If you happen to be near Speyer in Germany you can visit the Technikmusem Speyer and see a 747 up close. https://speyer.technik-museum.de/en/boeing-747
If that's not reason enough to visit this museum: They've also got a Buran.
As the 747 Begins Its Final Approach, a Pilot Takes a Flight Down Memory Lane
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Re: As the 747 Begins Its Final Approach, a Pilot Takes a Flight Down Memory Lane
#42I once got to go up to the cockpit as a child, and remember climbing up that spiral staircase, awing at business (or first?) class, and entering the mindboggling cockpit of switches. Something about that second floor, with a spiral staircase, is magical. Recently, I found out that 777's manage to fit a crew rest area on top of the overhead luggage compartments. I haven't been fortunate enough to check out one of thos…
Just as an info drop, the 2nd floor is business class. First class is on the first floor, in front of the cockpit geometrically.
Re: As the 747 Begins Its Final Approach, a Pilot Takes a Flight Down Memory Lane
#43The pilot from this article also wrote a great book called "Skyfaring". A must read for aviation fans. Even though it's more lyrical and less technical I still enjoyed it a lot.
Re: As the 747 Begins Its Final Approach, a Pilot Takes a Flight Down Memory Lane
#44If you happen to be near Speyer in Germany you can visit the Technikmusem Speyer and see a 747 up close. https://speyer.technik-museum.de/en/boeing-747 If that's not reason enough to visit this museum: They've also got a Buran.
I'll be near Frankfurt this winter, so thanks for the tip!
Re: As the 747 Begins Its Final Approach, a Pilot Takes a Flight Down Memory Lane
#45Joe Sutter, lead engineer and PM for the 747, wrote a nice autobiography "747: Creating the World's First Jumbo Jet"
https://www.amazon.com/dp/0060882425/
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1267151.747
The considerations for redundancy, safety, and testing for these huge passenger jets is quite striking compared to, say, the Skunkworks book.
Recommended.
Re: As the 747 Begins Its Final Approach, a Pilot Takes a Flight Down Memory Lane
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
That's fine. I'm curious how aircraft design affects the behavior of a plane when it flies through turbulence. My layperson's expectation would have been that turbulence is caused by localized air currents, and the plane is just getting shoved around. That's why I suspected a change in the behavior of the air itself.
It's to do with the aerodynamic design of the planes, the response of the wings to turbulence, and the altitude and speed at which they're flying. The 747 is a longer plane with more wing surface area. Maybe that gives it better stability. https://www.quora.com/Is-a-Boeing-747-bigger-than-a-777 The new composite materials might also be a factor, where perhaps the plane is designed to flex and distort more, which coul…
Having more mass tends to smooth out the ride quite a bit.
Being longer has both upsides and downsides as you can get a lot of torque, but you also resist that torque better.
Re: As the 747 Begins Its Final Approach, a Pilot Takes a Flight Down Memory Lane
#47Earlier quoted context omitted.
True, but airlines have absolutely made coach seats smaller and closer together over the years. And we're fatter on average than back then.
Airfare has also dropped by over 90% in the past 50-60 years.
A lot of the shrinking occured after airfares were already low.
"The average width of airplane seats has declined from 18.5 inches in the early 2000s, to 17 inches by about 2005"
http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/29/news/companies/faa-airline-s...
Re: As the 747 Begins Its Final Approach, a Pilot Takes a Flight Down Memory Lane
#48Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's to do with the aerodynamic design of the planes, the response of the wings to turbulence, and the altitude and speed at which they're flying. The 747 is a longer plane with more wing surface area. Maybe that gives it better stability. https://www.quora.com/Is-a-Boeing-747-bigger-than-a-777 The new composite materials might also be a factor, where perhaps the plane is designed to flex and distort more, which coul…
Having more mass tends to smooth out the ride quite a bit. Being longer has both upsides and downsides as you can get a lot of torque, but you also resist that torque better.
It's not the mass, it's the wing loading—the amount of mass being supported by a given area of wing. Airplanes with lower wing loadings get battered around more than those with high wing loadings.
Re: As the 747 Begins Its Final Approach, a Pilot Takes a Flight Down Memory Lane
#49Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's to do with the aerodynamic design of the planes, the response of the wings to turbulence, and the altitude and speed at which they're flying. The 747 is a longer plane with more wing surface area. Maybe that gives it better stability. https://www.quora.com/Is-a-Boeing-747-bigger-than-a-777 The new composite materials might also be a factor, where perhaps the plane is designed to flex and distort more, which coul…
Having more mass tends to smooth out the ride quite a bit. Being longer has both upsides and downsides as you can get a lot of torque, but you also resist that torque better.
The most relevant characteristic is the wing loading, I think, i.e. aircraft mass divided by wing area. For a given gust, acceleration is inversely proportional to wing loading.
A380 > B747 > B777
Re: As the 747 Begins Its Final Approach, a Pilot Takes a Flight Down Memory Lane
#50For anyone wondering why airlines are retiring the 747 this Wikipedia section summarizes it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_747-400#Retirement_and_... Summary: Old, inefficient, less need for jumbo jets. Everyone's either buying smaller or migrating to the modern Airbus A380.
The A380 isn't that popular either. The A380 only makes sense for really popular routes with a guaranteed high passenger count, whereas the 787 is more flexible because it has a similar range and takes less passengers but is almost as efficient per passenger-mile. And in 2016 there were fears Airbus might even cancel the A380 entirely: https://qz.com/782361/airbus-a380-airlines-are-abandoning-th...
The A380 was a bet on hub-and-spoke (Emirates is the biggest A380 operator, with all flights going to/from Dubai), while the B787 was a bet on point-to-point.