Whatever its future, that is one monster plane I would love to see fly. Given the 747 has no future now and even the A380 is not that popular and might vanish, we may never see such a huge plane again.
747s are still used for cargo. I saw one fly over my head just yesterday.
Yeah...while there probably won't be many/any new 747s built, they'll probably be flying cargo for many decades. Last II knew, FedEx was still flying 25 or so Douglas DC-10 cargos, more than 30 years after the last one was built.
2 years ago they landed this plane here in Brazil, when they camt to pick hidroeletrical generator parts. I gone with a plane enthusiast friend to see the thing take off. I know the phisics, but amazes me that something that big can fly. Theres hope that more of this are made in the next years. It looks like China is interested in making a few units;
It always amazed me that you could strap a space shuttle to a modified 747 and ... fly. The whole idea of "just strap it to another flying machine and move it that way" seems like something my 4 year old would come up with. It is clear my mental model of 'things that can fly good' is deficit when we see things like the AN-225 and etc.
Interestingly, there was some doubt within NASA as to whether the 747 piggyback was a good idea. One of the proponents of the idea was a scale model builder, and made a model to demonstrate it; the model's success was persuasive enough that they continued to study the idea.
In the end, the 747-Space Shuttle combo actually has better crosswind landing characteristics than a normal 747, but it has atrocious fuel economy.
As a political stunt, Polish government has chartered this plane to deliver medical supplies to Poland. What a sight! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnQPcMcGVZ8 However, the costs were insane - around $3 million . Transporting the same amount of cargo with 777 would cost about $1 milion. But the political stunt was priceless.
Maybe it was a political stunt, but actually there are two justification of that. 1) The volume. The masks and other protective gear is volume-demanding cargo, since the overall density including packing (boxes) is low. The Boeing 777 Freighter (777F) has 518m3 of cargo volume on main deck [1], An-225 has 1200m3 [2], so the price per 1m3 of volume is 1930$ and 2500$ respectively (ratio 1.3). 2) The demand and the qua…
Another factor that was mentioned when it flew medical supplies to Montreal is that the An-225 always flies with all the crew it needs, including replacements, and so it was feasible for the plane to wait for a few hours while the logistics were being sorted out (e.g. cash-and-carry deals right on the tarmac, the situation was reportedly crazy in march/april). With another plane/airline, the time slot may be too tight because of crew schedules, etc.
I saw it once at an air show in Pretoria, along with some other cool planes like the Sukhoi SU-35. The Russians actually loaded up all their other planes into the Antonov, and flew it straight from Moscow to Pretoria in one shot!
It always amazed me that you could strap a space shuttle to a modified 747 and ... fly. The whole idea of "just strap it to another flying machine and move it that way" seems like something my 4 year old would come up with. It is clear my mental model of 'things that can fly good' is deficit when we see things like the AN-225 and etc.
Interestingly, there was some doubt within NASA as to whether the 747 piggyback was a good idea. One of the proponents of the idea was a scale model builder, and made a model to demonstrate it; the model's success was persuasive enough that they continued to study the idea. In the end, the 747-Space Shuttle combo actually has better crosswind landing characteristics than a normal 747, but it has atrocious fuel econom…
I wonder how many great ideas have been missed out on because our most basic filter / mental models that allow us to just choose basic candidates for options are ... wrong.
"Wait no you can't do that, let's look into this other thing."
I have been inside this airplane and I've got some pics to share: https://egorfine.com/photo/mriya/
Off topic, but I wanted to say thank-you. I've recently had to move away from an antiquated Gallery2 install, and these photos had me wondering how you were hosting a personal gallery. This led me to Juicebox which seems super-cool and perfect for meeting a lingering need. Thank you!
Interestingly, there was some doubt within NASA as to whether the 747 piggyback was a good idea. One of the proponents of the idea was a scale model builder, and made a model to demonstrate it; the model's success was persuasive enough that they continued to study the idea. In the end, the 747-Space Shuttle combo actually has better crosswind landing characteristics than a normal 747, but it has atrocious fuel econom…
I wonder how many great ideas have been missed out on because our most basic filter / mental models that allow us to just choose basic candidates for options are ... wrong. "Wait no you can't do that, let's look into this other thing."
My favorite example of a near-miss because of that sort of opposition is lunar orbit rendezvous.[1] Yuri Kondratyuk, Tom Dolan, and John Houbolt were the protagonists in that instance; I generally disfavor the 'great man' theory of history, but I think those three made a real difference.
I wonder how many great ideas have been missed out on because our most basic filter / mental models that allow us to just choose basic candidates for options are ... wrong. "Wait no you can't do that, let's look into this other thing."
My favorite example of a near-miss because of that sort of opposition is lunar orbit rendezvous.[1] Yuri Kondratyuk, Tom Dolan, and John Houbolt were the protagonists in that instance; I generally disfavor the 'great man' theory of history, but I think those three made a real difference. [1] https://www.nasa.gov/centers/langley/news/factsheets/Rendezv...