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Comment by tdrp | Hacker News Reader

Since nobody's mentioned it yet: I find they feel very stable in turbulence. I used to do the SFO-Europe route 10-12 times a year and whenever we were on an A330 and encountered even mild turbulence the food would end up on our face and neighbor's coffee on my lap.

I'm not an aeronautic engineer so I can't explain why but the ride was always smooth on 747s even in otherwise non-ideal conditions. I've flown the 787 since then and I don't even think it handles as well, but not enough data. I will miss it.

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I flew bi weekly across eu and to asia and US for years and have a very different experience, 747s (must add that these were generally from BA) were noisy and the turbulence flights horrible (including with people crying because it is so noisy which adds to the experience in heavy turbulence); 330/350 (mostly finnair) were silent and nice. I started to pay attention after a few flights and 747s always seem to be more noisy to me so I started to avoid Boeings. Every time when I am in one (usually across eu where I cannot always pick), it is a shitshow: old & noisy and reminding me of a prop plane ride I took over Guatemala where the pilot was drunk and there were animals in back. Good riddance.

Which routes "across EU" use 747s?

Pre-covid, some of the BA flights from London to Madrid were using heavy jets due to freight loads

Yes, but they were 777s, not 747s. Iberia also regularly used widebodies between Madrid and London (A330 and A350) before the pandemic, and has actually recently resumed them - one return trip per day I believe.

I had one even from London to NL because that one was flying on to Indonesia I think and picked up people in Amsterdam.

There used to be a widebody on Madrid to Frankfurt(?) on a South American airline too. Such routes are relatively rare in Europe but do happen. It would be quite a long time since there were any 747s flying Amsterdam to Jakarta though, I think? Before they retired them I think KLM's last 747s were operating on transatlantic routes only.

Edit: realised it was probably Garuda, but if it was recent it's still not a 747 - they don't have any anymore - it would be a 777.

It's the wing loading (max takeoff weight / sqft of the wing). The 747-400's is something like 155 lb/sqft vs. 124 for the 787-8. In general, the higher the wing loading the better the ride.

In general yes, but the 777 and 787 have a system to automatically move the inboard aileron to reduce the impact of turbulence.

I concede this is ridiculously pedantic, but the system you're talking about is called "gust supression", and uses the flaperons (not the ailerons) in coordination with the elevators. The ailerons are only used for turning and are so far out that trying to use them for altitude control would probably just move (and stress) the wings.

It's a very cool system though!

Well, in the ridiculously pedantic sense, flaperons are combined flaps and ailerons so they cover the function of inboard ailerons on the 787. The outboard ones are only used at low speed.

You could be right. Actually I have no idea about the aileron's use in turning at high speed - i would have thought they were, just more subtly? That's the limit of my knowledge :P

I do know however that they are used symmetrically as part of Boeing's "cruise flaps system", which dynamically adjusts all of the control surfaces to optimize wing camber for weight, speed, altitude etc at cruise. Not sure if it's standard equipment.

I don't have a 777/787 type rating but nearly all large fly by wire jets have a system that automatically manages aileron movement inboard vs outboard and things like roll spoilers depending on airspeed. The generic concept is part of ATPL training, the airplane specifics are part of the type rating training.

That's also the difference between calling them inboard ailerons (generic theory) and specifically knowing they're flaperons (787 systems knowledge)

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