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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

#211

Post by WalterBright »

DangitBobby wrote: post #170
WalterBright wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the first transcontinental railroad was proposed and being built, it was beset with controversy and skepticism. But when it opened, it exceeded the wildest expectations of its most optimistic boosters. It transformed the country overnight. A similar thing happened with the first transatlantic cable.

Transcontinental railroads weren't fighting against physics. There's a reason people are pretty sure it won't work and it's not the difficulty of getting them into space or maintening them space or generally protecting them from space. Of course, those are all considerations as well. No, it's the cooling. https://taranis.ie/datacenters-in-space-are-a-terrible-horri...

> cooling

I've seen many confident assertions about that issue. Do you think Musk doesn't know about it? People thought you couldn't reuse rockets, either. Or land them on their tails. Or pluck them out of the air with chopsticks.

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#212

Post by kelnos »

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…

This is a disappointingly cynical take. Sure, it's fine to criticize some of the specifics of this particular article, but the 747 was an engineering marvel for its time, and it was one of the major workhorses of commercial (and in some cases, non-commercial) aviation for a very long time.

We're allowed to be nostalgic for it. I, like you, benefit from the modern age. I never even flew on a plane until I was 19 years old, in 2001, so I never experienced those so-called "glory days". But I think it's important to think about and memorialize those times.

Smoking is bad. Objectifying stewardesses is bad. The whole "fancy party" type atmosphere of those days feels quaint and elitist now. The 747 itself isn't a great plane by today's standards, on several metrics.

But that's fine. We can appreciate it for what it was in its time, and celebrate an aircraft that put in so many hours and miles of service.

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#213

Post by kelnos »

chrisss395 wrote: post #156

I know less about the airframe differences across the -400 and -8, but I can say the 747-8 represented a major upgrade in Flight Management Software. I re-wrote the Central Maintenance System (portion inside the FMS) in C from scratch because no one had the original detailed design documents. The original -400 code was written in Pascal if I'm remembering correctly. I gleamed what I could from the source and relied o…

> I'll quote a Boeing (from MD originally) executive as saying "Meeting this project deadline is more important than your child dying."

> Sadly this was also the time I remember Boeing's engineering ranks began to thin out.

These two things seem very related.

On a more positive note, awesome to hear an account of the software's evolution from someone who was there.

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#214

Post by shigawire »

WalterBright wrote: post #211
DangitBobby wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Transcontinental railroads weren't fighting against physics. There's a reason people are pretty sure it won't work and it's not the difficulty of getting them into space or maintening them space or generally protecting them from space. Of course, those are all considerations as well. No, it's the cooling. https://taranis.ie/datacenters-in-space-are-a-terrible-horri...

> cooling I've seen many confident assertions about that issue. Do you think Musk doesn't know about it? People thought you couldn't reuse rockets, either. Or land them on their tails. Or pluck them out of the air with chopsticks.

I'm a different guy... But I think he doesn't care and doesn't need to care. His main product is personal branding and hype -- caring about how it works is hardly relevant.

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#215

Post by shigawire »

GMoromisato wrote: post #128
grosswait wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Let’s revisit this comment in 5 years. I’m not convinced HN critics know more about this than SpaceX does.

What I find silly is the certainty that critics have that SpaceX will fail. No one can predict the future, and it's absolutely possible that orbital datacenters will fail (either for technology or business reasons). But: 1. Without a time machine, we cannot be certain. 2. If forced to choose, I would rather root for their success and be wrong than root for their failure and be right.

I have a certainty that I don't want to make a bet predicated on SpaceX needing to generate revenue from their AI products that is equivalent to several thousand dollars for every human in a middle income and up country.

I'd bet in SpaceX. I'll not bet on musk grafting in a failing AI business for financial shenanigans.

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#216

Post by mindslight »

dcrazy wrote: post #141
mathgeek wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This is why the right gets away with saying liberals hate America. This is a form of victim blaming. The right side of American politics gets away with it not because the left complains, but because the right doesn’t get punished at the polls for doing it.

They don’t get punished at the polls because people accept, or are at least willing to entertain the implication, that the left wing dislikes America. And what sense does it make to vote for an unpatriotic politician? Would you want to work for a CEO who publicly disdains the company? (Gil Amelio’s infamous quote about steering the sinking Apple ship comes to mind.) As long as the Democratic base insists on caveating…

> what sense does it make to vote for an unpatriotic politician?

I don't know? Ask everyone who voted for a second Grump term. Every one of his rambles is some kind of sour puss complaint about our country, and yet people are still lapping it up!

I'd say the better framework is constructive versus destructive. The average American just doesn't want to think about constructive solutions or constructive criticism. The nuance required for incremental improvement is just too much work. But tell them you're going to smash things and hurt people, and they'll buy right in. It's essentially pan-religious fundamentalism.

Of course then the corpos are all too happy to step in with their own constructive but proprietary and anti-individual-liberty solutions. Which points back to the real motives for why the destructive memes end up being so popularized to begin with - destruction creates a power vacuum for the corpos to step into, while constructive governmental solutions get corrupted by lobbyists to overtly benefit corpos.

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#217

Post by joezydeco »

microtonal wrote: post #32
thesumofall wrote: post #9

It’s such a beautiful plane. Despite having worked for Airbus, the 747 triggers emotions for me that the A380 simply doesn’t. It represents an era of aerospace engineering that will not come back (in many cases probably for the better - but still!)

As an aside, if anyone is going to Southern Germany, it's worth going to Technik Museum Speyer, where you can really go into the guts of the 747. They also have a Russian Buran space shuttle. The next day you could go to Technik Museum Sinnsheim, which is about half an hour from Speyer, and has both a Concorde and a Tupolev Tu-144 (both of which you can go inside). All truly marvels of engineering.

I've been to this museum, it's absolutely incredible. It's their version of the Henry Ford museum in Detroit.

The thing you neglect to mention is that the Speyer 747 is suspended 30 meters above the ground. It's breathtaking.

https://simpleflying.com/technik-museum-speyer-lufthansa-boe...

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#218

Post by stephen_g »

rootusrootus wrote: post #104
apelapan wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the A380 you get to enjoy the higher ceiling also in economy. It does make quite a difference for how cramped you feel, even though the leg room might be the same. And both B747 and A380 fly much calmer than the smaller, lighter widebodies, which is equally nice for passengers on all classes.

The A380 is probably the smoothest flying plane I've been in, but in my experience it has one slightly annoying behavior quirk that degrades from my ability to enjoy it. Granted, I've only flown in one a few times, so I may have just been unlucky. But at cruise, the autopilot surges and coasts on a slow repeating schedule. Ease off and float for a bit, get just a little bit low and throttle up slightly to catch it, r…

I've done a lot of travelling between Australia and Europe via Dubai on the A380, and I've definitely noticed the same thing, you can really feel it. You can also see it on the interactive map thing on the ones that have the 'virtual cockpit' view - the vertical speed goes positive for a bit, then back to zero, then negative for a bit, then back to zero, and repeat, all 10 hours or so of cruise on the long leg!

The 787 is nice but I find the seat width quite cramped in economy, and unfortunately premium economy isn't great value either to pay or for points upgrade on any of the airlines I fly...

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#219

Post by idontwantthis »

> Over the past two decades, airlines have stopped using it as a passenger plane and replaced it with smaller aircraft that are more efficient, but far less majestic and memorable. The 747 was once a symbol of American might, invention, progress, and populism. Now it embodies the decline of all of those values.

Can some explain why replacing it with more efficient, and still American, jets is somehow a negative for American might, progress, and invention?

Re: The Boeing 747 begins its final descent

#220

Post by [deleted] »

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…

[deleted]
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