Boeing 747

www.telegraph.co.uk

The oldest passenger planes still in the sky

How would you feel about flying in a plane built 50 years ago? We go in search of aviation’s most venerable birds
www.telegraph.co.uk www.telegraph.co.uk

Even still, it’s rare to maintain and operate an aircraft as venerable as Nolinor’s 737. According to Airfleets.net, which carries records for 43 models, the only older jets still active are in the hands of cargo firms and air forces. Caspian Airlines, for example, has a 52-year-old 747 (registration: EP-CQB) that once belonged to TWA – but it is used for transporting goods, not people.
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Tehran-based Mahan Air has an A300 from 1984, for example, and has the oldest 747s still being used for passenger services (EP-MNB, born in 1989), while Zagros Airlines, also based in Iran, has a McDonnell Douglas MD-80 made in 1985. Little Eastern Airlines (formerly Dynamic Airways), based in Miami, has a 38-year-old 767, registration N605KW.
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Some -8s - Lufthansa coming into O'Hare in Chicago and the -8F departing DFW. My favorite version of the 747 lineage - the nacelles and wingtips along with the longer fuselage for a fine balance to the eye (well, mine anyway...), especially the -8F.

Enjoy the Day! Mark
 

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One thing he left out that was in the news this week is that the new 777X freighters carry more by weight than the old 747 freighters and have twin engine economics. Since oversized is a small niche it isn’t that much of a pressing problem near term.
 
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That article…and the book FREE FLIGHT on the demise of the VLJ/air taxi model should be required reading.

Musk, Branson and Bezos are just the polish on the modern aerospace’s guilded age rot.

It is why I support government led efforts in case those three go the way of Howard Hughes. Bezos might get religion, Musk go insane, and Branson? Eesh…
 
After 16 flights and 30 flight hours, a Saudi royal's 747 BBJ sat on the tarmac for ten years. Now it is being scrapped.
edition.cnn.com

Brand new Boeing 747 scrapped after 16 flights

The world's largest business jet, a Boeing 747 configured as a private VIP plane for a Saudi royal, is being scrapped after having spent just 30 hours in service over 16 flights.
edition.cnn.com edition.cnn.com
This particular one was intended for the Saudi Arabian government, and specifically for the Crown Prince Sultan bin Abdulaziz Al-Saud, but he died in 2011, just months before the scheduled delivery. The plane, which was assigned a mandatory registration code – N458BJ – first flew in May 2012 for testing, and was officially delivered in June 2012.
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In 2017, orphaned from its original purpose, the plane went up for sale for $95 million – down from an original list price of around $350 million, according to Diver. It was still empty and advertised as “ready for conversion” in a brochure that can still be found online. But it never sold.

“No one apart from a Saudi head of state is going to want a private, four-engine business jet,” says Richard Aboulafia, an aviation analyst at AeroDynamic Advisory. “You can’t convert just one aircraft to cargo, and nobody wants a passenger version. As a consequence, the parts and especially the engines, are worth far more than the airplane.”
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