Comment by GMoromisato | Hacker News Reader

Comment by GMoromisato | Hacker News Reader

Anyone interested should read Joe Sutter's book, 747. Sutter was the lead engineer for the development of the 747 and he has some awesome stories.

One interesting story is that Juan Trippe (CEO of PanAm) wanted Boeing to create a double-decker airplane. He was enamored with the idea of "ocean liners" cruising the sky. But Sutter (and other engineers) knew that it would be impossible to create what he wanted, so instead they proposed a wide-body aircraft (10 seats across). Nevertheless, Trippe insisted on a double-decker design.

The engineers then created two cabin mockups. One for a double decker, which was basically two narrow-body cabins stacked on top of each other. The other was the wide-body of the 747. Once Trippe saw the trade off, he realized that the spacious cabin of the 747 was the way to go.

But even then, when he saw the second level where the pilots go, he insisted on putting passengers up there too.

I've had the good fortune to fly on the top deck of the 747. I highly recommend it.

I'm kind of torn between the top deck and the nose seats.

I've flown British Airways's business class on the upper deck, and I've flown Qantas' business class which is all on the lower deck starting at the nose. I wasn't quite at the front, but I was close enough to see the slightly more forward facing windows. I always thought it'd be great to sit in that first row and have that more forward facing view.

I had a blast on BA's though, as I was young and blowing through a bunch of airline miles on a transatlantic flight with my now wife. Getting to sit backwards on a plane was a little fun change too. Those BA seats (their last generation business class) are pretty bad by business class standards, even at the time, but they were alright on the narrower upper deck of a 747.

It's a shame, as I don't think I'll likely ever fly in a 747 again. I rarely fly Korean Air or Lufthansa, and I've got no plans to fly Air China.

I will say though, I really didn't like flying the 747 in economy. I did with Qantas a couple times, and it was noticeably louder and less pleasant than their A380s which had started flying at the time.

So my recommendation: fly a 747 at the front or upper deck if you can in business or first, at least once if you've never had the chance. Avoid it if you're flying economy. Most other wide body jets will be newer, quieter, and all around more pleasant.

I would have to imagine that the newer 747-8 would have the much lower pressurization and other comfort standards of its generation of aircraft in the 2000s; the problem is that it didn't really sell so most people did not get to fly in one.

> I would have to imagine that the newer 747-8 would have the much lower pressurization

Two small corrections:

1) If it would have had a change in internal pressurization, the -8 would have a higher pressurization to allow for a lower cabin altitude pressure.

2) The -8 does not have a higher pressurization, because they did not change the fuselage construction. Newer airplanes have lower cabin-altitudes thanks to the use of composite materials, allowing for better fatigue properties.

The -8 also has a lower maximum certified altitude than the -400. The -400 can go to 45,100 feet, the -8 is limited to 43,100 feet.

This is actually because the -8 wing is MORE efficient than yhe -400. There is a regulation that in case of a pressurization failure the airplane has to be able to descend below 15,000 feet in a certain time. The -8 wing has less drag, so it is easier to overspeed in descent, and they had to limit the maximum operation altitude to compensate.

Interesting! I did not know that, thanks!

>thanks to the use of composite materials

Not always. 777X uses a conventional fuselage but has a 6,000 foot cabin compared to the 8,000 foot cabin on the legacy 777.

I hated the top deck when flying east from NY to London. The rising sun poured in every time a crew member opened the cockpit door, waking me up. Best seat for me was the single one in the lower deck at the very nose of the aircraft.

The 747 was a great aircraft to fly in though. The tower of power effect on take-off really reassured you that you were going to get where you were going.

We got front lower deck seats once when I was a kid. My sister and I had extra open floor space for playing. It was great.

Oh no - you were THOSE kids.

Actually we weren't (& aren't) able to afford this kind of thing. Dad worked for the airline & somehow got this perk, just once.

BA used to fly the on the Moscow to London route once a day. I remeber vividly the late night a320 flight was cancelled and we were stuck in the lounge until the early morning flight about 6 hours later.

Somewhere over the North Sea I decided to give the on board phone a go, and it worked. A early call to let my wife know I’d made it (there were only a few seats left on the morning flight and 180 passengers to fit on).

Next time I flew it the phones weren’t working, and it wasn’t long until they’d all been removed, so I’m glad I got to tick that off my list.

Likely my last 747 flight ever was far less salubrious. I was supposed to be flying Toronto to jfk to Heathrow, but the Toronto flight was cancelled and I got downgraded to economy and put on a 747 to Amsterdam.

What do you mean by this tower of power effect? Was it just that the 747 had a more powerful take-off or something due to 4 engines?

There was quite a kick when the engines spooled up. I flew mainly SFO/LAX to SYD and the few minutes of full thrust you just kind of sat back in your seat and didn't try to do anything.

More or less. I remember the first time I flew in a tri-jet (after a 747), I was a bit worried on take-off about how we were still on the ground as the end of the runway approached.

To clarify slightly, I first heard "tower of power" used to describe the Saturn V. So two icons of the late 60s.

On a normal takeoff, a 4 engine aircraft has less excess power available than a 2 engine aircraft. Aircraft engines are sized to provide a minimum climb gradient with a single engine inoperative. A twin engine aircraft with an with an engine failure had lost 50% of its power. A quad with an engine failure is only down 25%. So the twin’s engines are oversized to compensate.

> The tower of power effect on take-off really reassured you that you were going to get where you were going.

I have the memory of being struck by how much the overhead storage compartments were shaking at takeoff. Not reassuring at all, but they stopped shaking once we got off the ground.

I had a round trip BOS↔LHR that was 747 eastbound, 777 westbound; I ended up on the upper deck of the 747, which was fascinating as an otherwise casual flyer. One especially memorable bit was landing - you're basically three stories up and suddenly the wheels are on the ground, and you're still three stories up :-)

(I'm still happy to have traded that for planes with a much higher cabin pressure-altitude - and would trade even further for business-class transatlantic non-cruise ships. But it was definitely fun to have had the experience.)

A higher pressure-altitude or a higher pressure? Can't imagine what's good about a higher pressure-altitude. Less creaking making you less worried the plane will explode?

Higher cabin pressure, but it is marketed in pressure-corresponding-to-altitude; Norwegian Airlines for example keeps their cabins at 6000ft, ie. equivalent atmospheric pressure to being at 6000ft. (Looks like "equivalent effective cabin altitude" or just "cabin altitude" is the more accurate term.) So yeah, I worded that backwards, higher pressure, lower altitude, is more comfortable for passengers (me) especially on longer flights.

> I've had the good fortune to fly on the top deck of the 747. I highly recommend it.

I used to fly frequently between SYD-LAX in business class on Qantas B744s. 11K (top deck, right hand side exit row window seat) was one of the best seats in the house.

The only passengers who had it better were those downstairs in First, where the curvature of the nose pretty much let them see out the front of the aircraft through the “side” windows.

One thing I remember from his book is that the 747 was initially of secondary importance within Boeing, behind the SST. This wasn't Boeing's flagship, so to speak, until SST was canceled.

This seems like an odd version of the story. My understanding is Boeing designed lots of military aircraft, not all reached production. The 747 is the result of some of that design work.

That was also said about the B-707, which was supposed to have some parts commonality with their KC-135 Stratotanker built for the USAF. But as development progressed, the airliner and the tanker diverged.

The B-747 went through a similar process. Boeing was proposing a big cargo aircraft to the USAF (the CX-HLS), but that was never built. Lockheed got the C-5 contract instead, which satisfied the USAF's need for a really big cargo plane. So the B-747 was built as a commercial plane, mostly to Pan Am's requirements.

Military-civilian commonality was mostly wishful thinking at the management levels, as it turned out.

The 707 was redesigned with a wider fuselage to carry the number of passengers the airlines wanted.

It still does happen though, so not totally wishful thinking - but it seems to go the other way, commercial to miliary e.g. like the KC-30A tanker which are converted from standard commercial A330-200s (and as I understand the new version will be from A330neos).

The Lockheed L-100 Hercules does exist and is apparently a civilian C-130

You're going to love the TU-114!

it had sleeping berths and a lounge I hear. As long as I can wear hearing protection, that sounds like a luxury travel experience.

My memory of the 747 was that it was originally the military who paid for the design. They wanted an aircraft that could be loaded from the front. This led to the bubble at the front of the plane. For whatever reason, the military didn't bite so they repurposed it as a commercial aircraft.

That makes sense because a high cockpit also combines well with nose loading which some military freighters have.

Nose loading was the reason the 747 had the aircrew sit on the top floor. It was thought that the SST project would displace all extent subsonic airliners, so the 747 was designed to be easily configured for freight after a short timeframe serving pax.

You should read the book, if you're interested. From the book (p.84):

"Time and time again there appears in print the logical but false assumption that Boeing took its losing military C-5 bid and revamped it as the commercial 747. In fact, the 747 would be an entirely original design that owes nothing to the C-5."

That said, in the same chapter he talks about how GE developed a high-bypass turbofan engine for the C-5 and it was only because they had such an engine that the 747 became possible.

But really my only point is that you should read the book if you're interested.

The engines drive the design.

I understand that the payload typically drives the design, and the wings drive (or rather, limit) the generational improvements. Aircraft are reengined quite often.

> only because they had such an engine that the 747 became possible.

Many engine manufacturers were experimenting with high-bypass ratios; Honeywell, Pratt & Whitney, Rolls-Royce. GE was just first to production. If they hadn’t done it, someone else would have.

The upper deck was really intended as a first class lounge and I think I was up there once. But obviously wasn't very economical and got turned into business class seating once that came in.

Qantas (I think, it’s possible it was BA) used the upper deck for economy and it was my favourite place to sit. The window seat had a little locker between your seat and the window (the curvature of the fuselage meant the seat couldn’t be right up against the window). It was a great place to keep all your stuff accessible without having to bother the aisle seat to get up to the overhead storage.

Highly recommended, too. I was completely captivated by this when I was an elementary school student.

I sat under and in front of the pilots once. Also highly recommended.

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