I used to quite like flying on the 747 :) (as much as you can on a large pax jet)
Definitely a much better experience than DC8 or 707,I normally just travelled cattle class as the difference in price to upgrade quite often paid for the rest of the holiday,my favourite seat was down near the back where the fuse was tapering in - there were just 2 seats in the row so you had a little space around you.
I flew with BA,Virgin and Untied on 747's

Two personal anecdotes concerning the 747.

I and my family lived in Jakarta in the early 80s. My daughter and my son were both experienced travellers by this time, having flown round the world at least twice. We once went on holiday to a resort on the east coast of Malaya. We flew to Singapore on a CX 747 where we changed planes. We walked down the jetway onto a MAS 737. My son, aged four, looked around and said "Dad, where's the spiral staircase?" He had only ever flown on 747s!

In early 1998, I flew from Tokyo to Saigon via Hong Kong on a CX 777. I realized this would be my last time into Kai Tak before it closed, so I flashed my PPL and business card and got a jump seat ride for the IGS 13 approach - I think being in Business Class helped. A spectacular experience, but the 747 part of the story occurred after landing. We were taxiing in on the parallel taxiway and got a good view of a China Airlines 747 coming round the corner. It touched down in a cloud of tyre smoke, bounced 30 feet into the air and touched down again.

The Captain, who was the PF, said "Another fine arrival by China Airlines!"

The FO turned to me and said "You wouldn't believe how difficult it is to bounce a 747. You really have to work at it!"

TWA operated from STL to HNL using a 747-100 once upon a time (as TWA 1 I believe). The flight departed around lunchtime. More that a few times on the way to or from a lunch out saw this flight depart. When the winds favored a takeoff to the West, there did not appear to be a lot of clearance over the traffic lights at Lindbergh and Missouri Bottom Road!

Qantas 400
Qantas SP (definitely the one I was aboard longest, Cairns to LAX)
BA 400
Qantas 400
AirNZ 400
Singapore Airlines 400 (definitely the nicest)
South African 400
VA 400 (definitely the most tatty, older than me and the IFE system somehow destroyed my headphones)
BA 400

Not suggesting that any of these guys read this forum (let alone that they post on it), but shouldn't jetting about the globe on the Queen of the Skies be recalled with both fondness and respect by a rather select fraternity of guys who, in their careers, resided in a house with both "1600" and "Pennsylvania" in its address?

(While vastly modified - I'm aware at least of that bare fact - it's still the same basic design, isn't it?)

A -200 highly modified for VIP interior, secure comms, corresponding generator capacity and aerial refueling among other things. Very low time airframes compared to airlines too. I suppose there’s rationale for updating to latest 747 model, but I’d think retrofit of modern updates would be more cost-effective. Presidential crew members have a unique security clearance and public use of social media “wouldn’t be prudent. “

It has more like 747-400 engines. Uprated.

Not quite. AF1 is equipped with CF6-80C2 engines, but they are the 'PMC' version, not FADEC. There were (IIRC) nine 747s built with the CF6-80C PMC engines - seven 747-300s (i.e. stretched upper deck), and two 747-200s that became the AF1 aircraft (the non-FADEC 747/CF6-80C2 wasn't exactly a big money maker for Boeing :sad:).
But other than the somewhat unusual engine configuration, Willow is correct, the AF1 aircraft started life as pretty much stock standard 747-200s. They were then flown to Wichita (pretty much sans interiors) where they were converted to the AF1 configuration.

The performance is beyond what normal -200s can do.

Thanks for all the clarifications and additional info.

Flew to Vancouver in Feb 2020. At the time was disappointed BA weren't using the A380 which does operate that route but now I'm happy we were on 747s as they were retired shortly afterwards. That will be last flight on anything sadly :bored:

When BA introduced the 400s, they did their usual arrogant thing of making changes. The flights to Asia for the first few weeks were, er, interesting,
On the Singapore to LHR flights, I ended up in
1. Athens
2. Amsterdam
3. Nowhere
4. Manchester, (via SQ), and thence to LHR.

and that's just the ones I remember!

Only flown a couple times on a 747.

Lufthansa 744. SIN - FRA.

Air Pacific 744 (?). BNE - NAN (2010. I’m hoping it was the -200 classic but I’m thinking they were all gone by then from FJ. Probably the -400. Makes no difference as I can’t remember it anyway. Lol).


I’ve flown across the Pacific between OZ and the US many many times on various airlines and aircraft - 777, 787, and lately a QF A330 (surprisingly I preferred that most of all of the twins despite always being in economy).

There is just something comforting when you look out over the giant wing of a 747 and see two engines strapped to it as opposed to just one. Especially with all that water below for hours on end.

Statistics and engine reliability be damned! I’ll take 4 any day of the week. :p

BA747-200. G-AWNO. Capt. Hugh Dibley. Appropriate as wife and I going to the U.S. Grand Prix. {Dibley did quite a lot of motor racing] Same to Montreal.
EL AL 747-200. Heathrow to Tel Aviv
Air Canada 747.Toronto/Heathrow
Virgin Atlantic 747-200. Several trips Gatwick to Orlando and Miami.
South African Airways 747-400 Heathrow to Capetown and Jo'burg to Heathrow. [Several]
BA747-400 Heathrow to Sao Paulo Heathrow to Miami. Heathrow'Montreal also to Toronto.[Flight deck for the Toronto landing, might have been a '200]

I remember as a new commercial pilot 35 years ago talking to a senior 747 Captain. I asked him how he liked flying a big 4 engine jet. His response “ it will do until Boeing builds a 5 engine jet”

Saw my first 747 in flight in about 1979, when I moved to my first big-city job in Chicago.

What impressed me was how slow and majestic they looked (as eyeballed from the ground in fuselage-lengths-per-second) as they circled the city to join up with the smaller folks for approach to ORD - made me think of dirigibles in films from the 1930s.

My life simply didn't incude a lot of long-haul rides, so only two to report on the 747: CHI-SFO on United in 1982, and SJU-STL on TWA around 1992. No complaints, and glad I got the opportunities.

What changes are you thinking of?

BA was the/one of the lead customers so it might have been a case of never fly the A variant rather than BA demanding bespoke changes?

One for tdracer perhaps.

Gliding
 

I fancied learning how to fly a glider, and so booked myself into a school in the UK Midlands, where I discovered I was not a natural born pilot - I was excellent at finding sink. So it goes. On the same course was a 747 pilot, and in the general discussions about our performance with the instructors, it was pointed out that he tended to flare for landing rather too early. He pointed out that he was used to sitting rather higher off the ground, and he had a natural tendency to flare at the time he was habituated to!
That said, I've had it pointed out by several pilots that they enjoyed flying gliders (perhaps it helps to keep manual flying skills current?), and it probably helped that the pilot of the 'Gimli Glider' was an experienced glider pilot.

Best seats in the Class.
Best of all was, in November 1980, scoring a couple of circuits in the 747 sim in Sydney while waiting for an afternoon flight to the US to do a C550 course.
Thanks Reg.

It's fascinating that the 747 even with all the size and weight still is essentially an unfiltered, manually flown (power boosted) aircraft.