Singapore Airlines Ends its 747 Era

[Guest fountainhall]

I never thought I’d see this news item.

 

Singapore Airlines has an invitation on its website to witness the end of its 747 fleet. The final aircraft will fly flights SQ747 and SQ748 to and from Hong Kong of 6^th April. All passengers will take part in a party at the departure gates. First-class passengers will additionally be treated to a visit to a B747 simulator and a gourmet lunch.

 

http://siajourneys.com/

 

The 747 has played a major part in almost all my travel in 33 years in Asia. My Air France flight to Hong Kong on March 2^nd 1979 was my first-ever in a 747. I was staggered at the size of the monster. One of the second version -200 series, it had intermediary stops at Dubai, Delhi and Bangkok. On the final sector to Hong Kong, we had to fly around the south of Vietnam as there was a border war going on between Vietnam and China. To kill time, I had a half bottle of champagne. Together with all the wine I had drunk earlier, I rolled off that flight.

 

In the 1980s, most of my transpacific flights were on Northwest-Orient, which also used the -200s. When my company let me indulge in business class, window seats in the 16-seat upper deck enabled you to stretch your legs out on the side storage bins. A stewardess would always leave a drinks trolley with miniature bottles for passengers to help themselves - and stick a few bottles into your hand-luggage! The longest flight I made was Chicago to Seoul, which almost had to make a last-minute stop in Tokyo when headwinds increased fuel burn – but we made it.

 

Adapted 747-200s started making non-stops flights from Hong Kong to Europe in the late 1980s, although the extra fuel tanks meant a maximum passenger load of 70%. I never liked the 747-300 with its extended upper deck because Cathay Pacific stuffed economy passengers in what should have been a more exclusive business class cabin.

 

Then the -400 series arrived. Designed specifically for the burgeoning trans-Pacific market, it seemed able to fly anywhere, the epitome of a comfortable gigantic flying machine. I guess I always assumed Boeing would just keep upgrading the models. Not so. Although a 747-800 series has been rolled out, orders seem almost exclusively for the freighter version. Now many airlines are just phasing the out their 747s, replacing them with the twin-engine 777s, the new Dreamliner and the awesomely huge Airbus A380.

 

Much as I enjoy the A380, I know I shall miss the 747.

[Rogie]

If ever there is a book detailing the evolution of air travel over the past 30 - 40 years, its ups and downs, you'd be in pole position to write it FH.

 

A decent-sized coffee table book (best viewed a deux on said coffee table perhaps whilst sipping coffee liqueurs, NOT on one of those new-fangled electronic book-readers!) chock full of black & white and colour plates with a scholarly text with just the right amount of gravity mixed with humour and amusing anecdote.

 

Ah, I can see you hesitating FH, well, why not? I would offer to write the foreword!

[Guest fountainhall]

Ha! Kind thought. Maybe I can supply some anecdotes, but sadly I have no photos of the exterior or interior of any 747s! And whilst, like Michael and others, I have travelled a lot, there are so many plane-types I never flew in!

 

My first flight was at age 18 in a commercial DC3 - and I was hooked! When I first started long-distance flying - between the UK and New York in the days when Freddie Laker started cheap flights and BA offered instant stand-by tickets - BA's VC10 was probably the most comfortable plane I remember from those days. In that year, BA offered Elizabethan menus for some reason - Elizabeth 1^st that is! That was the only time I have ever tucked into swan!

 

I did make occasional detours in order to try out a new aircraft. Before I came to Asia, I once flew from London to Nice via Paris so I could experience one of the first A300s which was only flying out of Paris. And in the same year I flew from Geneva to Zurich instead of taking a train only so I could travel on a DC10. One had been involved a few years earlier in a horrendous crash outside Paris, but it had been flying safely since then. The following year, though, it suffered two total loss crashes and had to be withdrawn from service for quite a few months for important modifications.

 

I have flown somewhere around 8 million kms since that first DC3 flight. I reckon I am extremely lucky that the only 'incidents' I have experienced have been two lightning strikes, two aborted landings and one aborted take-off!

 

But now, if I had the money and the friends with the time to join me, this is how I'd really prefer to get from A to B!

 

[Guest]

As far as I can see, other airlines will be operating 747s for some time yet.

 

According to Wikipedia, Boeing delivered 11 of these during 2011, so I envisage these operating for many years to come.

 

For comparison, Airbus delivered 26 A380s in 2011.

[Guest fountainhall]

The 747 will undoubtedly continue in service for years, if only because airlines cannot afford to replace it with more fuel efficient aircraft. But the writing is surely on the wall. JAL flew its last 747 flight last year, and Cathay Pacific announced last year that the 777 will in future be the backbone of it long haul fleet.

[Rogie]

Seeing a headline reading . . .

 

"At 30,000 ft we heard a crack"

 

. . . maybe you'd assume whoever was recounting the experience made pretty sure his seatbelt was nice and tight and he was thoroughly familiar with emergency procedures.

 

But you'd be making a big assumption. What if the 30,000 ft was not in the air, but under water?

 

On 23 January 1960, two explorers, US navy lieutenant Don Walsh and Swiss engineer Jacques Piccard, became the first - and still the only - people to dive 11km (seven miles) to the bottom of the Mariana Trench.

As a new wave of adventurers gear up to repeat the epic journey, Don Walsh tells the BBC about their remarkable deep-sea feat.

 

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17060355