Another great development of our favourite machine was when the -400 was designed with flight crew rest area, including bunks and toilet, within the flight deck and not available to any of our customers. If you could train the cabin crew not to slam the door after they cleared away your caviar (Just kidding - a bit), you could maintain a nice quiet environment for the resting crew - allowing them a proper sleep.
Also, if a tactical decision was required when the Captain was sleeping, he could gently be awoken, come into the cockpit from the bunk, receive a full briefing and come to an acceptable 'team solution' - all in his silk pyjamas! Depending on where you were and what the decision was, he could either change into uniform and take over Command or go back to bed.
An example of this requirement for crew to be woken would be the terrible winter snows a few years ago that completely closed UK airports and airspace causing Long Range jets to be denied entry to UK airspace. Cathay aircraft en route returned to Hong Hong from all kinds of distances and I think one of the Speedbirds ended up in Cyprus.

Aer Lingus later leased a 747 with the original P&W - 3 (?) engines to BOAC for awhile.

The registration, call sign, was PZ, Papa Zulu.

The BOAC crews used to refer to this a/c as Paddy Zulu, the one from Air Fungus.

Those engines needed careful handling, especially when starting the descent from altitude, there was a locking bar inserted behind the thrust levers (throttles) to prevent them being retarded to idle until below 35,000 ft.

Happy Days.

Guys, what would have been the average Mach number for that London- Sydney flight?

Airbus originally calculated a break even on the A380 of, I believe, 269 delivered but due to cost over runs, delays etc. the break even figure rose to nearer 500 airframes.


7000 LHS on the -400, Queen of the Skies, a beautiful aircraft to look at and to fly.

Don’t quite agree ExSpdbird. An instant glance at the Standby A.H. would have confirmed that it agreed with the F/Os ADI. Also a press of the Capts ADI test button would indicate the ADI failure – usually due to the CB tripping. That was an avoidable accident…

Good luck to the A380 - big shoes to fill.............
Average Mach no. for London-Sydney?
Quite slow, I would think - something like M 0.80 - cost index zero, or thereabouts. Cathay used CI 80 for most of the -400 ops although BA, Singair and me used to fly around at .86 which used to suit the wing and the schedule well. To stretch the flight where necessary, CI zero did work.

TrailBoss. Quite agree, in fact the last words on the CVR were the F/Eng's saying "No, no, look at the centre " meaning look at the standby A/H. And one has to wonder what the F/O was doing watching his A/H slowly roll to over 90 deg. on take off without comment ?

See PM shortly.

I heard that Aer Lingus were so happy with the SP, they ordered the stretch version!..... :}:p

Tailor made for their 'round the world' service from Shannon to Dublin!:O

Ed Force One, here she comes...

747 Fuel costs?
 

With the lower price of oil, could the 747 become more attractive?

747 love the old thing and the stories here by those who worked on and flew her
 

my first encounter was as boy on a holiday early 70's.
BOAC were showcasing their new 747-136's on LHR-Palma Majorca flights on summer weekends and I begged my Dad to book our next holiday on one -
huge delays due to the early engine problems but was a wonderful experience - we sat right at the back - amazing feeling as we lifted off and rocketed skywards - off course very kid wanted to visit the flight deck:ok:

to see a shiny BOAC 747 plus 2 newly delivered Condor machines on the ramp at Palma was awesome and as we taxied out an Aer Lingus 747 landed with a Sabena 747 on the approach
the airlines really wanted to show these behemoths off to everyone on their holidays to the sun.
KLM and SAS/Scanair was also a regular user of the 747 on holiday charters to Spain and the Canaries (tragically an infamous accident one weekend at TCI was to happen some years later to one of KLM's and a Pan Am 747 both on holiday charters with catastrophic impact)

I then joined aviation as a career in 1972 but working with DC-8's DC-9's BAC 1-11's Viscounts and 707's

I started to enjoy many staff travel trips on the Jumbo with rides on
Pan Am
KLM and Martinair
Tower Air
PIA 200's
BA and KT on the 100 and 200 and 400 series
SAA 400 and SP
QF 400
Aeromaritime 300
Air Europe 100
LION AIR/ORION
Virgin 100 200 400

I ended up working on all 8 of Virgins PW JT9 powered immaculate classic fleet
we started with just 2 a/c VIRG and GIN
then we got VRGN and TKYO with -7Q engines that enabled us to go non-stop to USA west coast and Tokyo.
then along came VJFK and VLAX two ex QF machines

next came the more unusual 747-123 series (ex Highland Express G-HIHO)
as G-VMIA very high density and had underfloor galleys.
her capacity was 14J/474Y so with the crew complement and staff on jumpseats and crew rest on this old bird was always at MTOW to MIA or MCO with over 500 people onboard.
I often sat in my car on the ramp at LGW on a hot summer's day at temps over 25c to watch her lift off.

last Virgin PW classic to arrive was the ex G-BMGS from Caledonian and she became G-VOYG shady lady
Virgin did a huge overhaul and new cabin interior on her and she went onto fly for many years.

These were joined by two Rolls Royce powered -200's from CX and the whole ex 747 -219 RR fleet of 5 from TE/ANZ
these Rollers were all beautiful and redone with Virgins interiors but sadly post 9/11 most of this fleet soon ended up in the desert with only some to see work again for the likes of Transaero and Air Atlanta Icelandic.

Virgin started to receive brand new -400 GE powered ships in the mid 90's plus took all 5 that were originally ordered by AZ/Alitalia which has formed the leisure fleet still flying at LGW plus they cover the outstations MAN/GLA/BFS.
common sight was to see 3 of these at MCO, two for LGW and one for MAN

one of my best memories was a lovely sunny day on an engineering flight to DUB for mx at EI Team and we flew very low level out to the Scilly Isles and we did a couple of circuits over the islands - the white beaches and caribbean blue sea was stunning - we were going to ask for an app and flypast at St Mary's but we bottled out of that one.

happy days

Fifteen brilliant years on the -400 and what do I remember most?




S--L--E--E--P

Those flight crew bunks gave me some of the best sleep ever.
'Jams on, earplugs in, door shut tight, light off, heater on, blankets wrapped, low deep Roller hum, gentle rocking to help consciousness slip away ......

Six solid hours almost guaranteed on the Singapore run, arriving completely refreshed.

Longhaul secret. It's the only way to fly.

Rog 747
I heard from one of your colleagues ex Army Air force (he went onto EK) that the CX ones were in poor shape, but the ANZ were pristine for second hand A/C.


Regards
Mr Mac

Did my training at Prestwick, the training Empire had cobbled up a 3-leg "cross country" around the Islands to give INS navigation practice to those unfamiliar with the system. One day a Cessna pilot called up ATC, gave his position and said he was in sight of a 747, was it in trouble ? Not to our knowledge, replied ATC, why do you ask?

Well, I'm at 800 ft - and it's below me !

Happy Days.

747 tales
 

exsp33db1rd

er yes something like that!
I must say i have not yet been to the islands for a holiday - after our 747 jaunt in the 90's to see such beauty and beaches its long overdue - a nice twotter flight over is on the cards this Spring

Mr Mac

yes the ex air new Zealand 742 RR fleet were almost as ''ex-new''.
re the 2 from CX VCAT and VRUM iirc i was on extended leave when they arrived so never saw them until VS had them in service - they seemed to behave themselves afaicr

told ya!

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CbgWQfWW4AAnVZj.jpg:large

I thought I saw something about him doing a 74 type rating last year (or Cardiff Aviation offering them, or something to do with Bruce Dickinson and 747 type ratings), figured they'd have a bigger tour bus for the next round-the-world trip