Some years ago I wrote the following for a friend's website:-
I came relatively late to the Boeing 747, first flying it in 1981 long after all the early teething problems with the PW JT9D-3 engines had been solved. We had two versions of the aircraft, the 747-100 series with the more powerful PW JT9D-7 engines and the 747-200 with RR RB211-524 engines. The -200 version had the longer range but both variants were a delight to fly.
Previously the two jet types I had flown were the Vickers VC10 and the Boeing 707, both excellent in their way but not as magnificent as the 747. It was not just its size that made it so. In contrast to the various earlier types of jet transports, which all had some handling vices, the 747 had none. And, again, in contrast to the earlier types it had more system redundancy than any of them. The only handling vice that I could find (if it was a vice at all) was that the nose wheel could skate along the surface if one tried to turn when taxiing at too fast a speed when it was wet.
It was very stable to fly, was an excellent instrument flying platform, yet had sufficiently powerful enough controls to handle in a sprightly fashion like a much smaller aircraft. In fact when seated in the snug cockpit it was difficult to believe there was so much aircraft following along behind! I spent 14 years flying it on long haul routes, I was also privileged to be IRE/TRE and airworthiness test flight qualified. It was during CofA test flights that one really became able to appreciate its handling qualities. It stalled immaculately in all configurations, except when clean – when it wouldn’t stall at all! The minimum speed had been defined by the point when the slow and stately buffeting was considered unacceptable, and one would have had to be very ham-fisted to come anywhere near the stall speed.
Unlike the 707, it had no Mach tuck, even at M0.97. And unlike the VC10 it did not Dutch Roll. It was remarkably straight forward to fly, even with two engines failed on the same side, and several of us were qualified to carry out 3 engine ferry flights. These were interesting exercises in performance calculations, flight planning and handling when it was an outboard engine that was u/s. You had to apply full rudder and hold it through most of the take-off run, open up the inner symmetrical engines and then carefully apply power on the good outboard engine (commensurate with the airspeed), almost steering the aircraft with power.
But those kinds of things were towards the edge of the envelope, not normally encountered in normal route flying. But it was very comforting to know one had such large margins. Areas that required precision flying were the approach and landing – naturally; and also on departure during flap retraction when the margin between the minimum speed and the flap limiting speed for the configuration could be fairly small at high weights. I forget the exact figures but I seem to remember something like 7 kts.
Probably the failure that most concerned us was the possibility of an engine failure close to V1 at high weight, at a high altitude airfield. Clearly the numbers were well worked out but stopping an aircraft weighing over 350 tonnes from somewhere around 200 mph was not something to be undertaken lightly. Fortunately I never had to do it – other than on the simulator on routine competency checks.
A really wonderful aircraft to fly. And all the more remarkable when one remembers how long ago it was designed. Joe Sutter and his team got it absolutely right.