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Not so, isn't the new Airforce 1 747s supposed to be delivered 2026 and 2027?
Good point!
https://www.boeing.com/defense/air-force-one/index.page
They better not touch the L1011.
Back 30 years ago when a friend and I (he is an A&P) were dinking with single engine recip flying, I met a man who was a retired Braniff captain. He told me (paraphrasing) "Bumping around in a ratty ole 172, falling off the top of thermals and crabbin' in hard on a stiff crosswind, thats real aviation. But those big tubs I flew only work because of the sheer brute power of the engines, but it aint real flying."
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I could be wrong, but I think that they were technically 'delivered' to the Air Force as 747s, but are now going through their extensive 'modifications' to become VC-25s.
I think that the 2 new Air Force Ones were originally built for a Russian airline but they never actually took possession before they went bankrupt. They were fully completed but when they decided to use those aircraft, they began the modification process from those fully built planes.
You might be right. Maybe Plow meant the last manufactured. I don't know. The reality is we are all talking semantics.
Bottom line is no more 747s. Kinda sad. My memory is pretty much shot except for certain things that I have no idea
why that was something to remember. But I remember being in grade school and it being such a big deal, the first
747 flight. Teacher made a real big deal about it in school. Sometimes Mom and Dad would pile us up in the car on a
Sunday and drive to LAX to watch the planes takeoff and land. For people those big ass jets L-1011, 747 were something
the whole country was proud of. Now, the kids don't even seem to be impresses that we (spaceX) can send a rocket up space
and land the damn thing. I wonder to myself what can really fascinate kids these days?
TM
Anything Boeing has always made for some big news up here in Washington. I run out of fingers (and almost out of toes) counting family members who either retired from Boeing or are still employed there. While Boeing doesn't employ everyone in the state, nearly everyone only has a degree or two of separation from Boeing........
As a matter of fact, a couple of my cousins who have worked there make me feel just a slight twinge of anxiety each time I board a Boeing jet.....!
While they are no longer being made, they still have a huge amount of flying hours left to do , and will be in the air for a long time to come, which great for me, as i work in a factory that produces parts for them, and will be doing for some time.
I am not into planes, even though they provided me with a great living, there are guys at work who can tell you the history of every plane we ever put an engine on, to a point and i am clueless, i know what they are for , but short of Concorde, i couldnt look at any plane and tells you what engines they have on them.
Its a shame those that fly round on private jets seem hell bent on stopping the rest of the world flying, but that is how it is looking.
But with 8 years to go, i think i will be ok , its an iconic plane that changed the way we travelled .
I’d recommend anyone at aviation visit the plane graveyard in Tucson Arizona. It is absolutely breathtaking. Very cool as well
Explain…?
Because, as a Lockheed dude (NOT “Lockheed-Martin!) …you’ve already got me LOLing over here).
😂😂I was hoping that would resonate with someone.
I have some friends that work for Lockheed at Dobbins AFB. You ever been there?
I've never flown in a 747. Is the area in the bulb a night club with stripper stewardess's, a bar and blackjack tables like we imagined when they first came out ? lol What year were they introduced ?
Yes, to deliver goodies for the Navy at the near-by King’s Bay facility.
Right on. I’m not familiar with the Kings Bay facility but one of my friends was a fireman on base and another worked on a flight line. Been there once. Super impressive facility. Security was through the roof as it should have been😉
I've not been there, I'd love to. But, I've gone to the Bangkok Airplane Graveyard. I get to Thailand often with work I do, and look for unusual, less 'touristy' things to do each time.
It's not an official thing, it's apparently a bit of land that a businessman owns, who has got ahold of various planes for scrap.
It is, quite bizarre. It's only a short taxi , bus, or ferry ride from Bangkok center.
A few families have squatted there, and let you in for a few hundred Baht. It's generally only around 5 USD dollars at the most.
It's nothing remotely like the Arizona set up, but, bloody interesting. You get to climb through ruined / cannibalised planes, at Very Much your own risk. Climbing through a ruined 747 is great fun.
As a kid, we had a school excursion to the landing of the 1st Jumbo Jet to Australia, back in 1971. We got to check it out, even getting up into the Cockpit and the 'Bubble'.
What's replaced the 747 in the high capacity flight area? I assume it's demise is it that there are other planes that can carry just as many passengers, or more, whilst being cheaper to run? I think the majority still flying are used as freighters - correct?
A mate of mine became an Engineer at Qantas, and I've been able to get into a variety of planes during maintenance in hangers , test flights etc. His brother ( they are a family of High achievers) became a RAAF Fighter pilot , and that's got me a fair bit of access to war birds, and 2 stomach churning flights in Fighters. But, somehow, I Didn't need the Chunder Bag! For a bloke that gets woozy in a car through the twisties, that's an accomplishment. Another mate in the RAAF has got me up in various Transports - the highlight being a low flight over Sydney Harbour, with the ramp down.
Nothing to add, apart from this photo I took of a load of a British Airways 747s laid up during covid in December 2020.
Looks like Kemble.
Last I’d heard, the Transaero “Dash 8” a/c weren’t utilized due to not being able to have the refueling capability added to the or existing airframes in any feasible manner (Don’t know what became of all that, tho). Pretty sure most all of the “VC” hardware gets installed at the Boeing facilities near SEATAC.
I’m thinking the airframes have already been delivered and are in the process of becoming VC25 over the next few years.
Note: the new a/c have a range of almost 8,000 nautical miles…that’s a helluva good range; but, aerial refueling gives the a/c a sort of in-flight independence that makes for an airborne “safe place” that’s really, really nice when the shit hits the fan and the POTUS needs time to figure shit out. There are a coupl’a other a/c that are intended to be Airborne Command Post(s) that are called “EB4”…they require refueling capability for the same reasons AF1 should have it (Title 10 Command and Control Capability). As I understood things, the new VC25 were suppose to have the same capability.
Plowboy was right, tho…
The last delivery of actual 747 for commercial use have been delivered. 747 production is apparently over. Bummer. No matter how many A380s ScareBus builds…there is only one real double decker that we all knew as kids.
Pit Row
If you want to see some crazy masses of airplanes in one location, then you may have missed out on the Boeing 737 parking lot in Moses Lake........
It was absolutely crazy, especially when you realize that there are really no commercial flights to speak of out of that airport! 737s everywhere.
Here are a couple of the storage areas. The video shows it when it was only about half full, it was completely full at one time after that.
I worked on the E4A model at Offutt AFB back in the early '80's. (As well as the Buff and KC-135). Unbelievable capability.
Side note...there's a reason the new AF1 is a 747 and not the newer twin engine jumbos..."no replacement for displacement". If you think you might need to stay airborne for days...do you want 2 engines or 4?
Lol...another side note...I worked on the Trailing wire antenna system. That was a hoot and a half.
Yep, I saw the same thing at Roswell NM. We took a special missions King Air down there for some brake certification testing.
New 737's in long term storage stacked everywhere. Mostly American Airlines stuff.
Last thing I read was that they have been working on the ex-Transaero 8’s the whole time, and that the refueling probe will not be implemented due to it not being used on the current version.
I got to fly on the 8 with Lufthansa 3 years ago, scuch a beautiful plane. Everytime you land at Frankfurt you can see many 747-800’s and A340-600’s. There is just something about the stretched fuselages and massive 4 engines that make them look good.
Lufthansa ordered 20, but took delivery of 19, as Boeing tried to deliver one of the prototypes. It was full of useless electronics for testing which they could not remove, adding a lot of weight to a plane which was already a little heavy and not as efficient as promised. It sat out in the desert for a long time until it was said someone bought it last year. But from what I’ve read it’s actually being scrapped. Very sad
It's not uncommon in the industry to sell the Proto aircraft after removing as much of the Instrumentation as possible. Since that a/c has many many hours on the clock...it's usually sold at a huge discount and an "extended" warranty.
Building and cert testing experimental aircraft was my bread and butter for many years.
But that was not the case here, the aircraft was supposed to be in better shape and with all equipment from testing removed. Some of it could not be removed, the plane had been through tests which were harsher than Lufthansa could accept. The aircraft was too heavy, and Boeing accepted to cancel the delivery so they didn’t have to face a lawsuit from Lufthansa for the entire delivery being non-contractual due to not meeting specifications on fuel burn and weight
Braniff, WOW that’s a name I have not Heard in a long time.
My first job out of high school was at a machine shop that made several different parts for the 747 . We made one of the main nose landing gear pieces out of titanium. Went to work for Boeing in my mid 20’s in a weld and duct shop , made it four years before realizing I could never spend the rest of my life there . My dad worked for Boeing flight test division when they built and tested the first 747 . I sat in the pilot seat of the first one at 7-8 years old .
The company is a shell of its former self . It’s going to take a long time for them to recover from decades of bad decisions after the merger with McDonald Douglass . 737-800 max f u c k up , Dreamliner f u c k up , 777x f u c k up . They can pack up and leave town , sooner the better .
https://katu.com/news/nation-world/final-boeing-747-leaves-everett-leaves-message-in-virtual-sky
I wasn't there during the sales negotiations so I have no idea what Boeing promised or what the customer expected. I have seen "Proto" sales go south several times.
The time from signing a contract til delivery is very lengthy... especially a Proto. The changes in stock market, business ups and downs, can often force the customer to seek a legal way out of the deal. It's very common.
On the other hand... certification testing is brutal on the airframe. That particular aircraft may have just been too beat up for the customer to deal with. Idk
https://www.ifiberone.com/columbia_basin/last-boeing-747-leaves-message…
People may not get why you say that…
As Boeing has literally been the Lead Technology Exporter to China…then there’s the…literal Shitting the Bed on the Max ordeal by “giving in” to the greedy demands of an airline industry that takes profits over safety. Never-mind how they’ve treated employees since the McDonnell Douglas merger…there’s a couple of good expose pieces on that! But, I digress…
I’m hopeful that they’ve learned their lessons and are turning the corner as they move into this 100 unit 787 order from United (with another 100 on the back-end of that if all goes well) and other future deals that should give them an opportunity to prove themselves under their new leadership. 787 and 777X are a couple of excellent programs that should put Boeing back on top.
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