freeze that stuff on board before dumping it

[nex]

@nex, that must have been a great experience I had no idea you were ever involved in that line of w0#k. You're full of surprises, mate

I was there for many years fragger 

During the late 1960's when the Boeing 707's were one of the top Aircrafts I got my dad on to a 707 training flight one Sunday morning,
at the age of about 45 it was the first and only time he ever set foot on a plane. Usually just the trainee Pilot, Instructor and flight engineer
are on these training flights, so the entire aircraft is empty. The flight engineer even offered my dad some sandwiches and coffee,
on one of the approaches I got my dad to stand at the cabin door looking out the windscreen towards the approaching runway,
he stood there during the landing and taking off. Those are things the general public will never experience, and the expression on his
face when he eventually stepped off that plane at about 4pm will always be with me.