Originally Posted by
Phantom Driver
However, that aside , the 744 had to be the best . Queen of the Skies indeed . People wax lyrical about the 380 , but in the Jumbo cockpit , you looked down on pretty well everybody (maybe a C5 guy would beg to differ ; don't know what their eye height is ).
Out on the Boeing flight line, when the weather was nice they'd frequently have the overhead escape hatch open to provide ventilation to the flight deck (with the sun shinning, it could rapidly get pretty hot and stuffy up there with the packs not running). I'd occasionally get up and stick my head out the hatch and think about what it would be like to have to grab one of the inertial reel handles and jump out of that hatch.
Now, I'm not saying I wouldn't do it in an emergency, however the alternative would have to look pretty grim before I'd try it...
Anyone know if that hatch and the inertial reels were ever used in a real emergency?