The Flying Giant Is 40 Years Old 366
Ponca City, We love you writes "Four decades ago, Boeing's prototype 747 took to the skies over Washington State for a 75-minute flight that helped bring cheap airline travel to millions of people and would remain the world's largest commercial aircraft for 37 years until the advent of the double-decker Airbus A380. What made the 747 unique was that it was the first 'wide body' aircraft with more than one aisle — a big step towards reducing the sense of traveling in a narrow tube, and inducing a sense more equivalent to flying in a large room with high ceilings. But back in the 1960s, convincing people that the 747 would fly was a tough call. Joe Sutter, the director of engineering on the project, even spent an hour with Charles Lindbergh, going over all the data to prove that the jumbo would not flip over or become unstable at high speeds. Boeing has sold more than 1,400 jumbos in the past four decades, worth, at today's prices, more than $350 billion and although we might complain of traveling in 'cattle class' we have the 747 to thank for being able to do so at affordable prices."
Oh how I love planes.. (Score:4, Insightful)
It used to be fun to fly, not any more.
So little progress in aerospace. (Score:5, Insightful)
747 and concorde launched, first manned moon landing. 40 years later, NASA can barely keep the ISS running (or the shuttle from blowing up).
I'm curious - how much better are the new planes compared to the 60s version of the 747 in terms of range, payload and efficiency?
Re:Oh how I love planes.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder how much of that loss of fun is the airlines' fault and how much is the result of the FAA bureaucracy?
Re:Oh how I love planes.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I wonder how much of that loss of fun is the airlines' fault and how much is the result of the FAA bureaucracy?
Or the result of greed on both parties.
Re:Oh how I love planes.. (Score:5, Insightful)
A lot of the loss of fun has to do with deregulation. When the airlines all have to compete on price they're going to squeeze things as much as they can get away with. For most people air travel is expensive enough that they'll put up with it to get the cheapest possible prices.
Re:The 100 year career (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Cheap and painful (Score:5, Insightful)
it might just be the culmination of transport (Score:5, Insightful)
what i mean by that is, to do better than the 747, one has to go faster further and cheaper. what mode of transport can outdo the 747 on all 3 counts at the same time?
the 747 is outdone by the concorde in terms of faster, but not further or cheaper. and so the concorde failed because in the end it was a niche tool for the rich: it offered marginally better speed for exorbitant increases in costs. we can't put a nuclear engine safely in an airplane, and so there is no cheaper for the immediate future
if we exclude extraterrestrial transport, transport on earth is pretty much at its zenith in our lifetimes. until some dramatic technological breakthroughs gives us a mode of transport that is, all at the same time, faster, further, and cheaper than the 747. in fact, on one count, further, the 747 can't really be topped. on that measure, the 747 pretty much is a dream: i, as a middle class westerner, can go anywhere on the earth i want in 24 hours. think about the history of mankind: that's a really incredible power. starting with us sitting on the back of horses, up through wheels, carriages, sails, the steam engine, rails, the ICE, jet engines... what else can there be?
so until someone invents a technology that can move us as far as the 747, perhaps 10x faster (to make an appreciable difference since 24 hours is a very comfortable amount of time to go to the other end of the globe), and perhaps 2x cheaper, we are in a golden age of transport that will not be surpassed for a very long time. we already have technologies like ramjets that are only used in exotic military applications, so really the bottleneck is cheaper fuel
until such future time, the 747 is the peak of human transportation technology
Negative progress (Score:3, Insightful)
We ran out of frontiers (Score:5, Insightful)
Four decades ago:
747 and concorde launched, first manned moon landing. 40 years later, NASA can barely keep the ISS running (or the shuttle from blowing up).
During the jet age, it was all about higher performance. Higher speeds, higher altitudes, longer ranges, higher load capacities.
Aviation has matured, and now it's only about one thing: better efficiency. Our planes carry no more people than they used to. They go no faster or farther. Cost efficiency is the last frontier of a stable, mature... but boring... industry.
Re:Oh how I love planes.. (Score:4, Insightful)
I wonder how much of that loss of fun is the airlines' fault
100%. I'm not aware of any FAA regulation mandating 5 passengers per square foot.
Re:Negative progress (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Negative progress (Score:5, Insightful)
Today there is no supersonic passenger aircraft in service.
The economics of supersonic flight suck, although it wasn't apparent at the time.
I've read accounts that suggest the 747's raised flight deck was designed that way because it was assumed the primary purpose of the aircraft would be cargo hauling, and they wanted access to the full diameter of the fuselage without hinging the nose, as is often done in cargo aircraft. The reason why cargo was targeted was because everyone believed that supersonics were going to own the passenger transport market "once a few bugs were worked out."
It turns out those bugs--noise, engine sizing and fuel efficiency--are pretty difficult to work around, and cutting an five hour flight to two and a half hours isn't such a big deal when the time spent getting into and out of the airport are added in. It's more like cutting an eight hour experience to a five or six hour one. Not worth the price.
Re:Negative progress (Score:3, Insightful)
What are you talking about? The Concorde was one of the biggest money losers for Air France and British Airways. Sure you can fly from New York to London really fast, but you're burning so much more fuel in the process.
Right now, the name of the game is efficiency in terms of passengers and fuel. And fuel efficiency is going up.
Re:Oh how I love planes.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Honestly, not the FAA's fault. In fact, it's no-one's fault other then when the 747 started to fly, flying was out of the reach of almost all Americans, save the jet-setters. Nowadays, you can get a non-stop from Denver to Atlanta for $169 bucks. Of course it's going to be a cattle call.
Do I wish that I could have taken a trip on a 747 in the glory days of Pan Am? Absolutly. Would I rather live now and have the ability to fly to London for $500 bucks? You bet your a$$.
Re:747s have broken the sound barrier (Score:5, Insightful)
fails cost/ benefit analysis (Score:2, Insightful)
let's assume i want to go to new delhi from new york
the concorde can do it in 4 hours, the 747 in 24 hours. but the concorde will cost me 10x as much: speed and fuel cost is not a linear relationship. for me, the extra money is not worth the time savings. sure, to someone it is worth it, but such a person is rich, and there's not enough of them that would make investing the infrastructure to make this possible
avoiding all other arguments, such as safety, a hypothetical concorde that made that trip would burn a lot more fuel than a 747. this is a permanent limitation, not some sort of economics of scale limitation that would make the concorde eventually profitable
besides, 747s CAN fly supersonic. but they remain subsonic because their hull strength can't handle the fatigue of flying supersonic. it wouldn't be that much of a feat to start flying supersonically around the world in modified 747s that didn't shake their occupants. the limiting factor is fuel cost, its not a linear relationship to fly faster, and that's a permanent, hard limitation on the concorde or any supersonic aircraft
there are also schemes to leave the earth's atmosphere and come back in. but then you need to transport half of your fuel, because current airplanes have the luxury of flying through half of their fuel: oxygen
so yes, the 747 really is some sort of transportation sweet spot, a zenith in human technological progress that won't be passed for a long time in speed, cost, and distance (all measurements at the same)
Re:Oh how I love planes.. (Score:5, Insightful)
How about the result of consumers winning out? I think people forget just how expensive air travel used to be - no wonder you were treated like a king. Free food, free drinks (some airlines even had free alcohol)...
The fact of the matter is that airline travel is a *lot* cheaper and more accessible to the average person than it used to be. This is a good thing. It also necessitates us changing our expectation from "floating sky-palace" to "flying Greyhound bus", which is a more appropriate modern analogy.
If you want the service of yonder years, you can still get it. In fact, you can still get it at approximately the same prices *you used to pay*.
I for one welcome the democratization of long-distance travel.
Re:777 slimmer and faster than 747 (Score:2, Insightful)
Maybe we shouldn't consider the airline at fault for not changing seat sizes rather than mainstream america (or UK, or Canada, or Australia) for changing ass sizes.
Re:Oh how I love planes.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I wonder how much of that loss of fun is the airlines' fault and how much is the result of the FAA bureaucracy?
Don't forget the TSA. I really dislike the part where they ask "papers please".
Re:Negative progress (Score:2, Insightful)
It really doesn't care what's ten miles below it
You can say that again. The problem is the people living 10 miles below, and the noise they have to deal with.
I really feel sorry for people living around airports today. We have noise pollution laws for everything but aircraft. The reason for this is the FAA, which has historically been more very receptive to air industry lobbying, and so more interested in promoting air travel than in limiting the consequences of air travel (a de-facto tax on those of us who have to listen to jets takeoff and land from 10s of miles away, night and day).
That same FAA disregard for anything that might negatively impact total air passenger miles got us 9/11 and continues to cause well documented health and mortality effects in areas around major airports. Enlightened governments are re-locating their airports away from population centers and building fast and convenient light rail to make it convenient to get to them. Hong Kong is an excellent example of how to do airports right. Los Angeles and San Francisco are equally good examples of how not to.
Another thing government could be doing to balance the substantial subsidies air industries have enjoyed is divert some of those dollars to rail and R&D into quieter and more efficient aircraft. If the lobbying is any indication, however, nothing has changed. Airlines are still focused overwhelmingly on the next quarter and the FAA doesn't care.
Re:Oh how I love planes.. (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem is: there's virtually no middle ground.
You either pay through your nose for the business-class seats or you have to fly in cattle-like economic class.
Personally, I don't want champagne, I don't want caviar - I just want some additional leg and elbow space. I'll gladly pay 1.5x normal rate for it! But usually there's just no such choice :(
Re:Negative progress (Score:3, Insightful)
Moreover, the Concorde was cost-benefit-analysised at a time when jet fuel was in the tens of cents per gallon price range --- then the Arab fuel embargo hit and suddenly it was hard to justifiably profit on it (though for a long while they managed).
Sadly the new tires were just being certified when the 9/11 terrorist attacks occurred which was pretty much the final nail in the coffin.
William
Bad statistics (Score:3, Insightful)
Nope. Turns out it was a firetrap.
The chicken coop (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Oh how I love planes.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't know what flights you're flying on, but I used to be able to consistently get flights from CA to TN for $200-$300 round trip, and sometimes as low as $150. Last Christmas, I actually flew with frequent flyer miles first class because it was going to be somewhere around $1,000 for the round trip and it took 5,000 fewer frequent flyer miles for first class than it did for coach. This Christmas, it's looking like I'm going to have a hard time getting below $1500 for that round trip---more expensive by a factor of 10 in the same number of years.
There's something really appalling about spending $1,500 for a round trip cattle car flight with no food that previously cost $200, came with a meal, allowed us to check two bags at no charge (instead of zero now), and didn't require us to strip down, remove our shoes, and generally be treated to subhuman conditions all for the "privilege" of having to wolf down dinner while running to catch the connecting flight because your first leg was delayed an hour due to a problem with one of the engines that should have been caught by routine maintenance but wasn't because they aren't paying their maintenance people well enough....
If you buy tickets months ahead of time, you used to be able to get good deals. These days, by the time the return flight becomes available for sale, all the cheap seats on the flight over are sold out because everybody is buying so far ahead trying to keep from getting utterly screwed by the skyrocketing prices.
What it looks like from my perspective is that airlines are cutting the flights on minor routes to the bare minimum and gouging the passengers to limit ridership, then using the excess profits from the gouging to cover the operating losses on long haul flights like LA to NYC nonstop and on non-holiday-season flights to other places
Maybe things have gotten cheaper in comparison with... say 1980... but compared with the late 90s or the first part of this decade pre-9/11, they've gone through the roof. It has gone from Greyhound being more expensive to being a fourth as much almost overnight. Trains are now cheaper. Buying a cheap used car and driving across is sometimes cheaper, including the fuel costs. IIRC, flights to Europe last year were running almost double what they were just three years earlier. And so on. I'm just not seeing these price drops that you're seeing except when flying in the middle of the year. If you fly anywhere from mid-November through mid-January, expect to pay a lot more than you did just a few years ago.
Re:Negative progress (Score:3, Insightful)
You can say that again. The problem is the people living 10 miles below, and the noise they have to deal with.
I really feel sorry for people living around airports today. We have noise pollution laws for everything but aircraft. The reason for this is the FAA, which has historically been more very receptive to air industry lobbying, and so more interested in promoting air travel than in limiting the consequences of air travel (a de-facto tax on those of us who have to listen to jets takeoff and land from 10s of miles away, night and day).
I live 5 blocks away from JFK long term parking. Grew up my whole life there. Watched the concord fly over my head, not to mention a slew of standard aircraft countless times.
It is worth the noise and stained lawn furniture to be able to wake up in the morning walk to the air train and get on a plane like its a commuter train. If you don't like it move.
Re:Negative progress (Score:4, Insightful)
We have noise pollution laws for everything but aircraft.
You have no idea what you are talking about. Ten seconds on Google would get you to Title 14, Part 36 of the Code of Federal Regulations, "Noise Standards: Aircraft Type and Certification" [gpoaccess.gov]. All airplanes built in the United States are certified to this standard. Europe (EASA) has very similar regulations, and most of the other national regulatory bodies in the world pattern their regulations off of the FAA/EASA regulations.
That same FAA disregard for anything that might negatively impact total air passenger miles got us 9/11
Wait, what? Are you seriously implying that 9/11 was the FAA's fault? Citation please.
and continues to cause well documented health and mortality effects in areas around major airports.
Please point me in the direction of some of these "well documented ... effects."
Enlightened governments are re-locating their airports away from population centers and building fast and convenient light rail to make it convenient to get to them.
Light rail is awesome, and has nothing to do with the FAA.
Another thing government could be doing to balance the substantial subsidies air industries have enjoyed is divert some of those dollars to rail and R&D into quieter and more efficient aircraft.
Ok, but your ticket prices will go up.
Also, you asked for quieter and more efficient aircraft, so here you go. [boeing.com]
Airlines are still focused overwhelmingly on the next quarter and the FAA doesn't care.
The FAA's job is not to make the airlines profitable. It's to make them safe.
Re:it might just be the culmination of transport (Score:3, Insightful)
Until that happened, there was no manufacturer that *could* rival Boeing - it wasn't a matter of replacement cost, it was simply the fact that Boeing dominated the market even in the US through having the better product available. The lack of a 'family' product (an offering from smallest aircraft to largest aircraft) killed Lockheed, and they exited the civil market after the L-1011 failed, and while McDD did attempt to create a family through the DC-9 and DC-10 models, the gap between the two was too much.
The 747 actually has enjoyed the best CASM and RASM of any aircraft on the market over the past 40 years, and even today it has only been usurped by the A380 - size really does have a quality all of its own, especially in the aviation industry. A 747-400 still has excellent economics and many airframes will continue to fly well into the next two decades, but a new build A380 has even better economics and airlines are seeing that...
What you will see over the next 15 years is the 747 passenger variant being phased out with tier 1 airlines for either larger twins (777, 787 or A350), or the A380. The 747 may still hold the freighter mantel, but its pretty much lost the passenger mantel to the A380 in the VLA market on ecomonics alone.
Re:seat math.... (Score:3, Insightful)
If you're so confident that other like minded people would pay it in a heart beat, then why would you have to ensure that all airlines did it?