Amazing B-747 Flight

I

imp

Senior Member
Never heard of this done before! They shipped an engine to Johannesburg, South Africa, from Sydney, thusly:

qantas_engine.jpg


"We're undertaking this rare task to get our customers and our aircraft on their way as soon as possible — rather than shipping this engine across by boat or chartering a freighter aircraft," Qantas said in a statement.""

http://mashable.com/2016/01/06/qantas-extra-engine/#RoJ38ShCXmqr
 

They must have been very sure of the stress levels on the main spar. Apart from the simple weight and the aerodynamics (the drag alone would have been significant), they would have had to drill into it to mount the pod, weakening it for the rest of its life.
 
It's not too amazing. It has been done before and I also believe that the wings are pre-drilled to accommodate a third engine (or pod). At one time, I held a B-747 rating, but I was gone too many nights per week, so after two years of flying the Chicago to Honolulu flight, I opted to go back to the B-757 and B-767 and stay within the continental U.S.. The B-747 has one of the best safety records in the business. They are simplistic to fly, if they have the newest avionics on-board, like B-747-8. The downside is that the B-747 is not very economical. Many overseas companies still use this plane as a workhorse hauling passengers and freight. It is a great plane and it started the "jumbo revolution."
 

" I also believe that the wings are pre-drilled to accommodate a third engine (or pod)."

Ah, thank you. That would explain it. All properly researched and calculated.
 
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I was wondering about "wing-flutter". You fly-guys most likely recall the problems encountered by the Lockheed Electra. Some wings came apart in flight. Boeing did extreme wind-tunnel testing, I remember reading, while developing the 747, and determined that the width of the "window" of location for engines on the wing was only 18-inches. Outside that window, oscillation began to occur, like resonance in a bridge. imp
 
Shouldn't be too difficult to trim for "straight and level" on a modern aircraft. Once you've got it off the ground the autopilot should cope.

Crosswind landing would be "interesting" though!
 
IMO, the cost of the extra fuel outweighs transportation costs, if they were to ship it and delivery time is also expedited. Without going into a lot of aviation jargon, for the obvious reasons of having 10-tons more weight on one side of the plane, the pilot would supply more thrust to that side of the plane to keep the plane level during takeoff and flight.

Example; There are three luggage containers on a B-747. All three containers must weigh approximately the same, so that the plane is balanced. If not and one side is much heavier, this would sound an alarm in the cockpit and all three containers would be removed and repacked, so that they do equal approximately the same. Having the plane unbalanced is an unsafe condition.

I had a long dissertation typed better explaining your question, but it was full of aviation terms that may have only confused you.
 
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Laurie said:
Shouldn't be too difficult to trim for "straight and level" on a modern aircraft. Once you've got it off the ground the autopilot should cope.

Crosswind landing would be "interesting" though!
Click to expand...

Once you've got it off the ground

​Yeah, this is what it's all about.
 
It surprises me that Boeing supports such use. I suppose litigation resulting from accident would be baseless, given the conditions imposed. Once, a pilot returning home happened to be sitting next to me. He sensed my interest in the technical, and told me the B-727 he piloted was such that he could "feel" it when a passenger walked the length of the plane.

Any corroboration there? I picture 727 as heavy in the rear, good point is applying thrust directly to fuselage rather than through the wings. imp
 
The B-727 was a workhorse in its day and has quite a history. A lot of airlines, including; Eastern, United and American flew this plane on short to medium range flights. The only complaint that I ever heard about it was that it was extremely noisy, so bad in fact, that hush kits were installed on it. I remember that United liked flying this plane into its higher altitude hubs like Denver. Today, I believe mostly only foreign airlines fly this plane.

A lot of pilots will tell you that they can tell when passengers are walking in the aisles. I only noticed it maybe a few times in the B-737.
 
I can remember once flying in a Shackleton (Lancaster derivative) and we had a lot of loose, heavy, cargo (guns) inside the crew area.

As we accelerated and the wheels came up all the kit slid down the back.

We, all ground engineers, knew how dangerous this was and rushed down the back after the kit!

The pilot certainly knew there were passengers moving around, for he told us, quite forcefully!

Experienced observers suggested that the aeroplane took on the vertical and groundspeed velocity of a kite!
 

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