Final two BA 747s Leaving Heathrow for the Last Time
Discussion
peter tdci said:
48k said:
Anyone know what category ILS they have at Kemble? Looks like the cloudbase is 700 feet max could be a very late call.
There is no ILS at Kemble which I guess was the reason for being fuelled for a longish hold.It’s just a visual approach like you’d do into your local farm filed airstrip.
CS Garth said:
mstrbkr said:
Burrow01 said:
Wow. That is fantastic.
The hold at brize was due to the weather at Kemble and it’s the nearest place with a navigation aid to hold at.
caiss4 said:
The give away is that is G-BYGC in the BOAC livery. The two aircraft today were G-CIVB in the Negus livery (now at Kemble) and G-CIVY in current livery that went to St. Athan.
I think some people reposted the old red arrows clip from RIAT last year and now Twitter is full of people talking about the red arrows send off and people complaining about waste etc.The BOAC 747 in the video unfortunately got stored in Cardiff back in June.
pete said:
BA 747s have flown me all over the world over the past 20 years, including a memorable unplanned 24 hours in rural Kazakhstan. It's a sad day to hear the last one fly over my garden, but I'll certainly make the trip to Kemble at some point to show my young kids the original "jumbo jet".
I assume you were on that notorious flight of escaped bees! Uralsk is a dire airport, terminal a dump, but the airside cafe does cold beer & caviar! The 747s were good old birds, upper deck like a private jet. But boy were they tired.
pete said:
BA 747s have flown me all over the world over the past 20 years, including a memorable unplanned 24 hours in rural Kazakhstan. It's a sad day to hear the last one fly over my garden, but I'll certainly make the trip to Kemble at some point to show my young kids the original "jumbo jet".
Same. I didn't set foot on a plane until was 18, but have spent a lot of the past 20 years travelling for work. The 747 always represented the ultimate for me - something to aspire to flying on, and maybe going upstairs in - and while progress is amazing it's also tinged with a little sadness for me.
Just going back to that Sky News error. Early this week one of the broadcasters (Channel 4 News?) were running a story about returning a single asylum seeker from the UK to France on a “Jumbo Jet” chartered by the Government. It was a Titan Airways A320. A very nice plane, but not a Jumbo Jet by any means. Also he was accompanied by a gaggle of French officials and there should have been dozens of other passengers on board, but their legal teams had managed to stall the extradition process at the very last minute, so they didn’t board.
Eric Mc said:
El stovey said:
Not many opportunities to fly on them as a passenger now though, especially from the U.K.
True - but you will still be able to see them for quite some time. I reckon there will still be quite a few flying at least ten years from now.Sad day. It always felt really special going on a 747 for the sheer bulk of it.
They were really creaking towards the end though, went to Cape Town in Feb and the plane really did feel internally ready for retirement. Along with being a full flight and (ot) awful service it’s the last time I’ll fly BA,
They were really creaking towards the end though, went to Cape Town in Feb and the plane really did feel internally ready for retirement. Along with being a full flight and (ot) awful service it’s the last time I’ll fly BA,
Dr Jekyll said:
The last I heard Boeing were still planning to make them until mid 2022 or thereabouts, and the US presidential 747-8s being refurbished are expected to be delivered in 2024.
They are only building the ones left on the order book, about 16 IIRC, as of a couple of months ago, and have slowed the build rate down to half an aircraft per month.There's still a question mark over there even all 16 of those being built as 4 of them were for a Russian firm who have told Boeing that can't pay for them, and Boeing are in a legal battle of that. UPS has taken one of those 4 adding to the 12 of those 16 it had already ordered.
So, it might be down to about 10 left to complete, so early 2022 most likely the last will be rolled out.
It has only sold about 50 airliner 747-8's and the last two of those were the two that were were for the now defunct Russian airline Transaero, and are the two that were then bought by the US Govt for conversion into the new VC-25B for POTUS.
The firm that has built all the fuselage sub-assemblies for the 747 for Boeing ever since the late 60's has already completed the final one, and indeed has sold off/destroyed all the tooling already, so there definately won't be anymore after Boeing finishes the current order book.
carreauchompeur said:
Sad day. It always felt really special going on a 747 for the sheer bulk of it.
They were really creaking towards the end though, went to Cape Town in Feb and the plane really did feel internally ready for retirement. Along with being a full flight and (ot) awful service it’s the last time I’ll fly BA,
I have to go down to Lagos every November to work at a trade show there, the old girl's they (used to) use on that route looked pretty old too, god knows how they even took off with all the baggage on board!They were really creaking towards the end though, went to Cape Town in Feb and the plane really did feel internally ready for retirement. Along with being a full flight and (ot) awful service it’s the last time I’ll fly BA,
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