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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

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 3mo 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.
- selimthegrim 3mo ago
  Don’t forget to top it off with a visit to the Hermann Oberth Museum near Nuremberg.
- rambambram 3mo 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/ 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!
- joezydeco 3mo ago
  I've been to this museum, it's absolutely incredible. It's their version of the Henry Ford museum in Detroit. The thing you neglect to mention is that the Speyer 747 is suspended 30 meters above the ground. It's breathtaking. https://simpleflying.com/technik-museum-speyer-lufthansa-boeing-747-move-story/ https://simpleflying.com/technik-museum-speyer-lufthansa-boe...
  - microtonal 3mo ago
    The thing you neglect to mention is that the Speyer 747 is suspended 30 meters above the ground. It's breathtaking. Fair. We had been to Sinnsheim a couple of times before Speyer. In Sinnsheim, they have the Concorde/Tu-144 on poles on top of one of the buildings. So, the 30 meters high suspension of the 747 was not so impressive anymore I guess :). The museums are also great for kids. We went several times with our daughter and she loved it every time.
eastbound 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo 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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus#History has a diagram of all the predecessor companies.
agumonkey 3mo 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 ?
WillAdams 3mo 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 3mo 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.
- perilunar 3mo ago
  There's an old quip about aircraft design that "a plane isn’t ready to fly until the documentation is heavier than the airplane". Can't find a source for it though.
chadgiq 3mo ago
Flew one from Chicago to Tokyo quite a few years back, what a great flight that was!
- pseingatl 3mo ago
  Was it on Flying Tiger? I worked on cargo 747's for them in another lifetime; they had a daily Chicago-Tokyo 747 cargo flight.
  - cjrp 3mo ago
    More likely United I'd say

microtonal 3mo 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.

selimthegrim 3mo ago
Don’t forget to top it off with a visit to the Hermann Oberth Museum near Nuremberg.
rambambram 3mo 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/ 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!
joezydeco 3mo ago
I've been to this museum, it's absolutely incredible. It's their version of the Henry Ford museum in Detroit. The thing you neglect to mention is that the Speyer 747 is suspended 30 meters above the ground. It's breathtaking. https://simpleflying.com/technik-museum-speyer-lufthansa-boeing-747-move-story/ https://simpleflying.com/technik-museum-speyer-lufthansa-boe...
- microtonal 3mo ago
  The thing you neglect to mention is that the Speyer 747 is suspended 30 meters above the ground. It's breathtaking. Fair. We had been to Sinnsheim a couple of times before Speyer. In Sinnsheim, they have the Concorde/Tu-144 on poles on top of one of the buildings. So, the 30 meters high suspension of the 747 was not so impressive anymore I guess :). The museums are also great for kids. We went several times with our daughter and she loved it every time.

eastbound 3mo 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 3mo 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 3mo 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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus#History https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus#History has a diagram of all the predecessor companies.

agumonkey 3mo 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 ?

WillAdams 3mo 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 3mo 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.
perilunar 3mo ago
There's an old quip about aircraft design that "a plane isn’t ready to fly until the documentation is heavier than the airplane". Can't find a source for it though.

chadgiq 3mo ago

Flew one from Chicago to Tokyo quite a few years back, what a great flight that was!

pseingatl 3mo ago
Was it on Flying Tiger? I worked on cargo 747's for them in another lifetime; they had a daily Chicago-Tokyo 747 cargo flight.
- cjrp 3mo ago
  More likely United I'd say