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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

#251

Post by microgpt »

jquery wrote: post #114
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.

The most interesting thing about SpaceX is how it convinced a lot of otherwise sober people that data centers in space was a $50 septillion addressable market. You might laugh and think I’m joking but a lot of people seriously fell for the nonsense in the public filing, which should’ve been a one way ticket to SEC jail.

It's just money laundering. They hide transfers of wealth inside an IPO, buyback etc and tell ludicrous tales so they have a cover story that investors are investing because they believed the tales and not to move money.

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#252

Post by microgpt »

GMoromisato wrote: post #200
jquery wrote: post #184

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 t…

They won't be economical for many reasons - one of them is cooling. Putting several kilowatts of radiators on a Starlink satellite is a justified cost because the Starlink satellite must be in space. Putting a hundred megawatts of radiators on your AI DC in space is ridiculous because that's too big of a radiator (how do you keep it structurally sound?), air cooling on the ground is a million times better and there's no good reason for it to be in space.

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#253

Post by microgpt »

dylan604 wrote: post #76
wiredfool wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One time I got an entire center row of 5 seats going from Seattle->Heathrow overnight.

I had a long haul flight from DFW-SYD that had plenty of empty seats to the point they offered an upgrade to guarantee you'd be the only person in the row. Best spent $100 ever related to airfare.

This is or was a feature on Air New Zealand. You could buy three adjacent seats and call it a SkyCouch where two people can lie down and cuddle. Not sure how much the seats actually transformed into a couch. They were also very clear that clothes must remain on.

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#254

Post by _jackdk_ »

Qantas gave its final 747s a nice send-off too, back in July 2020, flying its final commercial 747 flight as QF7474.

https://www.qantas747.com/

They also had QF7474 trace the Qantas logo in its track along the way, which is so cool and I am surprised I couldn't find it in the official site:

https://www.escape.com.au/destinations/australia/how-qantas-...

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#255

Post by Forgeties79 »

shipman05 wrote: post #207
sandworm101 wrote: post #190

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the context of the different regulatory environment. Those fancy cabins in the 60s/70s were because prices/routes were controlled by government. Unable to compete on price, airlines competed on luxury. Which, at the time, largely boiled down to who which had the shortest miniskirts in the TV ads. Today's flying cattlecar hell is the result of the opposite, a dramatic market-driven race to the bottom of quality...…

Or we could just build trains (in the US, other wealthy places seem to already get this)

Seriously it is embarrassing how under developed trains are in the US. Yes there are some routes that don’t make sense but there are tons that do. It makes no sense. We’ve simply resigned to this general feeling of “well everything is probably too far apart and even if they aren’t it’s just not going to happen.”

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#256

Post by 9x39 »

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…

>What problem are data centers in space solving?

A hedge that as it gets harder to build datacenters in communities over water, power, noise, space, tax, etc reasons that space is a new frontier for them. Consider that solar power works better in space.

Also, satellites may be able to do processing of data in-orbit.

>I don’t know why you’re jumping from starlink to data centers in space.

You just mentioned it - cooling. Consider Starlink a POC of radiating computer heat in space. A datacenter would need a scaled-up version, but it is not impossible, although it could be impractical if the cost of compute doesn't rise enough.

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#257

Post by bobthepanda »

GrifMD wrote: post #245
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'm kind of torn between the top deck and the nose seats. I've flown British Airways's business class on the upper deck, and I've flown Qantas' business class which is all on the lower deck starting at the nose. I wasn't quite at the front, but I was close enough to see the slightly more forward facing windows. I always thought it'd be great to sit in that first row and have that more forward facing view. I had a bla…

I would have to imagine that the newer 747-8 would have the much lower pressurization and other comfort standards of its generation of aircraft in the 2000s; the problem is that it didn't really sell so most people did not get to fly in one.

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#258

Post by bobthepanda »

pfdietz wrote: post #3
anovikov wrote: post #2

But really, it was just about four-engine planes becoming too expensive to run. Two-engine planes won. 777 burns 30% less fuel per passenger and has almost the same cabin width. And top level became a flop because it's too narrow for a first class cabin by today's standards and all other uses for them make no sense. Top floor existed at all because it was Boeing's entry for a heavy cargo plane competition in which C-…

I think the top floor is there because the crew cabin has to be high so the nose can swing up. The cables and wiring from the cabin can't be easily disconnected to allow such access. You will notice other large cargo variants of airliners load cargo only through the side of the fuselage.

This is correct.

For context, when the 747 was being developed, simultaneously Boeing was developing the SST, Britain and France were developing Concorde, and the Soviets had their own supersonic Tupolevs in development. Boeing was anticipating that supersonic aircraft would render the subsonic 747 obsolete for passengers overnight, so it was designed to be easily convertible to freight.

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#259

Post by bobthepanda »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #255
shipman05 wrote: post #207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or we could just build trains (in the US, other wealthy places seem to already get this)

Seriously it is embarrassing how under developed trains are in the US. Yes there are some routes that don’t make sense but there are tons that do. It makes no sense. We’ve simply resigned to this general feeling of “well everything is probably too far apart and even if they aren’t it’s just not going to happen.”

there is a large, well connected domestic auto industry that wants Americans to keep driving bigger and more gas guzzling cars because that's the only thing they know how to sell to Americans these days.

Though this is not really limited to the legacy automakers; the Hyperloop was a media stunt to try and divert investment away from transit, and in some places, it actually worked.

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#260

Post by rob74 »

> Combining the immensity of an ocean liner and the elegance of a swan, the 747 is the only commercial jet that deserves to be called beautiful.

If this article is going to be so poetic, I'm not sure I can continue reading it. Let's just stop for a moment and remember that the 747's, er, distinctive shape wasn't some designer's fancy, it was dictated by necessity: while it was being designed, Boeing feared that in the near future all (long-distance) passenger travel would be supersonic, so it wanted the 747 to also be attractive as a freighter, so they added the possibility of loading cargo from the front, so the cockpit had to be moved up. Simple as that. Of course, the supersonic revolution didn't happen, instead the 747 ushered in the era of widebody jets, and all the fond memories it created now make it look beautiful to the nostalgic. But in the end, Boeing's engineers were proven right: currently there are around 300 747s still in operation, but only 29 of them are passenger variants.

Ok, moving on...

> Most 747 routes spanned oceans and continents, giving travelers a speedier option than the Queen Mary had across the Atlantic, or the California Zephyr across the West.

You've got your Boeing planes mixed up there buddy! That was the 707, not the 747. The Queen Mary was retired in 1967, and the 747 first flew in 1969, so there obviously was no timespan where the one was an alternative to the other.

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