Jumbo Stay | Hacker News Reader

Jumbo Stay

en.wikipedia.org

139 pointsjka38 comments

I actually stayed there one night. Cozy little place (I mean, a 747 makes a big airplane, but a rather small hotel)

I slept in one of the motors, if remember well. Quite small, I had to climb into my bed (like in a bunk bed, but the lower bed was part of the actual room)

Same! In retrospect I really should have sprung for the flight deck room

What is meant by "I stayed in one of the motors"? Was it part of a wheel well, a jet engine, or what?

Jet engine:

https://www.jumbostay.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/0000051...

Inside one of the engine nacelles.

The engine-y bits are no longer there.

https://www.jumbostay.com/room/engine-room/

Amazing how many hotel rooms can fit into a jumbo jet.

See also El Avion bar/restaurant in Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica (https://www.elavion.net/history). That plane was involved in the Iran-Contra affair and was abandoned as that came to light.

This YT video has a little more background on the plane and a really extensive tour of it - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwyNB1J9iiU

If anyone is young and has opportunity, I highly recommend backpacking and going off the beaten track. Stay in weird hostels like these with strangers. It is one of the best recreational experiences you can have.

This, plus hitch hiking - not just A->B but a longer trip, spanning weeks or months. I took a gap year in 2012 and visited 17 countries on a ~€5/d budget. It was a life-changing experience.

This is something I've never had the guts to do. Do you mind sharing how did it change your life?

I’m not parent but I, too, can say hitchhiking changed my life. First it made it possible for me to travel, because I was too poor to move around otherwise. Travelling is life-changing for many, and it was for me as well. I received lots of love and kindness. Second it was a chance to experience an activity that put me in the present. Like sailing, paragliding, or hunting for instance, hitchhiking is about gathering free energy, the one that’s available right there, right now. But this energy is unlocked through a peculiarly social technique. Which brings us to the third way it changed my life. It was a fantastic chance to exercise my social abilities. Granted, it’s a very specific situation: getting a stranger to trust you in a short time, while assessing if you should trust said stranger, not only in terms of basic safety but also in regards to their ability to actually help you—many want to be kind even to the cost of actually wasting your time. The fourth one would be related to the people I met and the conversations I had with them while in the car. Oftentimes, drivers have a good reason for being on the road. I met many professionals who gave me a glimpse into their world. I had the chance to ask questions for hours to several entrepreneurs. I also got to see some of the diversity of society. Where else can you hear people talk with no regard for political correctness? Fifth, there’s a hitchhiking subculture (at least in Europe) with fascinating characters and a great aesthetic.

I spend 3 months in Australia and New Zealand. And travelled around a lot in other places too. My answer to your question would be learning about different countries, different cultures. Seeing that there are interesting and friendly people everywhere. I feel like it made me a lot more tolerant and open minded.

If life ever gets really though, I know I can always go to NZ. Sounds silly, but I _think_ this has made me more resilient, more able to put things into perspective.

Well it definitely changed my guts ;) I used to be afraid of so many things, and still am! But it got me in the mindset of addressing fear rationally, and treating it as a challenge. (I later picked up downhill longboarding.)

Also: taught me to trust people, to be gracious of gifts and opportunities coming my way, many ways of being creatively resourceful under constraints... It was also one hell of a physical challenge: hours thumbing in the hot weather, kilometres walked because the spot was bad, etc. I've pushed my limits way harder than I was ready for, got ill twice - I'm still pushing myself a bit too much sometimes, but I'm more mindful about it.

I think the most important part was experiencing other cultures - sorry if it sounds cliché! I feel travel is much more "mainstream" these days. I grew up in some city somewhere in central Poland, far from a highway, far from an airport. I was the only person from my "previous life" circles who dared do this kind of stuff, so I've seen and done things that nobody I knew could even tell tales of.

And it paid off (literally), because shortly after, I scored my first job at an international company, where I felt right at home.

See also, the guy living in a 727 somewhere out in Oregon or something

[1] https://www.airplanehome.com

What a rabbit hole! I remember reading about this guy maybe 10 years ago, and he's still at it. There's even a summer picnic concert this summer hosted from the 727 wings: https://www.groupmuse.com/events/12485-portlandia-brass-ense...

Airliners make great restaurants:

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/v1x-D47A0tg/maxresdefault.jpg

So great actually, that there exist restaurants made to look like the inside of one:

https://flykouzina.com/

But I've never heard of repurposing them as a hotels.

The best was probably Pan Am's first class lounge in a 747. https://vinepair.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/12/pam-am.jpg

Alas, over time, economics dictated that the space be converted to business class seating when that level of service came in.

People reminisce about the golden age of aviation, but most of the modern complaints are actually that airline deregulation drove down prices, and consumers made it very clear that they'll sacrifice service for cheaper fares. You really do get better service if you pay for it, and modern long-haul business class seating would be unimaginable in the 70's, let alone the suites offered by ME3 carriers.

Oh certainly. Not that travel can't still have its unpleasant aspects, e.g. flight delays/cancellations, but pay for TSE Pre, airline clubs, business class seating (especially international lie-flat seating which puts what Pan Am had in first class to shame), etc. and I'm not sure air travel is consistently worse than it was in the 70s.

I agree. A long haul flight in business isn't bad at all.

Now going to and from the airport and all that comes with it? That's a different story...

Another example in Colorado:

http://theairplanerestaurant.com/index.htm

McDonalds even turned one into seating in Taupo, New Zealand

https://firstwefeast.com/eat/2014/08/this-mcdonalds-plane-in...

does the airplane still have the avionics?

how you can just leave millions of dollars worth of tech behind

The maintenance cost associated with end-of-life commercial flight equipment quickly outpaces the cost of buying a new platform. Without maintenance, the avionics (and everything else on the plane) is barely worth its weight in scrap metal (because even scrapping is expensive).

Toronto faced a similar issue of antiquated electronics with its last set of retired street cars which used (1970s) state-of-the-art silicon-controlled rectifiers for propulsion. However, replacement parts stopped being made into the 1990s and 2000s. In the last days of operation, some units were cannibilized to get other broken down units going as replacement electronics were simply not available and could not be jerry-rigged from other off-the-shelf parts.

(1) https://stevemunro.ca/2018/06/07/will-toronto-get-more-new-s...

The Hague purchased old trams from Marseille for parts, as they had this exact problem with the old (red) GTL-8 trams. [1]

Some GTL-8s are actually still in service to this day, though they're being replaced by new Siemens Avenios as time goes on.

[1] https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gelede_Tram_Lang

Do most cities design and build their own buses and trams?

At least with rail vehicles (trams, metros and trains), I think custom designs used to be more common in the past. Perhaps the consolidation of all sorts of independent rolling stock manufacturers into Alstom has played a part in making it less common these days.

In the face of the mid-century GM streetcar conspiracy in North America, there were very few options for off-the-shelf streetcars. Toronto ended up working with a provincial agency (UTDC) to develop a design that would meet contemporary needs. It was really a world-class effort: the prototypes were built in Switzerland, adjusted for Toronto track gauge and marketed to Boston (who ended up going with a Boeing design).

In a very oversimplified explanation, most major rail manufacturers now offer something that’s like a kit: cities pick length, types of operation (street running or separate grade), front-end and back-end design and that’s it.

Had no idea such a thing had ever happened. Interesting article.

General Motors streetcar conspiracy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_streetcar_consp...

This is a massive factor in marine economics too.

Because the disposal costs are so high, and recycling of specialist equipment and wiring so complex the point at which a vessel turns from an asset to a liability may be hard to anticipate.

There are lots of "luxury" yachts and "Gin palaces" out there that seem to be worth millions on paper, but are worth net zero. Many have embedded trackers deep in fibreglass mouldings, and large vessels are satellite tracked so simply scuppering them is no longer an option.

During the pandemic there was lots of talk of mooring many cruise ships along the south coast and turning them into permanent hotels. Ships often end up as nightclubs or restaurants.

> Many have embedded trackers deep in fibreglass mouldings, and large vessels are satellite tracked so simply scuppering them is no longer an option.

Could you elaborate a bit on this part? Intentional sinking for insurance purposes, or to avoid having to pay for it to be scrapped?

I recall there’s some ship graveyards on the Turkish coast where they intentionally ram large cruise-liners into shore so they can scrap em. But I guess that’s more relevant for bigger ships with more steel etc?

It's illegal in most of Europe, at least, to transport hazardous waste for disposal to places where it would get done inappropriately.

Usually this is dealt with through finding a company that can claim to use the ship for something but actually scraps it.

One now defunct company almost failed this kind of dance by admitting it sold a ship for scrapping. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MS_Fennia

> Could you elaborate a bit on this part? Intentional sinking for insurance purposes, or to avoid having to pay for it to be scrapped?

Sorry for late reply. Yeah, I was thinking of the latter, though both might be possible. Contriving a marine accident, collision, fire. loss in a storm etc would be physically dangerous and legally very risky. A less serious but still illegal caper would be dodging the scrapage costs by holing it. But when a registered vessel "disappears" that can trigger serious investigations for all sorts of reasons I am sure you can imagine.

From what I understand (admittedly little) the engines are the most valuable part of a eol airliner

Wouldn't surprise me. The lifespan of an airframe is far longer than that of an engine, and they're designed to be swapped out. They can even be transported under-wing: https://www.flightradar24.com/blog/how-qantas-ferried-an-eng...

The engine is basically a collection of life limited parts, so the range of value in the engines depends hugely on how many engine hours flown since the engine was last rebuilt. They can be worth a few million dollars removed from an aircraft that's otherwise unsaleable (to swap onto the remaining aircraft still in service) or of negligble value themselves.

Assuming they weren't upgraded, the plane was 30+ years old when it was decommissioned. Normally, I'd say the market for equipment that old is third-world countries, and the old planes need old parts, but the 747 is a big plane. The other buyers of old airplanes are companies like UPS and DHL, but I'm not sure they want them that old, and they'd probably upgrade the avionics.

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