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Comment by yingw787 | Hacker News Reader

I wonder if there will be a Cunard-like airline that flies older planes because people want to experience them.

I believe Cunard (part of Carnival) operates the Queen Mary 2, the last running ocean liner on Earth. It does Southampton to New York via traditional Atlantic crossing, just like the Titanic (almost) did. Not sure if it makes money, but (pre-pandemic) it was likely subsidized by other cruise ships or by QM2 cruising herself.

It'd be cool to have a flight from Heathrow to JFK (?) on one 747 for people who want to experience the same plane. I think an airline enthusiast might go several times a year, and there's a goodly number of airline enthusiasts.

I think a flying boat tour of the Pacific islands would be a wicked honeymoon!

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> I believe Cunard (part of Carnival) operates the Queen Mary 2, the last running ocean liner on Earth. It does Southampton to New York via traditional Atlantic crossing, just like the Titanic (almost) did. Not sure if it makes money, but (pre-pandemic) it was likely subsidized by other cruise ships or by QM2 cruising herself.

I doubt it's subsidized, given how expensive it is. I'm not sure what distinction you're drawing between "cruise ship" and "ocean liner" - I guess in theory the QM2 runs to a timetable while cruise ships run to ad-hoc charter schedules, but in practice those cruise schedules are set years in advance and that timetable can be changed on fairly short notice. When I looked into a round-the-world trip it didn't seem like e.g. Vancouver-Hawaii was going to be any harder than NY-Southampton - in both cases you look at the schedule and book your trip months in advance.

The QM2 is a luxury service but it's not just for enthusiasts - there are plenty of people who can't or don't want to fly, and are willing to pay the price.

Oh there's significant structural differences between cruise ships and ocean liners. Ocean liner's bow is strengthened for travel in adverse seas, and the stern is cupped rather than box-shaped to reduce roll. The superstructure is tapered for better balance, and the engines are optimized for power / speed moreso than vibration / comfort. They're more expensive than cruise ships as a result.

See: https://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-ocean-l...

Then presumably those ships doing Vancouver-Hawaii are "ocean liners" in that sense, and the QM2 is by no means "the last running ocean liner on Earth"?

With the exception of RMS Queen Mary 2 (Cunard Line: 2004-present), the ocean liner is nearly extinct.

https://oppositelock.kinja.com/the-last-surviving-transatlan...

You don't seem to have engaged with the discussion. This was claimed two or three posts back, but what does it actually mean?

Plenty of passenger ships - to give a concrete example, the Spirit class - routinely make transoceanic crossings at a reasonable speed following schedules published years in advance. Perhaps a little slower than the QM2. Perhaps with slightly more onboard amenities. But I can see no clear distinction that justifies this talk of the QM2 being somehow "the last" and qualitatively different from these other ships that do very much the same thing in practice.

It was explained wasn't it? The design parameters are different, as the purpose is different (transportation rather than leisure).

"Bob is the last sheep"

"But I see all these four-legged ruminants wandering around eating grass, what about them?"

"Those are goats"

"You don't seem to have engaged with the discussion..."

I responded to that, and then grandparent just reverted to a blank assertion. It's more like:

"Bob is the last sheep"

"But I see all these four-legged ruminants wandering around eating grass, what about them?"

"Those are goats"

"We're shearing them and gathering wool from them; doesn't that make them sheep?"

"Bob is the last sheep"

"You don't seem to have engaged with the discussion..."

Ocean liner = designed to travel fast. Cruise liner = designed to have lots of amenities.

QM2 is one of the fastest cruise ships but:

> 41 feet for every gallon

Not great fuel economy either. When multiplied by the 3000 people on board at max capacity that extends efficiency but only to a point.

If this existed for the Concorde, I'd get on it.

It would be expensive. A cross Atlantic trip in the early 2000s was around $12000 round trip[0].

[0] https://www.airspacemag.com/flight-today/my-ride-on-the-conc...

Sadly, if I had it in the early 2000s I would have done it, but now that I have it I can't.

Terrible for the environment too.

You can easily pay $10000+ for first class as it stands on the same route today

That‘s because it turned out that the range of the Concorde made it so that a 3-hour supersonic bus ride was competing with a 6-hour flight that was a meal service and then a sleep in a lie flat bed.

At $12k for what would be a Concorde flight, you might as well pay $17k for a supersonic ride on a MiG-29 once Migflug has them again.

If we're tossing out pie-in-the-sky dreams of retired airplanes we'd pay a lot of hypothetical money to fly on just once, and if military planes are fair game...

...there's simply no competition for the Blackbird.

Sure there is. I'd go for an XB-70 Valkyrie. Nearly as fast, and a hell of a lot roomier.

I'm not sure about the Blackbird specifically, but I've been a few times to the Duxford air show and they always have sign-ups for 'long-retired military plane experience flights'. (And I could be wrong but I don't think it's Duxford-specific - seems like they're companies/organisations that do the rounds of similar air shows here & in North America at least.)

A-12 ? ;-)

The A-12 and SR-71 are both considered Blackbirds. But the A-12 is a single-seater; only the trainer variants had a second sorta wedged in there.

Yes, I know it's faster. Yes, that makes it cooler. But even in this flight of fancy, I don't imagine myself skilled enough to pilot an A-12 solo.

Not quite the same, but you can buy a Starfighter.

You can still get long haul flights on 747s, and the Air China ones will probably be around for years.

I've worked in commercial aviation for long enough not to underestimate the size of the aviation enthusiast market, but still doubt they'd want multiple flights a year on what is, apart from the upper deck, a pretty ordinary widebody. Ancient cruise ships are easier to levy massive charges for because they're a multi-day experience benchmarked against already expensive cruises, and it's not like aircraft are easier or cheaper to keep running. The only way you'd keep retro aircraft open as a regular scheduled flight for enthusiasts would be if it mainly served normal passengers, like the ancient 707s that used to operate Iranian domestic routes due to lack of competition and difficulty of obtaining modern aircraft spares under the sanctions regime. Some people went to Iran just to fly on them, but not that many.

The flying boat tour would be great fun for any suitably enthusiastic millionaire though. :D

What's going to happen is that these aircraft will be modified for cargo. The 747 is already one of the world's cargo workhorses.

No 747 has been converted in a few years at the moment and many of those which have been converted have largely been parked up; there's plenty of other aircraft available on the market for the same money that are much cheaper to operate. What demand there is for new 747Fs has largely been met by sales of existing freighters or new-build 747-8Fs.

I don't know if it's still around but there was a company that ran dinner flights on DC3s in Los Angeles for nostalgia.

Actually, googling "DC3 flights" brings up a few companies in different parts of the world.

I imagine those are at least an order of magnitude cheaper to operate/maintain. Still, pretty cool place for a dinner party.

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