Just quick praise to a company that is able to transport my tuckas around the globe so safely and quickly.
What a marvel that you’re safer in the air than on the open road. It’s grand when technology delivers the goods. Traveling is something that I really enjoy and shrinking the world like this is such a boon. Thanks Boeing.
Feel free to gush about jet transportation and jet planes generally in this thread. A list of cool classic jets:
A-10 Warthog
Jets and other planes are cool, but I have a confession to make.
I am obsessed with plane crashes. I don’t know why, and I feel horrible for people who die and are hurt in them, but I like reading about crashes and even looking at pictures. For me, the best part of Fight Club was the scene in the plane. I enjoy all the Airport type movies. Cast Away was a real treat. There is something about a large, powerful, machine crashing to earth that fascinates me. I even dream about plane crashes, quite often in fact, when planes crash in my neighborhood and I’m the first one there. I’m not afraid to fly, and have never even come close to being in a plane crash, so I can’t figure this obsession out.
I love commercial aviation. I love going to airports and IDing the planes. I have a whole library of planes downloaded for MS Flight Simulator. A new thrill came this summer when I flew on a Tupolev Tu-154 from Moscow to Tomsk, Siberia and back. Makes you appreciate Boeing and Airbus even more when the seats aren’t bolted to the floor…
To get to Moscow, we flew through London on a Boeing 747-400. It was my fourth time or so on a 400, but this one had the cool built-in TVs on the back of the seat. The last time I flew one, I flew to Cape Town from Atlanta. Flying there, with the wind, is the longest nonstop commercial flight in the world – 15 and 3/4 hours. Flying back can’t be done in one stretch, as it is against the wind and the rotation of the earth. We had to stop in a desolate island in the Cape Verdes, Isla del Sol.
I have loved flying for years, and it has only gotten better since I got my pilot’s license.
The 747-400 is way cool, and I was priveleged to ride in the cockpit when I came home from London last month on British Airways. Non-American carriers are allowed to have visitors in the “front office”, and after showing my license to the steward, I was escorted up top. The pilots were really nice, and we talked a good deal about general aviation vs. commerical flying.
When I asked if I could take a photo of the cockpit the captain said, “Sure, just let us check and make sure all the switches are set right…” They scanned their panels briefly, only half joking I think…
There’s an old thread in GQ (“Why can’t they put parachutes on airplanes” or something like that – too lazy right now to go look for it) where I posted some statistics from the Nall Report. IIRC, only about 19% of airplane crashes are fatal.
I’m not very keen on commercial aviation. I fly commercially because it is the most efficient way of getting places. But if I had more money I’d buy a small airplane and fly myself. Sure, you only go about 1/5 as fast as a jet, but there’s adventure in flying there yourself. And you don’t have to get a shuttle or a cab to go to a small airport. And no metal detectors. And if you want to be airborne at 0900 instead of 0800, no big deal. The view is better in a small plane too. Especially a Cessna where the wing doesn’t block your view of the scenery.
But limited time means I have to fly commercial airlines. Cramped seats, waiting to board, waiting to taxi, waiting to launch, waiting to de-plane… At least I have the occasional chance to fly in a turboprop Dash-8.
Of course I can be bipolar about this too. Search other threads and you’ll probably find me rhapsodizing about commercial airports and commercial jets.
Oh yeah…that’s a aeroplane! I’ve seen footage of one flying missing an engine, a third of one wing, and half of its tail, with an unexploded/damaged enemy missile lodged into its side. Try doing that with another plane.
Oh, and having a 21 foot long cannon firing shells filled with depleted uranium at over 3 000 feet per second isn’t too shabby either.
Not to take anything away from Boeing (especially considering I have a BS in Aero. Eng.) but this little tidbit has alot more to do with the fact the very highly trained professionals pilot and navigate these craft, whereas practically any dipshit can get behind a car’s wheels.
If one were to actually look at the numbers of deaths related to manufactures’ error between cars and planes I bet the numbers would be less comforting. Or, maybe not less comforting, but could have us crediting car manufacturers more often.
Boeing is certainly an epitome of American aeronautical engineering, but how could you forget the MiGs? Excellently built jets, designed to by flown by peasants from rough fields. Triumphs of Russian engineering. I would love to be able to fly a MiG-15 or 21, just once. Very cool planes.
Have to chime in with praise for the good old ‘Skypig’, the A6E. Not flying anymore, (except in it’s EA6B configuration) but what an attack platform. All weather, all terrain, all on target!
Would this be the wrong place for me to come in and brag that I had dinner Saturday night under the wing of the Spruce Goose at The Evergreen Aviation Museum? I know it’s not a jet but how else was I gonna work it into the conversation?
They have some other great old planes there too, including a P-38L, an P-51D, a Spitfire Mk XVI, and a Messerschmitt BF109G-10. But they also have a few jets, including a Mig-15.
Oh yeah, my favorite jet, the A-4 Skyhawk. I worked on those little pups in the Navy. Simple, rugged little workhorses. Unca Sam flew them from '59 til…umm… '79 or '80, and they’re still flying for other people around the world today. Oh, and when they first came out, they cost less than a million dollars apiece!
When did you fly to Cape Town? About 5 years ago I flew from Hong Kong to Chicago, and United Airlines was pretty proud of it being the world’s longest nonstop commercial flight at the time. According to How Far Is It, Atlanta-Cape Town beats Hong Kong-Chicago by about 300 miles. As it happened, our flight was about 2/3 business class, which no doubt saved quite a bit of weight.
