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massysett 3 hours ago [-]
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 a beneficiary of the modern age of aviation. I don’t fly routes that would ever have been profitable for the 747, I don’t imbibe in the sky, I’ve never eaten the cheese varieties that the Pan Am stewardesses were trained to serve, and caviar just doesn’t interest me.
But I do ride narrow-body jets on nonstop routes that would never have seen 747 service, the experience is perfectly acceptable, and that’s my toddler chomping on the Goldfish. That narrow-body airplane is much cheaper to operate than a 747 ever was, which is fantastic because my toddler doesn’t have an expense account.
Some folks find a fuel-guzzling huge machine romantic. That would be fine if they wrote pieces about their love of big old planes. But instead they often start rambling about how this giant old plane was a pinnacle of engineering and of some grand social order. They forget what aviation truly was in those days and neglect the benefits of what it is now. One might think this is elitist or worse. But I shrug. I just find it tiresome.
SR2Z 2 hours ago [-]
I think the context that's missing from this discussion is just how long the 747 was in service. When it was new, pilots didn't directly control the engines - a flight engineer did. There were no moving maps and navigation was done with radio beacons and pilotage (of course, this required lots of fiddling with knobs and a notepad). There were no flight envelope protections, and we knew next to nothing about the dangers of rocketing across the ocean at Mach 0.9. The first encounter between a jetliner and volcanic ash was a 747; despite all four engines flaming out and the whole plane being wreathed in St. Elmo's fire, the pilots were able to safely restart all of them and nobody got hurt. People who love this jet love it because they see the problems it solved and how it kept on rising to the occasion as the world changed around it.
I'm not going to pay 2x ticket prices to keep it alive either, but it is terribly romantic. If human beings are allowed to fall in love with machines this one is as good as any.
sandworm101 56 minutes ago [-]
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... followed by a price bounce to see how much money they can pull out of use before we give up and drive.
The day we have self-driving cars good enough that we can sleep, domestic air travel is dead. Ill take 10 hours curlled up in the back seat of my car rather than the 10+ hours it takes getting to/from airports for a domestic flight.
dolphenstein 2 minutes ago [-]
I bet if you pay the equivalent 60s/70s dollars to fly today you'll get much better service than back then! Modern first class cabins are a class above what was available back then.
shipman05 6 minutes ago [-]
Or we could just build trains (in the US, other wealthy places seem to already get this)
stephen_g 2 hours ago [-]
For the money things have actually got better. If you pay the equivalent (adjusted for inflation or compared to wages) of what they were paying back then for an international flight, you're in first class and on a good airline that's hugely better than anything from the 'golden age'. Even business class is cheaper and (again on good airlines) is better than what people had then - the planes are quieter, the seats lie flat, the food is good, lounge access with free food and drinks before and on any stopovers...
It's kind of crazy that people compare the experience on a $1000 transalantic ticket and bemoan that the experience doesn't seem quite as good as something that was costing people the equivalent of 10-20x as much back then!
duskwuff 1 hours ago [-]
Air travel has also become ~100x safer on a per-passenger basis:
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 :)
Aloha 2 hours ago [-]
We would all have been better off if Boeing had replaced the 737 with the 757 as intended. Its quieter, more comfortable, and a better aircraft all around.
fosk 2 hours ago [-]
Function over form, or form over function? The endless debate.
Not necessarily disagreeing with you but I understand the merits in cherishing “form” in a world that is - for the most part - devoid of beauty and taste.
Onavo 10 minutes ago [-]
They were limited by the tech of the time too. A modern clean sheet redesign of a 747/A380 class airplane would look very different given modern composites and improvements in engine bypass and compression ratio.
tolciho 1 hours ago [-]
The "big old plane" was from the B team at Boeing, everyone with money or ambition or plain common sense then had put their chips on supersonics, which guzzle even more fuel in addition to the Operation Bongo II problem.
huflungdung 3 hours ago [-]
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chrisss395 3 hours ago [-]
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 on unit tests to get the rest of the way there based on what I knew of the protocol itself.
The entire FMS software was completely re-written in C++ and using modern object oriented patterns (at the time). Probably the most fun I've had over my now 20'ish year career. Of course Boeing was pissed with the delays this caused because the airframe wasn't a major change. 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. Personal opinion, this was a large part of what led to the MAX situation.
scorpioxy 2 hours ago [-]
That executive has lost any human decency and should be fired.
wkipling 2 hours ago [-]
Awesome. Was this part of the NG FMS program?
I find it interesting how the 747 FMS is newer than the 777s yet due to type similarity retains legacy features.
GMoromisato 7 hours ago [-]
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 instead they proposed a wide-body aircraft (10 seats across). Nevertheless, Trippe insisted on a double-decker design.
The engineers then created two cabin mockups. One for a double decker, which was basically two narrow-body cabins stacked on top of each other. The other was the wide-body of the 747. Once Trippe saw the trade off, he realized that the spacious cabin of the 747 was the way to go.
But even then, when he saw the second level where the pilots go, he insisted on putting passengers up there too.
I've had the good fortune to fly on the top deck of the 747. I highly recommend it.
eichin 56 minutes ago [-]
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.)
zabzonk 5 hours ago [-]
I hated the top deck when flying east from NY to London. The rising sun poured in every time a crew member opened the cockpit door, waking me up. Best seat for me was the single one in the lower deck at the very nose of the aircraft.
The 747 was a great aircraft to fly in though. The tower of power effect on take-off really reassured you that you were going to get where you were going.
hdgvhicv 4 hours ago [-]
BA used to fly the on the Moscow to London route once a day. I remeber vividly the late night a320 flight was cancelled and we were stuck in the lounge until the early morning flight about 6 hours later.
Somewhere over the North Sea I decided to give the on board phone a go, and it worked. A early call to let my wife know I’d made it (there were only a few seats left on the morning flight and 180 passengers to fit on).
Next time I flew it the phones weren’t working, and it wasn’t long until they’d all been removed, so I’m glad I got to tick that off my list.
Likely my last 747 flight ever was far less salubrious. I was supposed to be flying Toronto to jfk to Heathrow, but the Toronto flight was cancelled and I got downgraded to economy and put on a 747 to Amsterdam.
pa7ch 3 hours ago [-]
What do you mean by this tower of power effect? Was it just that the 747 had a more powerful take-off or something due to 4 engines?
epc 3 hours ago [-]
There was quite a kick when the engines spooled up. I flew mainly SFO/LAX to SYD and the few minutes of full thrust you just kind of sat back in your seat and didn't try to do anything.
zabzonk 3 hours ago [-]
More or less. I remember the first time I flew in a tri-jet (after a 747), I was a bit worried on take-off about how we were still on the ground as the end of the runway approached.
To clarify slightly, I first heard "tower of power" used to describe the Saturn V. So two icons of the late 60s.
kkylin 5 hours ago [-]
We got front lower deck seats once when I was a kid. My sister and I had extra open floor space for playing. It was great.
zabzonk 4 hours ago [-]
Oh no - you were THOSE kids.
kkylin 2 hours ago [-]
Actually we weren't (& aren't) able to afford this kind of thing. Dad worked for the airline & somehow got this perk, just once.
pwarner 22 minutes ago [-]
I sat under and in front of the pilots once. Also highly recommended.
linzhangrun 1 hours ago [-]
Highly recommended, too. I was completely captivated by this when I was an elementary school student.
sidewndr46 5 hours ago [-]
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.
GMoromisato 4 hours ago [-]
You should read the book, if you're interested. From the book (p.84):
"Time and time again there appears in print the logical but false assumption that Boeing took its losing military C-5 bid and revamped it as the commercial 747. In fact, the 747 would be an entirely original design that owes nothing to the C-5."
That said, in the same chapter he talks about how GE developed a high-bypass turbofan engine for the C-5 and it was only because they had such an engine that the 747 became possible.
But really my only point is that you should read the book if you're interested.
WalterBright 3 hours ago [-]
The engines drive the design.
Animats 5 hours ago [-]
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 really big cargo plane.
So the B-747 was built as a commercial plane, mostly to Pan Am's requirements.
Military-civilian commonality was mostly wishful thinking at the management levels, as it turned out.
sidewndr46 27 minutes ago [-]
The Lockheed L-100 Hercules does exist and is apparently a civilian C-130
stephen_g 2 hours ago [-]
It still does happen though, so not totally wishful thinking - but it seems to go the other way, commercial to miliary e.g. like the KC-30A tanker which are converted from standard commercial A330-200s (and as I understand the new version will be from A330neos).
WalterBright 3 hours ago [-]
The 707 was redesigned with a wider fuselage to carry the number of passengers the airlines wanted.
wolvoleo 4 hours ago [-]
That makes sense because a high cockpit also combines well with nose loading which some military freighters have.
fracus 5 hours ago [-]
My memory of the 747 was that it was originally the military who paid for the design. They wanted an aircraft that could be loaded from the front. This led to the bubble at the front of the plane. For whatever reason, the military didn't bite so they repurposed it as a commercial aircraft.
hydrogen7800 6 hours ago [-]
One thing I remember from his book is that the 747 was initially of secondary importance within Boeing, behind the SST. This wasn't Boeing's flagship, so to speak, until SST was canceled.
ghaff 3 hours ago [-]
The upper deck was really intended as a first class lounge and I think I was up there once. But obviously wasn't very economical and got turned into business class seating once that came in.
linzhangrun 49 minutes ago [-]
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.
thesumofall 9 hours ago [-]
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!)
microtonal 8 hours ago [-]
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.
rambambram 5 hours ago [-]
Very interesting! Looks like nice museums to go to.
When I DuckDuckGo these museums, they seem to be related somehow!? https://www.technik-museum.de/
I recently visited Stuttgart to go to the Mercedes Benz Museum. They too have a lot of technical stuff of course, and history. Really recommend it!
selimthegrim 8 hours ago [-]
Don’t forget to top it off with a visit to the Hermann Oberth Museum near Nuremberg.
WillAdams 4 hours ago [-]
It was the last aircraft designed using a slide rule and conventional drafting --- the conventional wisdom is that if one printed up a compleat set of blueprints and loaded it on the plane it would be too heavy to take off, though of course, the anticipation was that it would soon be replaced by supersonic passenger aircraft, so it was designed to be easily converted to cargo.
Amazing aircraft, well-deserving of the "Queen of the Skies" moniker, I can still vividly remember going up to the upper deck and cockpit and the view out of the front/side windows.
WalterBright 3 hours ago [-]
My lead engineer at Boeing, Burt Berlin, showed me his (paper) design notebook for the 747. All done with a slide rule. He was an engineer's engineer, and a super nice guy.
agumonkey 5 hours ago [-]
I'm just a layman, but somehow Airbus doesn't embody the airplane magic.. yet I'm very curious what this means to you. Any easy to grasp details you could describe ?
chadgiq 4 hours ago [-]
Flew one from Chicago to Tokyo quite a few years back, what a great flight that was!
eastbound 7 hours ago [-]
It’s beautiful because Boeing started, not with the smallest, but with the largest plane possible. Meanwhile Airbus started with Concorde, a completely orthogonal project to round up everyone’s identical patriotism, and both projects were absolutely beautiful in their own way!
dingaling 6 hours ago [-]
> Meanwhile Airbus started with Concorde
Oh gracious no, Airbus started with the utilitarian A300 widebody twin[1].
Concorde was Sud Aviation and BAC joint venture, nothing to do with Airbus which didn't even exist at that time.
[1]The original A300A might have been interesting, having a fuselage as wide as the much later 777, but Airbus got cold feet and scaled it down to the dull and worthy A300B. Every Airbus widebody until the A380 was constrained by that decision.
ahartmetz 5 hours ago [-]
Well. If you squint a little, Sud Aviation and BAC + others became Airbus. Airbus was first a consortium and then a proper successor (through a merger) to several European aircraft manufacturers. Sud Aviation's acquirer Aérospatiale was an initial member of the Airbus consortium and BAC's acquirer British Aerospace joined slightly later in 1979.
> 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.
Leonard_of_Q 7 hours ago [-]
The Atlantic writes for its owners as well as its readership, both of whom consider it unsavoury to compliment their homeland without adding multiple caveats.
jquery 5 hours ago [-]
Considering who the current face of the country is and how we are acting on the world stage, it’s the least they can do.
dcrazy 4 hours ago [-]
This is why the right gets away with saying liberals hate America. Because as long as there is anything to criticize about America (which there always will be), some people simply cannot make a single truly positive statement about America, or even things that happened in or came from America.
Slate is even worse than The Atlantic in this regard.
mathgeek 4 hours ago [-]
> 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.
dcrazy 3 hours ago [-]
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 every American achievement with the Omnicause, it will keep playing into the Gingrichian rhetoric.
jquery 1 hours ago [-]
I looked up Gil Amelio’s “infamous” quote and it doesn’t seem incorrect given what Apple was going through at the time. Steve Jobs had just sold 1.5 million shares of Apple stock and tanked the stock, would you accuse Steve Jobs of hating Apple?
Toxic positivity is when you can’t criticize something even when it deserves criticism. Is America full of brilliant people? Yes. Is it in a steep decline at the moment? Also yes. Apple thrived because Steve Jobs did a coup and steered the ship. America needs the same, but not from an incompetent nincompoop like the current moron.
cma 4 hours ago [-]
Finally the explanation for why the Trump campaign slogan "Keep America Great" resonated so well against that kind of opposition backdrop.
throw-the-towel 4 hours ago [-]
How is this kind of ritual flagellation supposed to mitigate Trump though?
GMoromisato 4 hours ago [-]
Ironically, it's this ritual self-flagellation that helped elect Trump.
Normies lost faith in the media partly because they were seen as not really loving America. And if you don't trust the media, then it's a lot easier to believe Trump's lies.
jquery 1 hours ago [-]
> Normies lost faith in the media partly because they were seen as not really loving America.
I would argue they lost faith because the media constantly lies and distorts the truth to promote the ideology of capital. They are elite and disconnected, absolutely, just not in a left wing way, but a corpo-capitalist way (which only looks “left” if you’re to the right of capital).
GMoromisato 6 hours ago [-]
I agree with you, and I would have expected Ian Bogost to take a more holistic view.
Talking about why, for example, Boeing never build a larger passenger airplane, or why the Concorde is no longer flying, would actually make for an interesting analysis of technology and business.
Why did the progression from the Wright brothers to the 747 not continue for the next fifty years? The answer has to do with physics and economics rather than lack of American ambition or excellence.
WalterBright 3 hours ago [-]
> Boeing never build a larger passenger airplane
1. there wasn't demand for one - airliner designs are driven by the customers
2. the airport terminals would have to be rebuilt
3. the runways would have to be redone to support the weight
> why the Concorde is no longer flying
It lost prodigious amounts of money on every flight. The Concorde was a prestige project, not a practical one.
> Why did the progression from the Wright brothers to the 747 not continue for the next fifty years?
The 747 is far more technologically primitive than today's airliners. Take a good close look at the wing shape of the two, for starters.
GMoromisato 3 hours ago [-]
And that's my point: Your answers are far more interesting than Ian Bogost's throwaway assertion that America just wasn't ambitious enough and that aircraft engineering peaked with the 747.
projektfu 2 hours ago [-]
You could say that engineering excellence at GE (and competition with RR and P&W) led to ETOPS which made it less attractive to simply build larger airplanes with 3+ engines. Why send one 747 per day when you can send multiple A330s or 767s, accommodating more schedules?
sidewndr46 5 hours ago [-]
I find the whole thing a little odd. The 747 seems to be a great aircraft. It's also a quad jet and the change in regulations for ETOPS makes twinjets a no brainer for reducing cost. There's no reason to hurry and up and get rid of them, many will continue in cargo service for many years. But there isn't any reason to build big quad jets any longer
nradov 3 hours ago [-]
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?
ggm 2 hours ago [-]
"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.
sidewndr46 26 minutes ago [-]
I think what they mean is the A380 never made airbus any money. It makes plenty of money for many airlines
s1artibartfast 24 minutes ago [-]
I think they mean work out for airbus.
Financially was a huge program disaster. It sold half the number of airframes needed for cost break even in nominal value, before accounting for the cost of capital. This also doesnt account for billions in illegal EU government
subsidies.
rayiner 6 hours ago [-]
America is currently leading the way in both commercial aerospace and AI simultaneously. This feels like a decade old article.
GMoromisato 6 hours ago [-]
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shigawire 32 minutes ago [-]
We've given up on the next generation of technology and choose to wallow in sweet hydrocarbons.
Rover222 6 hours ago [-]
Glad to see your sentiment. I’m so tired of the reflexive self flagellation of a lot of Americans. It’s often based in ignorance.
rootusrootus 5 hours ago [-]
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 many things, has done many things. Some great, some not so much. Americans themselves should at least be honest about seeing the good parts even if nobody else will admit it. And if we're going to keep progressing forward we need people to be on board in good faith.
/soapbox rant over
wolvoleo 4 hours ago [-]
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 some Americans feel that way too.
rootusrootus 55 minutes ago [-]
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.
wolvoleo 38 minutes ago [-]
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.
llbbdd 5 hours ago [-]
Agreed. A lot of my countrymen have forgotten that America generally kicks ass, it's sad to see.
jquery 5 hours ago [-]
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.
WalterBright 3 hours ago [-]
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.
DangitBobby 2 hours ago [-]
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.
The Union Pacific Railroad (the eastern half of the transcontinental railroad) also caused the financial crisis of 1873 (due to construction costs and various corruption and bribery around financing them). It then went bankrupt in 1893.
So, yes, it transformed the country. That didn't necessarily benefit the stockholders and bondholders.
grosswait 4 hours ago [-]
Let’s revisit this comment in 5 years. I’m not convinced HN critics know more about this than SpaceX does.
GMoromisato 4 hours ago [-]
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.
WalterBright 3 hours ago [-]
What I find silly is the certainty that critics have that SpaceX will fail.
When I started my own business, everyone thought it was doomed to failure. Friends, enemies, acquaintances, all of them.
Except my dad. He believed in me, though he had no idea what I was doing.
Musk is in good company with the crazy people who build the first tunnel under the Thames, the nuts who laid the first transatlantic people, the morons who dug the Panama Canal, and the fools who built the first transcontinental railroad.
Me, I bought me some SPCX.
DangitBobby 2 hours ago [-]
A bit strange that you started you comment with the exact same sentence as the previous commenter.
GMoromisato 2 hours ago [-]
They're just quoting it but typo'ed the >
I was confused at first too.
WalterBright 15 minutes ago [-]
Yup. I've done that before.
DangitBobby 2 hours ago [-]
Unless SpaceX knows something about thermodynamics that no one else knows, we can be pretty fucking sure that they have an incompetent mouthpiece or they are committing securities fraud.
GMoromisato 1 hours ago [-]
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 engineers.
Help me out and tell me how you can be so sure it will never work.
jquery 1 hours ago [-]
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 in space. The utility of satellite internet has been known for decades before Starlink came around.
GMoromisato 25 minutes ago [-]
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.
anovikov 3 days ago [-]
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-5 Galaxy won: it was meant to be a cargo plane with a small - top floor - passenger cabin.
addaon 8 hours ago [-]
> Top floor existed at all because it was Boeing's entry for a heavy cargo plane competition
Yes, but it turns out the hump is great for area ruling (aerodynamic drag reduction at transonic speeds), as observed by the 747-300's extended hump giving lower drag (but higher weight, of course) than the short-hump versions.
SoftTalker 9 hours ago [-]
I'd guess they'll continue in cargo service for many more years, just as the DC10 and MD11 did (despite the grounding after the Louisville crash, I expect they will fly again before finally being retired).
loeg 8 hours ago [-]
Fedex continues to fly the MD11; UPS retired their fleet.
topspin 9 hours ago [-]
Yes. There are recently built 747-8's that will in service for a couple more decades.
WalterBright 3 hours ago [-]
> it was just about four-engine planes becoming too expensive to run
Four engines are also less safe than twin engines. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but Boeing did the math and made the case.
anonymars 2 hours ago [-]
Can you link to the source?
WalterBright 15 minutes ago [-]
My time working on Flight Controls at Boeing.
pfdietz 3 days ago [-]
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.
cucumber3732842 9 hours ago [-]
Yes and no. The C5 has an upper level too. The whole setup solves a lot of problems at once. Opening nose makes for faster cargo operations which the military cares about for a bunch of reasons. There are usually people associated with military cargo so might as well seat them up there.
pfdietz 8 hours ago [-]
I understand that for the 747, they initially just had a cockpit bulge atop the fuselage. However, this created too much drag, which they reduced by extending the bulge aft. They didn't need this space for flight operations, so it was naturally then used for additional passenger space.
lstodd 8 hours ago [-]
Any large cargo aircraft has primary loading inline with centerline, side doors just aren't efficient. It's either via front, via rear or both.
Me321/323 was I think first heavy cargo with nose clamshell doors, but after that everyone settled on nose rising up, clamshell rear. It also had the top deck.
philipwhiuk 7 hours ago [-]
Engines became reliable enough for regulators to allow two engine planes to cross large bodies of water. (ETOPS) That's what really killed 4 engine planes.
WalterBright 3 hours ago [-]
Twin engines are actually safer than four.
d_silin 9 hours ago [-]
1969 was truly the pinnacle of US aerospace industry - Concord, Boeing 747 and Apollo 11 all happened during this year.
ceejayoz 9 hours ago [-]
The Concorde wasn't made in the US. It was a UK/France partnership.
d_silin 9 hours ago [-]
My bad! Global aerospace industry then.
schainks 4 hours ago [-]
The US was still very much involved in its development and testing, so I think we can still chalk it up as a win for multi-country collaboration, eh :3
AnimalMuppet 9 hours ago [-]
Concorde wasn't the US aerospace industry.
9 hours ago [-]
mrcwinn 8 hours ago [-]
This is such an absurd statement. What US aerospace has created post 1969 is nothing short of remarkable in comparison. (And we can be proud of the Apollo era too.)
A_D_E_P_T 8 hours ago [-]
> This is such an absurd statement.
Oh come on, it's hardly "absurd."
> What US aerospace has created post 1969 is nothing short of remarkable in comparison. (And we can be proud of the Apollo era too.)
What are you referring to?
If you want to chart progress over time, consider this: In 1919, people were still flying biplanes and civilian aviation barely existed. Fifty years later, in 1969, you've got the 747 -- consider the progress made over those fifty years! Fifty years from then, in 2019, you've still got the 747 -- alongside, as the article notes, smaller and less remarkable aircraft "that are more efficient, but far less majestic and memorable."
So what, pray tell, is so remarkable?
Waterluvian 7 hours ago [-]
The onboard WiFi was terrible prior to 1970.
rbanffy 7 hours ago [-]
And no internet access!
ReptileMan 7 hours ago [-]
The efficiency and the safety. Modern planes are disgustingly safe to the point that hull loss is almost unheard of. For 50 years the industry has optimized for safety and fuel efficiency. And the modern machines are marvels in that.
rbanffy 7 hours ago [-]
True, but still incremental improvements over proven designs - maybe a sign of very strict safety standards making new designs and differentiation more expensive than just the development.
aunty_helen 6 hours ago [-]
Or more likely, that’s exactly how you make incredibly safe systems.
Not by introducing clean sheet unproven designs but by taking what works and improving any deficiencies over and over again.
rayiner 6 hours ago [-]
Today’s airliners cruise slower than a 747.
dcrazy 4 hours ago [-]
For very rational economic reasons, underpinned by the same fundamental physical principle that makes my car more fuel-efficient doing 60 instead of 85.
rootusrootus 5 hours ago [-]
Not due to any technical limitation, and that is just one single metric.
decimalenough 5 hours ago [-]
But they do so much more efficiently, and the speed difference is minimal (Boeing 747-8 cruises at 706 mph, 787 Dreamliner at 690 mph).
rayiner 3 hours ago [-]
There’s nothing sexy about incremental efficiency advances.
kevin_thibedeau 1 hours ago [-]
> They are just metal tubes with wings.
The 787 would beg to differ. It is an engineering achievement on par with the 747.
dylan604 6 hours ago [-]
To me, any 747 without a space shuttle on top of it looks naked
robotnikman 10 hours ago [-]
Guess I probably wont get a chance to fly on one, flying on the 747 was on my bucket list.
vimalbhalodia 9 hours ago [-]
Lufthansa still has a number of 747-8 and 747-400 in active operation - while there's evidence that the routes are scaling back, there's at least a few more years to fly one. They're even refurbishing the interiors to have a more competitive long-haul business class offering.
Korean Airlines has a handful of 747-8 in active operation but they're making moves to retire them especially post Asiana merger.
Air China also operates a handful of 747-8 and 747-400 on both international and domestic routes.
I flew 747 last month with Lufthansa and asked one of the crew how long they will keep it in operation. «I retire in two years so I don’t care» a very German response but at least they hadn’t made any announcement that he seem to be aware of.
Always fun to be on the second floor despite the seat configuration being a bit dated.
robotnikman 8 hours ago [-]
Oh nice, that makes finding a flight on a 747 so much easier! Sounds like I have an excuse to visit Germany next year.
Lufthansa first class on the 747 is definitely something to try once.
exmadscientist 9 hours ago [-]
Somehow I only managed to end up on one of these gorgeous birds once. In seat 64K, NRT-DTW (or was it NRT-MSP?). The main cabin is... nothing to write home about. I was in no hurry to book another 744 leg. Upper deck, perhaps a different story.
Great seat number though.
SoftTalker 9 hours ago [-]
Yeah economy class on a 747 sucks as much as it does on any other airliner.
apelapan 8 hours ago [-]
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.
rootusrootus 5 hours ago [-]
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, rinse and repeat. Not terribly noticeable when awake, but when I try to sleep I'm acutely aware of that sensation.
So far my personal favorite is the 787. About the only thing 'bad' I can say about it is that all the mechanical bits are kinda loud, like the flaps and stuff, and are very noisy inside the cabin. But it cruises so nice, and the lower pressurization altitude and increase in humidity is noticeable on a long flight.
PaulHoule 8 hours ago [-]
No, it is much nicer than the 737/A320 class. Just thinking of the curve of a 737 makes my neck knot up. Bigger planes like the 747/757/767/777 are much more comfortable as well as modern planes like the A220/E195. 737 class planes are so ubiquitous that many passengers have no idea another experience is possible.
rbanffy 7 hours ago [-]
My dislike for widebody airliners is that the odds of getting a window seat are much smaller.
What’s even the point of flying if you can’t look at the world from up high?
alistairSH 5 hours ago [-]
Reserve your seat then. Doesn’t cost that much on most airlines.
tacostakohashi 7 hours ago [-]
The 767 2-3-2 layout is my favorite, with only 1 middle seat per row, yet still two aisles so you can use one while the other is blocked, or walk little loops if it's not.
alistairSH 3 hours ago [-]
Wife and I just flew on an A330 in a 2-4-2 economy layout. With both of the outboard seats on one side, it was not bad.
wat10000 7 hours ago [-]
I’ve flown on a wide variety of planes, and never found any difference in comfort from the plane itself. It’s all about the seats.
PaulHoule 4 hours ago [-]
The 737 is noticeably louder than other planes on the ground and in the passenger cabin and especially for the pilot. 787/A350 and the A220 have a higher cabin pressure and better air quality that helps you feel better. It could be that most of my wide body experience was going over the Atlantic on 747s in the 1990s and a few times circa 2012 flying 767s on the JFK-LAX route which felt luxurious. As I see it, I’d rather fly coach on a better plane than “first” on a worse plane. (e.g. first on a 737 is like business on a widebody, in an A380 first-class is crazy over the top) 737 first still has your ears ringing, under-oxygenated, feeling cramped inside a small cylinder, etc. Luggage bins are nicer on a big plane too.
wat10000 3 hours ago [-]
I’d take first in anything, even crappy fake “first,” over coach in anything. Additional personal room trumps everything else for me. I don’t really care how big the fuselage is, I care how hard my knees are crammed into the seat in front of me.
cindyllm 18 minutes ago [-]
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cindyllm 2 hours ago [-]
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wiredfool 8 hours ago [-]
One time I got an entire center row of 5 seats going from Seattle->Heathrow overnight.
dylan604 6 hours ago [-]
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.
kps 2 hours ago [-]
One time I was on a 747 YYZ→LHR with a total of 14 passengers.
robin_reala 8 hours ago [-]
I had that SF to Heathrow once, though I recollect four seats? Only time I’ve ever had a lie-flat bed on an aircraft.
rbanffy 7 hours ago [-]
3-4-3 and 3-5-3 are relatively common on 747 and 777 IIRC.
philjohn 8 hours ago [-]
I've flown upper deck on a 747 in Business (BA Club World).
It felt like a private jet up there, very cool. And that's even with the awful club world seats where you had to step over your neighbour to get to the aisle.
technothrasher 9 hours ago [-]
> Upper deck, perhaps a different story.
I only ever flew on the upper deck in coach configuration, and the last time I did that was about twenty five years ago on SAA. It wasn't anything special, but it was a little quieter.
MattRogish 7 hours ago [-]
Back in the olden days (2015-ish?) KLM was having a really, really cheap business fare sale JFK-AMS; I snagged it with Delta miles (if I recall correctly) - and flew there and back in their 747 in the upper deck (just to take the flight; didn't have anything to do in AMS). It was really quite nice; it was the first and apparently last time I've taken the 744. I'm really glad I was able to do it.
wolvoleo 4 hours ago [-]
Lol imagine sitting through 8 hours of agony for no reason. Do you actually enjoy flying? I'm sure I would find it agony even if I had the Emirates suite with the bedroom and shower (which is still more cramped than a 50 euro hotel room)
I would at least explore the city for a few days to have a break.
The only flying I enjoy is when I'm the one in the front left hand seat holding the yoke :)
toast0 9 hours ago [-]
If it's something you want to do, this is your call to action. (There have been several already)
There's still a few of these in passenger service, so you can easily get it done if it's important to you.
Otherwise, you'll need to figure out how to get on a cargo flight.
giobox 9 hours ago [-]
They are beautiful things, but the last few I rode on with BA were absolutely starting to show their age inside prior to BA retiring them in 2020. I think the last passenger models were produced in 2011 and most of BA's 747 fleet was from the mid-90s. The experience was probably better on other carriers towards the end.
alistairSH 5 hours ago [-]
I got what was probably my last 747 trip a few years ago on a BA flight from DC to Heathrow.
But I probably missed my chance for an A380. Maybe a Lufthansa flight will pop up that’s affordable. The other airlines mostly operate in the ME or Asia, and no plans for either right now.
9 hours ago [-]
GMoromisato 6 hours ago [-]
If this is truly on your bucket list, you should be able to pull it off.
I just asked my favorite stochastic parrot to find the cheapest flight from SFO on a 747 to anywhere. It found a one-way flight on Lufthansa for $500. If you can, I'd encourage you to spring for a business class flight on the top deck (probably $4000 one-way).
dboreham 9 hours ago [-]
Flying on one in August, upper deck, courtesy of a lowball points redemption through United.
> the 747 is the only commercial jet that deserves to be called beautiful
Concorde?
eichin 40 minutes ago [-]
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 :-)
himata4113 6 hours ago [-]
Those interiors look so much more pleasing than the ones we have right now even in business / premium economy class and I am not even that old!
aurareturn 6 hours ago [-]
Flying is much cheaper today. People want low prices over more comfort. They vote with their wallets.
himata4113 6 hours ago [-]
I don't know, having more color doesn't seem that much more expensive? I guess the fabrics are expensive and stain relatively easily, but if public transport can keep them clean so can airlines IMO. Some fabric seats are over 3 decades old and they're still in a really good shape.
aurareturn 5 hours ago [-]
Maybe it looks better because there are only 9 seats in an aisle in the picture compared to standard 10 nowadays?
himata4113 4 hours ago [-]
10?! That's news to me. I had to fly american airlines and there was still 9.. oh it has been more than half a decade.
dcrazy 4 hours ago [-]
Public transport can’t keep them clean. BART famously had disgusting carpets until the 2010s.
himata4113 4 hours ago [-]
If a poor second world country can have clean seats on public transport surely...
intexpress 7 hours ago [-]
I will miss the 747. Modern planes with less engines feel less safe. I hate all the justifications used to fly long distances across oceans with only 2 engines, or only 1 engine.
mjg59 6 hours ago [-]
More people have died due to one engine falling off a 747 and knocking off the other engine on the same wing than have died due to dual engine failure on an ETOPS certified aircraft
stouset 6 hours ago [-]
You mean the justification that they are, in fact, just as safe?
GMoromisato 6 hours ago [-]
I'm curious about this--wouldn't one expect more engines to be safer?
Unless having more engines increases the chance of certain kinds of accidents? Like maybe the chance of an engine failure damaging the hull goes up with more engines?
Not questioning the justification--I do believe it--I'm just curious about the details.
WalterBright 3 hours ago [-]
Engine failure is very dangerous. 4 engines are twice as likely to have a major failure than 2.
(despite having "fuses" so an engine can depart without taking much of the wing with it, there are many cases of single engine failure bringing down the airplane)
mjg59 5 hours ago [-]
All else being equal, potentially - although as I mentioned there have been cases where one engine falling off a 4 engine aircraft hit another in the process. But ETOPS certification is based on it being demonstrated that engines are sufficiently reliable that the probability of an independent failure is incredibly unlikely, and also requires that operators have a stricter maintenance process. The only dual engine failures on modern two-engine aircraft I can think of off-hand have been fuel exhaustion (either actually being out of fuel, or ice blocking fuel filters in the case of BA38), and would have affected 4-engine aircraft just as badly.
KolmogorovComp 5 hours ago [-]
No, the highest risk for dual engine failure is bird strike.
intexpress 3 hours ago [-]
> Wouldn't one expect more engines to be safer?
Right, the more engines the better…
7 hours ago [-]
uwagar 1 hours ago [-]
to see sofas on a plane feels weird when they ask u wear seat belts all the time now due to risks from turbluence (clear air turbulence apparently!).
ayaros 8 hours ago [-]
I realize this might be an unpopular opinion but I never liked the look of the "hump" created by the upper deck of the 747.
rbanffy 7 hours ago [-]
At least it’s distinctive. Most planes look like scaled versions of the 737 - similar shape, similar proportions…
Gagarin1917 6 hours ago [-]
What?! It makes it look like a giant fighter jet
NetMageSCW 9 hours ago [-]
Paywalled.
Ozzie-D 1 hours ago [-]
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babbel 8 hours ago [-]
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floorfour 8 hours ago [-]
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ck2 8 hours ago [-]
we'll always have QatarForceOne (747-8)
well as long as Congress doesn't let him keep it, hopefully
BILLION dollars stolen from nuclear missile maintenance program to refurbish it
It was a private bribe, he's not giving it back. He's probably not even leaving the White House in 2 years either.
dylan604 6 hours ago [-]
The funniest thing is that he's not going to continue using it after office. They plan to hang it in that hotel being called a library when it gets built
rbanffy 7 hours ago [-]
Not on his own will at least.
elzbardico 7 hours ago [-]
At least he is not going to live forever. He seems really fucked up lately.
exe34 6 hours ago [-]
They'll stuff him and then use the autopen.
spankibalt 8 hours ago [-]
> "[...] the 747 is the only commercial jet that deserves to be called beautiful."
Pathetic drivel. There's legion of commercial airliners that are more beautiful than the 747.
rbanffy 7 hours ago [-]
At least it’s not an up/down scaled 737… I’d say it looks nicer than the 777 replacing it, or the 380 that tried it.
spankibalt 7 hours ago [-]
Concorde, Tu-144, L-1011 TriStar, Il-62, Tu-154, SE 210 Caravelle, de Havilland DH.106 Comet and Vickers VC10 are all much sexier. Just for starters.
rwyinuse 7 hours ago [-]
You just seem to have a fetish for aircraft with fully or partially rear-mounted engines. I prefer 747 over all of the above, although 757 is my favorite.
IL-62 I particularly dislike. Sitting next to those big engines would suck, especially after reading on multiple accidents where they exploded and killed or nearly killed everyone onboard.
spankibalt 6 hours ago [-]
> "You just seem to have a fetish for aircraft with fully or partially rear-mounted engines."
Hey, what can I say? I'm more of an ass man.
> "Sitting next to those big engines would suck, especially after reading on multiple accidents where they exploded and killed or nearly killed everyone onboard."
I fail to see what this has to do with visual aesthetics, but the safety record of the 747 was not so hot; already excluding the malaise brought on by the fetishes of terrorists and the Evil Empire, of course.
GMoromisato 6 hours ago [-]
Of course, none of the airplanes you listed are still flying passengers today. That is why I will always love the 747.
spankibalt 6 hours ago [-]
> "Of course, none of the airplanes you listed are still flying passengers today."
The Il-62 and the Tu-154 are still in limited service, for example. Not that it does your pseudoargument any favors anyway, as service history plays obviously absolutely no role in evaluating a design purely on its visual accumen.
GMoromisato 6 hours ago [-]
Oh, you misunderstand--I'm not arguing anything. What planes you love in the confines of your own mind is none of my business. It's a free country!
I'm just sharing my love of the 747, since that's what the article is about.
Someday, when they write a glowing retrospective of the Il-62, I promise not to post about how it's one of the ugliest jets I've seen.
elzbardico 7 hours ago [-]
Maybe the Concord and Comet. For the rest of the list I think you'd spend a very long time finding people to agree with you. The soviet ones are even more complicated, the Tu-144 is basically an Ugly Concord.
spankibalt 7 hours ago [-]
So or so, Bogost's statement is akin to describing the Amiga 500 as the only beautiful home computer. And that's obviously ridiculous. As for your statement, nah, I won't have to search very long for people agreeing with me on many of the aircraft listed; whole coffee table tomes have been published specifically dealing with the subject of Soviet, French and British classic, especially narrow-body, airliners.
watersb 6 hours ago [-]
I'm reading through the comments here before reading the actual Atlantic story, so I didn't see the author's name until you mention it:
> Bogost's statement is akin to calling the Amiga 500 the only home computer to be called beautiful.
Oh! That's Ian Bogost, who is a great writer of how our relationship with technology can evoke truth and beauty. The canonical work is his deep dive on the Atari 2600 and the early 1980s revolution "Racing the Beam":
Bogost wrote a number of books while working with MIT, arguing that video games were a new medium of communication back when that was a controversial point of view.
(I will need to re-subscribe to The Atlantic at some point. It seems churlish, but it's been an expensive year...)
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 a beneficiary of the modern age of aviation. I don’t fly routes that would ever have been profitable for the 747, I don’t imbibe in the sky, I’ve never eaten the cheese varieties that the Pan Am stewardesses were trained to serve, and caviar just doesn’t interest me.
But I do ride narrow-body jets on nonstop routes that would never have seen 747 service, the experience is perfectly acceptable, and that’s my toddler chomping on the Goldfish. That narrow-body airplane is much cheaper to operate than a 747 ever was, which is fantastic because my toddler doesn’t have an expense account.
Some folks find a fuel-guzzling huge machine romantic. That would be fine if they wrote pieces about their love of big old planes. But instead they often start rambling about how this giant old plane was a pinnacle of engineering and of some grand social order. They forget what aviation truly was in those days and neglect the benefits of what it is now. One might think this is elitist or worse. But I shrug. I just find it tiresome.
I'm not going to pay 2x ticket prices to keep it alive either, but it is terribly romantic. If human beings are allowed to fall in love with machines this one is as good as any.
Today's flying cattlecar hell is the result of the opposite, a dramatic market-driven race to the bottom of quality... followed by a price bounce to see how much money they can pull out of use before we give up and drive.
The day we have self-driving cars good enough that we can sleep, domestic air travel is dead. Ill take 10 hours curlled up in the back seat of my car rather than the 10+ hours it takes getting to/from airports for a domestic flight.
It's kind of crazy that people compare the experience on a $1000 transalantic ticket and bemoan that the experience doesn't seem quite as good as something that was costing people the equivalent of 10-20x as much back then!
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/aviation-fatalities-per-m...
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 :)
Not necessarily disagreeing with you but I understand the merits in cherishing “form” in a world that is - for the most part - devoid of beauty and taste.
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 on unit tests to get the rest of the way there based on what I knew of the protocol itself.
The entire FMS software was completely re-written in C++ and using modern object oriented patterns (at the time). Probably the most fun I've had over my now 20'ish year career. Of course Boeing was pissed with the delays this caused because the airframe wasn't a major change. 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. Personal opinion, this was a large part of what led to the MAX situation.
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 instead they proposed a wide-body aircraft (10 seats across). Nevertheless, Trippe insisted on a double-decker design.
The engineers then created two cabin mockups. One for a double decker, which was basically two narrow-body cabins stacked on top of each other. The other was the wide-body of the 747. Once Trippe saw the trade off, he realized that the spacious cabin of the 747 was the way to go.
But even then, when he saw the second level where the pilots go, he insisted on putting passengers up there too.
I've had the good fortune to fly on the top deck of the 747. I highly recommend it.
(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.)
The 747 was a great aircraft to fly in though. The tower of power effect on take-off really reassured you that you were going to get where you were going.
Somewhere over the North Sea I decided to give the on board phone a go, and it worked. A early call to let my wife know I’d made it (there were only a few seats left on the morning flight and 180 passengers to fit on).
Next time I flew it the phones weren’t working, and it wasn’t long until they’d all been removed, so I’m glad I got to tick that off my list.
Likely my last 747 flight ever was far less salubrious. I was supposed to be flying Toronto to jfk to Heathrow, but the Toronto flight was cancelled and I got downgraded to economy and put on a 747 to Amsterdam.
To clarify slightly, I first heard "tower of power" used to describe the Saturn V. So two icons of the late 60s.
"Time and time again there appears in print the logical but false assumption that Boeing took its losing military C-5 bid and revamped it as the commercial 747. In fact, the 747 would be an entirely original design that owes nothing to the C-5."
That said, in the same chapter he talks about how GE developed a high-bypass turbofan engine for the C-5 and it was only because they had such an engine that the 747 became possible.
But really my only point is that you should read the book if you're interested.
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 really big cargo plane. So the B-747 was built as a commercial plane, mostly to Pan Am's requirements.
Military-civilian commonality was mostly wishful thinking at the management levels, as it turned out.
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.
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 recently visited Stuttgart to go to the Mercedes Benz Museum. They too have a lot of technical stuff of course, and history. Really recommend it!
Amazing aircraft, well-deserving of the "Queen of the Skies" moniker, I can still vividly remember going up to the upper deck and cockpit and the view out of the front/side windows.
Oh gracious no, Airbus started with the utilitarian A300 widebody twin[1].
Concorde was Sud Aviation and BAC joint venture, nothing to do with Airbus which didn't even exist at that time.
[1]The original A300A might have been interesting, having a fuselage as wide as the much later 777, but Airbus got cold feet and scaled it down to the dull and worthy A300B. Every Airbus widebody until the A380 was constrained by that decision.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus#History has a diagram of all the predecessor companies.
> 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.
Slate is even worse than The Atlantic in this regard.
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.
As long as the Democratic base insists on caveating every American achievement with the Omnicause, it will keep playing into the Gingrichian rhetoric.
Toxic positivity is when you can’t criticize something even when it deserves criticism. Is America full of brilliant people? Yes. Is it in a steep decline at the moment? Also yes. Apple thrived because Steve Jobs did a coup and steered the ship. America needs the same, but not from an incompetent nincompoop like the current moron.
Normies lost faith in the media partly because they were seen as not really loving America. And if you don't trust the media, then it's a lot easier to believe Trump's lies.
I would argue they lost faith because the media constantly lies and distorts the truth to promote the ideology of capital. They are elite and disconnected, absolutely, just not in a left wing way, but a corpo-capitalist way (which only looks “left” if you’re to the right of capital).
Talking about why, for example, Boeing never build a larger passenger airplane, or why the Concorde is no longer flying, would actually make for an interesting analysis of technology and business.
Why did the progression from the Wright brothers to the 747 not continue for the next fifty years? The answer has to do with physics and economics rather than lack of American ambition or excellence.
1. there wasn't demand for one - airliner designs are driven by the customers
2. the airport terminals would have to be rebuilt
3. the runways would have to be redone to support the weight
> why the Concorde is no longer flying
It lost prodigious amounts of money on every flight. The Concorde was a prestige project, not a practical one.
> Why did the progression from the Wright brothers to the 747 not continue for the next fifty years?
The 747 is far more technologically primitive than today's airliners. Take a good close look at the wing shape of the two, for starters.
They just didn't turn out to fit the emerging economics of flight. They "work" fine.
America is many things, has done many things. Some great, some not so much. Americans themselves should at least be honest about seeing the good parts even if nobody else will admit it. And if we're going to keep progressing forward we need people to be on board in good faith.
/soapbox rant over
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 some Americans feel that way too.
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.
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.
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.
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...
So, yes, it transformed the country. That didn't necessarily benefit the stockholders and bondholders.
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.
When I started my own business, everyone thought it was doomed to failure. Friends, enemies, acquaintances, all of them.
Except my dad. He believed in me, though he had no idea what I was doing.
Musk is in good company with the crazy people who build the first tunnel under the Thames, the nuts who laid the first transatlantic people, the morons who dug the Panama Canal, and the fools who built the first transcontinental railroad.
Me, I bought me some SPCX.
I was confused at first too.
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 engineers.
Help me out and tell me how you can be so sure it will never work.
I don’t know why you’re jumping from starlink to data centers in space. The utility of satellite internet has been known for decades before Starlink came around.
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.
Yes, but it turns out the hump is great for area ruling (aerodynamic drag reduction at transonic speeds), as observed by the 747-300's extended hump giving lower drag (but higher weight, of course) than the short-hump versions.
Four engines are also less safe than twin engines. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but Boeing did the math and made the case.
Me321/323 was I think first heavy cargo with nose clamshell doors, but after that everyone settled on nose rising up, clamshell rear. It also had the top deck.
Oh come on, it's hardly "absurd."
> What US aerospace has created post 1969 is nothing short of remarkable in comparison. (And we can be proud of the Apollo era too.)
What are you referring to?
If you want to chart progress over time, consider this: In 1919, people were still flying biplanes and civilian aviation barely existed. Fifty years later, in 1969, you've got the 747 -- consider the progress made over those fifty years! Fifty years from then, in 2019, you've still got the 747 -- alongside, as the article notes, smaller and less remarkable aircraft "that are more efficient, but far less majestic and memorable."
So what, pray tell, is so remarkable?
Not by introducing clean sheet unproven designs but by taking what works and improving any deficiencies over and over again.
The 787 would beg to differ. It is an engineering achievement on par with the 747.
Korean Airlines has a handful of 747-8 in active operation but they're making moves to retire them especially post Asiana merger.
Air China also operates a handful of 747-8 and 747-400 on both international and domestic routes.
FlightsFrom is a great resource to find routes for specific aircraft: https://www.flightsfrom.com/explorer/FRA?aircrafts=747 https://www.flightsfrom.com/explorer/ICN?aircrafts=747
Always fun to be on the second floor despite the seat configuration being a bit dated.
https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=48710175
Great seat number though.
And both B747 and A380 fly much calmer than the smaller, lighter widebodies, which is equally nice for passengers on all classes.
So far my personal favorite is the 787. About the only thing 'bad' I can say about it is that all the mechanical bits are kinda loud, like the flaps and stuff, and are very noisy inside the cabin. But it cruises so nice, and the lower pressurization altitude and increase in humidity is noticeable on a long flight.
What’s even the point of flying if you can’t look at the world from up high?
It felt like a private jet up there, very cool. And that's even with the awful club world seats where you had to step over your neighbour to get to the aisle.
I only ever flew on the upper deck in coach configuration, and the last time I did that was about twenty five years ago on SAA. It wasn't anything special, but it was a little quieter.
I would at least explore the city for a few days to have a break.
The only flying I enjoy is when I'm the one in the front left hand seat holding the yoke :)
There's still a few of these in passenger service, so you can easily get it done if it's important to you.
Otherwise, you'll need to figure out how to get on a cargo flight.
But I probably missed my chance for an A380. Maybe a Lufthansa flight will pop up that’s affordable. The other airlines mostly operate in the ME or Asia, and no plans for either right now.
I just asked my favorite stochastic parrot to find the cheapest flight from SFO on a 747 to anywhere. It found a one-way flight on Lufthansa for $500. If you can, I'd encourage you to spring for a business class flight on the top deck (probably $4000 one-way).
Concorde?
Unless having more engines increases the chance of certain kinds of accidents? Like maybe the chance of an engine failure damaging the hull goes up with more engines?
Not questioning the justification--I do believe it--I'm just curious about the details.
(despite having "fuses" so an engine can depart without taking much of the wing with it, there are many cases of single engine failure bringing down the airplane)
Right, the more engines the better…
well as long as Congress doesn't let him keep it, hopefully
BILLION dollars stolen from nuclear missile maintenance program to refurbish it
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boeing_VC-25B_Bridge
Pathetic drivel. There's legion of commercial airliners that are more beautiful than the 747.
IL-62 I particularly dislike. Sitting next to those big engines would suck, especially after reading on multiple accidents where they exploded and killed or nearly killed everyone onboard.
Hey, what can I say? I'm more of an ass man.
> "Sitting next to those big engines would suck, especially after reading on multiple accidents where they exploded and killed or nearly killed everyone onboard."
I fail to see what this has to do with visual aesthetics, but the safety record of the 747 was not so hot; already excluding the malaise brought on by the fetishes of terrorists and the Evil Empire, of course.
The Il-62 and the Tu-154 are still in limited service, for example. Not that it does your pseudoargument any favors anyway, as service history plays obviously absolutely no role in evaluating a design purely on its visual accumen.
I'm just sharing my love of the 747, since that's what the article is about.
Someday, when they write a glowing retrospective of the Il-62, I promise not to post about how it's one of the ugliest jets I've seen.
> Bogost's statement is akin to calling the Amiga 500 the only home computer to be called beautiful.
Oh! That's Ian Bogost, who is a great writer of how our relationship with technology can evoke truth and beauty. The canonical work is his deep dive on the Atari 2600 and the early 1980s revolution "Racing the Beam":
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Racing_the_Beam
Bogost wrote a number of books while working with MIT, arguing that video games were a new medium of communication back when that was a controversial point of view.
(I will need to re-subscribe to The Atlantic at some point. It seems churlish, but it's been an expensive year...)