British Airways Retires the 747

[PaulBradley]

https://www.bbc.com/news/business-53426886;


This is very sad news indeed; we knew the end was coming, but this is too soon. I last flew on one last October on the PHX-LHR route, one of the last of BA's North American 747 routes. Sadly, while I appreciated the space in the cabin, they were looking very worn at the end there - no investment in the cabins for some years and they were very outdated inside.

I prefer to remember the flights I made to Australia back in the 80's - being allowed into the cockpit of a Philippine Airlines a/c over SE Asia between Karachi and Manila; Cathay Pacific's 400 winding between skyscrapers on final approach to Kai Tak; seeing the Arabian Desert oilfields at night, for all the world like galaxies scattered in the cosmos.

I will miss the old gal; the 747 carried me on so many adventures over 30 years and the cramped, soulless Spam tubes of today will never have the same cachet.

[iggie]

A sad end to a great history with British Airways and BOAC before that of course. I've never been fortunate enough to fly on one, but grew up with them thundering overhead when I was growing up in Woodley, where the outbound beacon was located on the old airfield. You always knew it was a Jumbo!

[wokka]

I flew in one back from Hong Kong. Being 6' 2" leg room was poor and I had a dodgy knee at the time so I had to get up and find somewhere I could stretch out. I sat at the back of the aircraft on the floor and a Stewardess said I couldn't lie there. When I explained why, she kindly let me use one of the crew seats for the flight. Sad to see them go but the world has moved on and so has aviation.

[ShaunW]

It's sad to see them go. We flew on an older, more than slightly used, Air Canada 747 from Heathrow to Montreal back in the late 90's and there was a fair bit of shake, rattle and roll going on as we thundered along the LHR runway but once in the air I recall a lovely serene flight, in fact it barely felt as if we were flying at all, with so much space in the cabin as it was a thinly populated scheduled flight. Alas the return flight from Calgary was on a less characterful but almost brand new Airbus 340 and it is looking increasingly likely the Montreal flight will be my first and only trip on a Jumbo. We flew to New York with BA in 2001 and I was rather hoping for a 747 on that occasion but they shoved us onto a rather full 767 instead!

[RCD]

it's strange how you take them for granted until they go. However, aviation is going to have a bumpy ride for the next few years and the 747 are starting to show their age.

It was the Vulcan for me. They were two a penny over the skies of south Lincolnshire and you never wasted expensive film which was on them and then they stopped! At least I did manage to get to East Midlands to see the last flight of the vulcan

[RCD]

it's strange how you take them for granted until they go. However, aviation is going to have a bumpy ride for the next few years and the 747 are starting to show their age.

It was the Vulcan for me. They were two a penny over the skies of south Lincolnshire and you never wasted expensive film on them and then they stopped! At least I did manage to get to East Midlands to see the last flight of the Vulcan

[JohnRatzenberger]

No BA or BOAC flights. My first was sometime in the 80's when we hauled a load of us to an exercise in California, upper deck & all - first & only time.

After that I did any number of US -> Asia flights - Seoul, Narita, Incheon (that's where you get to land with the AA guns manned). I always had the thought that the 747 made a heck of an RJ out there - one just does not appreciate the distances and volume of traffic until one thinks about it. And I have always wished that US travelers could be half as organized & disciplined boarding/exiting as the Koreans are.

[PaulBradley]

Nostalgically, I went back through my passenger log book. I made a total of 31 flights in 747s, if you count a take-off and subsequent landing as a flight, so that multi-leg journeys are counted as multiple flights.

The longest was 10 hrs 26 mins, LHR-LAX in a Virgin Atlantic 747, flight VS007 in G-VFAB "Lady Penelope'.

Shortest was of just 21 mins! That was a re-positioning flight from Abu Dhabi to Dubai. This was on Philippine Airlines Flt PR740, N941PR, from Manila to LGW in April 1985. On a multi-stop journey, we were supposed to fly into Dubai, but were diverted because of heavy fog. We deplaned in Abu Dhabi in the middle of the night, and had to stay airside with no facilities for 5 hours! Yuck! It also caused us to miss our slot at LGW, so we had to divert to Paris and fly back from there to LGW on a British Airways 737! And it didn't really bother me as this was my first big adventure!

I have flown on 747s of seven different airlines - British Airways, Philippine Airlines, Cathay Pacific, Pan Am, Continental Airlines, Northwest airlines and Virgin Atlantic.

I've spent a total of 214 hrs 7 mins in flight aboard 747s, so with boarding, waiting and taxiing added in, I've probably spent over 10 days of my life on the Queen of the Skies!

Here's a Cathay Pacific 747, VR-HCL, Flt CX200, waiting for me to board at Gatwick in June 1988:

[Gregers]

Poor picture as it is from my phone at max distance but at Doncaster,/Finningley today.



All the best

Greg

[JohnRatzenberger]

Never thought about a passenger log, wish I had in some respects,then I wouldn't have gotten my "747 first flight" wrong - that trip was in a C5A. But thinking about those flights leads me to believe there have been a few trans-Atlantic in a 747, generally NY or Atlanta -> London or Frankfurt.

Depending on who arranged the flights, U.S.- Korea were looooong ones, not just because of the distances and schedules but because my boss had to hit every airport that allowed smoking, so he could go into a small room with the rest and puff away for a couple hours. IIRC the Portland, OR - > Narita flight(leg) regularly went 10-12 hours. In those instances, I went immediately to the restaurants and chowed down. Portland, OR, has a fantastic Udon soup and Narita, Incheon, even sad little Kimpo, had great Korean.

If I was by myself, preferred, I got as direct as I could. I can sleep on airplanes. Although my flight from Seoul to Frankfurt, 20-ish hours, was a huge disappointment as we crossed China and Russia at night. That was technically a "round the world" trip.

[Robin]

Very happy that I can count a BA 747 among the many aircraft that I have flown in, this was between LHR and JFK, a memorable flight with an unforgettable landing when we arrived, the pilot had warned us that because of crosswinds we would have a difficult landing, and was he right, one of the roughest landing that I have ever encountered. That was all in the past because my return flight to London was on Concorde - G-BOAC. Robin.

[PaulBradley]

Poor picture as it is from my phone at max distance but at Doncaster,/Finningley today.

I understand that there are many cargo 747s still in service - are these two examples, Greg?

[PaulBradley]

Never thought about a passenger log, wish I had in some respects,then I wouldn't have gotten my "747 first flight" wrong.


Portland, OR, has a fantastic Udon soup

Is that the one near Powell's World of Books? We loved that one!

I've kept a passenger log book since I moved to the US, but had recorded all the relevant details in my spotter's notebooks previously and transferred them. To date, I have over 431 hours logged, so the 747 neatly makes up nearly half that. I delight in being a nerd.....

[JohnRatzenberger]

Don't remember the bookstore; I brought my own.
It was a counter & seating area -- horse-shoe bar and a few tables to one side and rear. By myself, I took a bar seat, made myself small, ate my Udon and read my book.

[Gregers]

Quite possibly Paul, I do see some cargo aircraft at Finningley but didn't have my binoculars with me so couldn't get the registrations to look them up. I have also seen a Boeing 727 there fairly recently on a few occasions. Those are getting quite a rare sight now.

All the best

Greg