Strangely enough, by the time G-BNLH was retired in October 2009 it had flown more hours per day, on average, than many if not most of its fellow BA B744s.

So they must have let it out of the hangar occasionally. :O

Most beautiful aircraft ever built. Crossed the pond countless times in one with various BA liveries. Farewell.

I recall the first time I crossed the Pond with only two engines (a BA 777) I felt nervous.

AA 767 for me, Gatwick - Miami and return. All my subsequent trips were on 747s or A340s, not because of nerves, they were just all with Virgin! Haven't been for nearly two decades now.

It was on a B757 for me.....Stanstead to Bangor and then Bangor to Orlando.....with short haul seat pitch.....horrible flight!
It was cheap for a reason.

BA final 747 flight
 

Does anyone know where and when this will be?

I'd be surprised if much planning has gone into that yet - BA has more important things to worry about at the moment.

In normal times, I would expect the retirement of a type to be marked by one or more commemorative flights, but these days I wouldn't take that for granted.

It may well be that the only remaining flights will be to wherever the airframes are going to be scrapped. That will certainly apply to the 9 aircraft currently at LHR (because BA no longer scraps aircraft in its own backyard); the five at Teruel may well be broken up there (as some have been previously); ditto some or all of the 14 at Cardiff (or possibly down the road at St Athan).

So the final BA 747 flight will likely be when the last of the 9 makes its final departure from LHR for wherever. I expect that to be a very emotional event, and I'll certainly be there to witness it.

The comparison of being in Y on the Triple was particularly painful - as my previous crossing had been on (registration) G-BOAC. :uhoh:

Try crossing the Pacific (Auckland to Los Angeles) on two engines for the first time. Not even going close to Hawaii, as far as I could tell.

The -400 had a combination of wing extensions plus the winglets, versus the -300. It was a 0.85 airplane, and could get up to 0.92 cruise above 40k.

One of my old mates when asked why he had always flown four engine aircraft, repiled, "Because no one has built one with five engines."

Wasn't that quote credited to one of the Rolls Royce bosses?

In the late 70's, I flew on a BA B747 LAX-LHR , after t/o we had an engine fire.
The Cpt. explained all & advised it was now out and we could still continue direct to LHR.

An hour later , he announced we would divert to JFK , as maintainance there would be in a good position to change the engine.
We landed safely & smoothly there, and were hoping for a min. 6h delay..........
This proved too ambitious , so ground customer services staff efficiently arranged overnight accommodation for all.

We received a memo under the hotel room door, stating that at 8am-9am approx there would be a quick buffet breakfast available,
and then would we all please proceed to the awaiting buses for the by then fixed a/c 's continuation to LHR
As expected, huge queues for the buffet !
I just made myself a coffee, grabbed a doughnut & looked for somewhere to sit .
I minute later I was approached by a lovely BA customer service agent , who said " Sir , are you ready to go, because a bus is going now ? "
I said " yes , eh , sure " ...I was directed to the BA check in desks with my LAX-LHR boarding card stub - and given my new boarding card ON CONCORDE !!

A great result - but I must say , after having flown in the B747 ( all versions incl. SP - excluding freighter ) 3m+ miles since 1971 , I have never felt safer in the air.
She will be truly missed

Could have been Bergerie1's old mate of course )

Well apart from the Trident..

Well apart from thr Trident!

The 145 has 5 APUs.

Embraer or Eurocopter ?

The extensions and winglets didn't do much for cruise speed - the higher aspect wing helped overall drag but the winglets were close to worthless. Although the winglets had looked good in the wind tunnel, the real world performance was so disappointing that there was a serious proposal from the aero types to simply get rid of them. However Boeing liked the 'look' and how the winglets distinguished the -400 from the earlier 747s (and while the winglets didn't help much, they didn't hurt). So they decided to keep the winglets.
There was a meaningful improvement in cruise drag due to the stretched upper deck and it's area ruling improvement. When they retrofit a few -200s with stretched upper decks they actually got enough fuel burn improvement to more than offset the additional weight. Apparently the improvement in cruise drag with the stretched upper deck was a bit of pleasant surprise - they hadn't looked at it that closely during the development of the -300, but it made it a no-brainer to include it on the -400...

I seem to recall damaged winglets have occasionally been removed before a revenue flight and the aircraft flown home?

Why did the production 747-400 and 800 freighters not have the stretched upper deck? Keep airframe weight down a bit to improve loads carried on the main deck?