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The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

theatlantic.com

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Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#191

Post by eichin »

GMoromisato wrote: post #67

Anyone interested should read Joe Sutter's book, 747. Sutter was the lead engineer for the development of the 747 and he has some awesome stories. One interesting story is that Juan Trippe (CEO of PanAm) wanted Boeing to create a double-decker airplane. He was enamored with the idea of "ocean liners" cruising the sky. But Sutter (and other engineers) knew that it would be impossible to create what he wanted, so inste…

I had a round trip BOS↔LHR that was 747 eastbound, 777 westbound; I ended up on the upper deck of the 747, which was fascinating as an otherwise casual flyer. One especially memorable bit was landing - you're basically three stories up and suddenly the wheels are on the ground, and you're still three stories up :-)

(I'm still happy to have traded that for planes with a much higher cabin pressure-altitude - and would trade even further for business-class transatlantic non-cruise ships. But it was definitely fun to have had the experience.)

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#192

Post by rootusrootus »

wolvoleo wrote: post #127
rootusrootus wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is very tiring. I get why Europeans might enjoy taking shots at us (though at one point I'd have said it was more of a good natured ribbing, given that Europe's history is also many Americans' history), and I fully understand the armies of bots spreading invective ... but the constant dogging on America by our own citizens is sad. I'm sure a lot of this outcome is intentional, but nobody fights back. America is ma…

Not American but I feel the sentiment. I'm planning to change nationality soon as 'my' own country is also on the same right-wing conservative track. I'm not interested in making things better anymore. I just want to break with them forever. They deserve no more admiration or loyalty. I don't believe in national pride or even of sports teams. My loyalty is always conditional, as long as my ethics align. I can imagine…

Yes, some people have that viewpoint. Very transactional. I think there was a time when I might have agreed. But as I have gotten older I've gained more of an appreciation for shared mythology and how it promotes social cohesion.

Historically in many places religion has been a primary source of shared mythology. In America, despite prominent Christian religions, a strong historical shared mythology has been of our own founding. It does not matter that it is myth, it matters that it is shared.

What I want is when an American citizen goes into that theater at the US House of Representatives before the tour and watches the short film about the founding of the country, they should come out of it damn near shedding tears of pride in how great we are. Bullshit or not, the American Creed is a source of unity. That is failing, and I am sad to see it.

When everyone becomes strictly transactional, society has failed.

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#193

Post by linzhangrun »

One interesting thing is that the 747 was born as a temporary transition product, from a failed proposal after Boeing lost the competition against the C-5 Galaxy.

In the era when Joe Sutter designed it, almost the whole world believed that supersonic passenger aviation was right in front of us. Boeing put almost all of its core resources into the Mach 2 Boeing 2707. The Jumbo Jet was only a temporary plan based on a freighter foundation from the beginning. Its later conversion to cargo use was deeply considered from the start (which makes its situation today much better than the A380).

What happened later we all know. The Tu-144 fell from the sky over Paris. Concorde barely entered service because Britain and France did not want to pay cancellation penalties. Boeing was almost dragged down by the 2707. And the 747 became Boeing’s savior.

Ironically, as engine bypass ratios increased, newer airliners became more and more fuel-efficient, also slower and slower. This former "slow temporary backup freighter" is now the highest and fastest mainline airliner in the sky, able to fly above 40,000 feet and cruise close to Mach 1.

Another perhaps sad point is that before 9/11, the Jumbo Jet dominated the sky of large aircraft. So almost all the well-known bomb attacks people can easily remember were on 747.

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#194

Post by eichin »

sgjohnson wrote: post #187

> the 747 is the only commercial jet that deserves to be called beautiful Concorde?

Concorde is exotic, absolutely, but having seen the one at Udvar-Hazy I'm not sure I'd call it beautiful... not being an aircraft designer, my sense for this is of course biased by the way the average commercial jet looks like, well, a commercial jet, and the Concorde looks like someone who was really good at paper airplanes got ahold of the CAD system for the weekend :-)

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#195

Post by wolvoleo »

rootusrootus wrote: post #192
wolvoleo wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not American but I feel the sentiment. I'm planning to change nationality soon as 'my' own country is also on the same right-wing conservative track. I'm not interested in making things better anymore. I just want to break with them forever. They deserve no more admiration or loyalty. I don't believe in national pride or even of sports teams. My loyalty is always conditional, as long as my ethics align. I can imagine…

Yes, some people have that viewpoint. Very transactional. I think there was a time when I might have agreed. But as I have gotten older I've gained more of an appreciation for shared mythology and how it promotes social cohesion. Historically in many places religion has been a primary source of shared mythology. In America, despite prominent Christian religions, a strong historical shared mythology has been of our ow…

To me it's really because they have broken that promise. Governments take advantage of that cohesion. It's not really because of the transactionality to my benefit but just because what they stand for is a net negative for society and the world.

Consider the military. Few wars are actually worth giving one's life for. Since 1945 basically none. If the Communists had won in Vietnam nothing would have happened to America. Iraq was based on false pretenses, Afghanistan accomplished absolutely nothing. My own country was part of some of these misguided adventures and has some of its own wars where it definitely was the evil aggressor.

Or think of the Nazis who exploited the very concept of this nationalism to destroy half the world.

So no. I do think it helps social cohesion but when a state is using that cohesion for evil it does not deserve to be followed.

I think we should outgrow this petty follow the leader attitude and think for ourselves.

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#196

Post by shigawire »

moojacob wrote: post #31

Didn’t read the full article but it starts with > The jet was perhaps the pinnacle of American engineering excellence. Its retirement signals an end to an era of American culture—and ambition. End of American ambition? SpaceX landing is rockets… today! That’s apples to apples also, both aerospace. In other fields we have literally taught computers how to talk.

We've given up on the next generation of technology and choose to wallow in sweet hydrocarbons.

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#197

Post by NikolaNovak »

massysett wrote: post #154

This article is but one example of a tiresome genre: the paean to the supposed glory days of aviation. Passengers dressed up, dined on caviar, and smoked cigarettes. Stewardesses were sexy, and liquor flowed in the expansive 747 lounge. These pieces then bemoan today’s bus of the sky, with the unwashed masses donning sweatpants and dragging screaming toddlers who leave orange Goldfish crumbs in the seat cracks. I am…

I agree with you on the social aspects 100%.

But still, I have a soft spot for the Golden ages of engineering well before my time - like many, I'm an apollo program geek. No matter how many documentaries I watch, books I read, websites I peruse, schematics I try to figure out, it is still beyond astonishing to me that we flew to the moon with 60s technology. I'll continue reading about it for rest of my life and be incorrectly melancholic about the simpler days of engineering :).

While the 747 isn't my kink, it'd adjexent enough thay I think I can understand it - I imagine it's similarly fascinating to think of massive intercontinental airplane designed by slide rule , then flown across Atlantic without computers or gps or ils or any other amenities.

More expensive and breakable and inefficient and polluting and just insane as it also may have been :)

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#198

Post by sidewndr46 »

Animats wrote: post #107
sidewndr46 wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This seems like an odd version of the story. My understanding is Boeing designed lots of military aircraft, not all reached production. The 747 is the result of some of that design work.

That was also said about the B-707, which was supposed to have some parts commonality with their KC-135 Stratotanker built for the USAF. But as development progressed, the airliner and the tanker diverged. The B-747 went through a similar process. Boeing was proposing a big cargo aircraft to the USAF (the CX-HLS), but that was never built. Lockheed got the C-5 contract instead, which satisfied the USAF's need for a r…

The Lockheed L-100 Hercules does exist and is apparently a civilian C-130

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#199

Post by sidewndr46 »

ggm wrote: post #166
nradov wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We might still reach a point in a few decades where capacity constraints at major airports make larger quadjets economically viable again. That was the thesis behind the Airbus A380, and it didn't work. But is it possible that they weren't so much wrong as just too early?

"Didn't work" meaning did not result in 5,000 orders. The aircraft in use by the middle east and asian airlines (and Qantas) are doing fine. They are also less economic than the modern 2 engine widebodies, despite being more economic than a 747 on the same route, with higher comfort levels and less intrusive engine noise. They just didn't turn out to fit the emerging economics of flight. They "work" fine.

I think what they mean is the A380 never made airbus any money. It makes plenty of money for many airlines

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#200

Post by GMoromisato »

jquery wrote: post #184
GMoromisato wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not sure I get it. Obviously, computers can work in space--a Starlink satellite is basically a computer with a radio attached. Satellites use radiators for cooling without violating any laws of physics. I assume you think that SpaceX will never be able to build/deploy a radiator big enough? But that's not a physics/thermodynamics question, that's an engineering question. And I think SpaceX has some pretty good en…

You could also launch people from LA to NYC via rockets instead of using airplanes without violating any laws of physics. But we don’t, because we have airplanes already. What problem are data centers in space solving? Cooling is probably the hardest issue to deal with for data centers, so why would you give up convective cooling you get for free on Earth? I don’t know why you’re jumping from starlink to data centers…

That's a different argument.

You agree that space data centers are physically possible, but you just don't think they will be economical (i.e., cheaper than terrestrial data centers). Is that right?

I don't know if they will be economical. But that will depend on a whole bunch of questions that nobody knows the answer to: How will the demand for AI grow? How much will opposition to terrestrial data centers increase the price? How cheaply can SpaceX launch mass? How cheaply can SpaceX build data center satelliters?

Maybe you know all those answers. If so, I envy your stock portfolio.

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