Never did get it to function!
I was also on an "orphan" flight, a 747 full of Vietnamese babies.
I have never flown in one, but I used to live close to O’Hate and always enjoyed watching them coming and going. That big bird makes an impressive take off.
Ping. Thought you might find this interesting!
Too many decades ago, was sitting on my surfboard off D&W beach and heard a really weird jet engine sound.
Flights took off from LAX right overhead all day, this one sounded very different.
Then comes this monster plane lumbering along. Looked slow, I suppose due to the size. Guess it was the turbofan engines gave it the much different intake sound under full throttle.
Was the movie shot on 35mm, Super 8 mmm or Regular 8 mm? Was the projector threaded properly—or the correct 8 mm format?
The original Pratt and Whitney engines simply were not durable and Boeing had to baby them or they would fail. P&W insisted that there was nothing wrong with the design so Boeing got the P&W president onboard one of the flights in the cockpit and showed him by first advancing the throttle on one of the engines where it promptly failed, Then they advanced the throttle of a second engine and it too failed. When the pilot reached for the third throttle the P&W president said “enough, I believe you”. P&W fixed the problem by stiffening the housing and the engine became the reliable workhorse that lasted thousands of hours.
Wow. A production run of 1574 aircraft. An incredible accomplishment. And Boeing basically bet the company's future on its success.
I flew on a 747 Fall of 1993 first class from San Francisco to Hawaii. Incredible food as good as any 5 star restaurant. 7-8 entrees to pick from. Watched Jurrasic Park and started to watch “Dave” but fell asleep. The flight attendants were all young and all very attractive. The old FA were serving the steerage class. Company paid trip for 10 days for meeting a production goal.
The first 747 I ever saw was when I was 13 and I was hiking with my dad near the top of Mt. Dana in Yosemite. I think it was on the way to SFO and it was PanAm.
Where were the Vietnamese babies going?
As I was walking my bike, I heard a strange sound coming from the sky. I was used to the sound of jet planes by this time. This sounded different. It reminded me of the sound made by truck tires, heard from a long way off; that sound was my memory from moving across the country as a child with my parents, taking Route 66 to and from southern California. It wasn't a roar or a scream sound that I was used to, more of a gentle low-pitched whine.
I looked up and saw an enormous airplane that seemed to be moving too slowly across the sky.
Then I remembered the "Jumbo Jet" I had read about in magazines. I was impressed. It sounded like something completely different, a major change. I thought "wow, that's the future."
The first time I ever heard the magnificent General Electric CF-6 high-bypass turbofan engine. Mass flow rate through the first-stage fan of about five tons per second at takeoff setting. A lower-noise version of the TF-39 they developed for the C-5 Galaxy.
I sized the 747 nacelle for one of the -80 series General Electric jet engines on the drafting board one night on third shift. I must have done a great job, lol. It went on to power Air Force One. A different era.
I toured the 747 assembly plant in Everett, WA in 1975 when it was only six years old. That was the most amazing factory tour of my life. I remember some of the videos they showed us of flexure testing of the wings with hydraulic rams and a test take-off with an intentional over-rotation and the ass of the aircraft dragging on the runway for a long ways. That was almost 50 years ago and it feels like yesterday.
I flew a 747 from Anchorage to Tokyo in the fall of 1976 and the plane was nearly empty. There must have been less than 20 paying passengers. I don’t know if they were ferrying the aircraft or if high regulated prices kept people away from travel, but I still remember all the room I had to stretch out and the great personal service from the stews.
I flew from London to Atlanta on a half empty 747 in 1974. Best flight ever.
First class flights in the 747 was the best. In the lounge upstairs, there was always baskets of cigarettes.
I was second officer on the first one to leave Fort Lauderdale/Hollywood Int. Airport back around 72 or 73
(Been a long time!)
(Flying to Lax for DAL.)
First time on landing you are amazed at the distance you are from the tarmack!
(Close to 3 stories from ground to flight deck😬)
In the mid-1980s I was on a cargo 747 before it was loaded. Walking in the empty cargo version, especially the nose area, was like being in a warehouse.
All other international flights have been on 767s (meh).
I worked in a warehouse due east by a mile from the Ontario CA airport runway. Every afternoon a UPS 747 would swoop in from Louisville and all our ceiling tiles would hop up and down. I might miss those planes but I wont miss that job.