First 727 to fly once more...

[andrewg]

This is a pretty neat thing about living around here. We almost always have something interesting going on when it come to aviation.

This 727 is as old as I am. One last flight....kind of sad in a way.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/flight/a19627/the-first-boeing-727-will-fly-againfor-12-minutes/

 

[The_Eric]

What do they plan to do with it?

Whoops- just read the article...

 

[Donald]

The B-52s for the most part were built before their current pilots were born.

 

[Mr Nice]

Good to see this 727 go to a museum and not melted for soda cans.

 

[OneEyeJack]

The comparison photo in that article between the 727 and the 787 is amazing. Look at the difference in the size of the engines.

Pilots went through a steep learning curve switching from prop planes to the 727. There were several fatal crashes on approach to the runways. The pilots came in at to steep a glide angle and upon recognizing the problem added power too late. The new jet engines did not respond quickly like the older radial engines.

The problem was rectified by additional pilot training and making the 2/3rd flap setting the full flaps setting.

PSA airlines in San Diego ran a training school at Brown Field south east of San Diego to help pilots make the transition to jets. This was long before simulators where pilots actually flew the airplanes.

In October of 1978 PSA suffered that terrible crash when one of their 727's collided with a Cessna on the approach to Lindbergh Field in San Diego killing everyone in both planes and several people on the ground.

 

[oilboy123]

I was born one year before it started flying. There is a series of aircraft specials on Discovery, and Science channel on flight. I see the Dreamliner special on Monday where I'm at.

I'll be watching for others coming up. They are supposed to put them all on video. I worked for on the 747 floors for about 13 months about 16 years ago. The 747 is getting ready to go bye bye off the assembly line at some point in the future.

I have seen that special about the San Diego accident. Heck of a place for an airport. I guess maybe the city grew up around it? I was staying at my sisters house years back for awhile. It was in the old NTC training area about a mile or so from the Lindbergh field. I could see all the flights taking off right overhead.

 

[fdcg27]

There's a long thread on airliners.net about this very aircraft and its coming ferry flight.
The poor thing was ferried to the airport she now sits at in 1991, so it's been a while since she's been flown.
A bit OT, but does anyone recall the Boeing 307 that was lovingly restored to flying condition by Boeing employees?
Only a double handful of these pressurized four engine aircraft were built in the late pre-war period and all were delivered to TWA and Pan AM. The 307 was immediately eclipsed by the vastly superior Lockheed Constellation, the earliest of which entered service just five years later, much as the earlier Boeing 247 was quickly eclipsed by the Douglas DC-2.
She was a gorgeous flying aircraft for a brief time until the airline pilots who had qualified to fly her ditched her in Elliot Bay after running her out of fuel.
She was recovered and restored yet again. She now sits in the National Air & Space Museum never to fly again, the same fate this old 727 will suffer, although there remain a number of active 727-100s worldwide.

 

[kschachn]

Originally Posted By: OneEyeJack
The comparison photo in that article between the 727 and the 787 is amazing. Look at the difference in the size of the engines.


Well yeah there certainly is a power difference, but the 757's engines are high-bypass, unlike the ones on the 727.

 

[andrewg]

Originally Posted By: fdcg27
There's a long thread on airliners.net about this very aircraft and its coming ferry flight.
The poor thing was ferried to the airport she now sits at in 1991, so it's been a while since she's been flown.
A bit OT, but does anyone recall the Boeing 307 that was lovingly restored to flying condition by Boeing employees?
Only a double handful of these pressurized four engine aircraft were built in the late pre-war period and all were delivered to TWA and Pan AM. The 307 was immediately eclipsed by the vastly superior Lockheed Constellation, the earliest of which entered service just five years later, much as the earlier Boeing 247 was quickly eclipsed by the Douglas DC-2.
She was a gorgeous flying aircraft for a brief time until the airline pilots who had qualified to fly her ditched her in Elliot Bay after running her out of fuel.
She was recovered and restored yet again. She now sits in the National Air & Space Museum never to fly again, the same fate this old 727 will suffer, although there remain a number of active 727-100s worldwide.


I remember that. I had seen them fixing the aircraft up the first time...and remembered seeing it fly shortly before it dumped into the bay. Of course the bay is all salt water so that didn't help.

 

[JetStar]

Neat project. Occasionally l see 727s around here as cargo planes.

 

[Cujet]

Many years ago, I completed the 727 flight engineers school with Amerijet (a cargo hauler) . I even got a chance to fly with the cargo company for a bit. However, I quit the job due to employee abuse and never continued my 727 career.... What a mess that was!

In any case, I love the 727. It's quite a capable, fast and comfortable aircraft.

 

[Mr Nice]

I've heard very bad things about Amerijet.

The company had been fighting a living wage ordinance with Dade County. Company lawyer said it did not apply to them.

Air crews said a few years ago they were forced to fly without properly working lavatories and needed to use / disgard bag of human waste.

 

[Cujet]

Sounds about right!


I remember we had one with aileron flutter. They refused to fix it, and the crew needed to fly the 727 with a whole bunch of rudder trim to prevent the flutter. It was rather annoying.

 

[Lapham3]

This thread takes me back in time. I grew up close to MSP and the parallel runways in the 50's-60's...so the transition from those rumbling radials to the screaming jets-and gosh darn those 727s seemed to be the loudest of the bunch. Also, on approach, they were all 'dirtied up' and 'on the boil'=loud then too as they came in. I think that baby was probably most responsible for the 'noise protests' and sound mitigation that even continue today. That brings a question=seems to me that early fans had quite a delay(say 7-8 seconds?)between a call for big power and actual thrust achieved. So they came in on landing with higher throttle settings and max drag. Is that righ,t or how is that explained?

 

[fdcg27]

Loud?
You had to be just off the runway on Brookpark Rd. when a 707 or DC-8 was on finals to CLE to know loud.
The 727 really was a whisperjet in comparison and was no worse than the DC-9s and the 737-200s. An Allegheny BAC 1-11 made a 727 seem almost silent.
OTOH, the 747, DC-10 and L-1011 aircraft really did seem quiet.
I spotted at CLE back in the seventies when it really was a busy airport and had a variety of traffic.
The airport was only about six miles by bike through the valley from our home in Rocky River.
I also recall an Air Canada DC-9 being so low over our street that you could clearly see the passenger through the windows.
Fun times that won't return for either CLE or those now growing up.
Our parents allowed us so much freedom then, not like today.

 

[Mr Nice]

I heard an F-105 with water injection and it's very loud on take off...

 

[FowVay]

This particular B727 has had hush kits outfitted on those old JT8 engines. You can tell this by the exhaust nozzle extensions.

The B727 was an excellent aircraft and built like a tank. They outlived their design life by decades.

 

[CT8]

I have been on a 727 for several flights. Once from San Francisco nonstop to Pittsburg Pa. They are nice. But then the 707 was nice as well

 

[fdcg27]

Originally Posted By: CT8
I have been on a 727 for several flights. Once from San Francisco nonstop to Pittsburg Pa. They are nice. But then the 707 was nice as well


I'm old enough to have had a number of flights on both.
My first flight was on an AA 707 nonstop CLE-LAX.
My last 707 flight was a segment of a milk run, CVG-CLE. IIRC, the aircraft originated in LA and would continue to JFK from CLE.
In the pre-hub days, milk runs were pretty common.
I'm happy to have gotten to fly on many types that are no longer in passenger service these days and I'm also happy to have been able to fly commercial in the pre sardine can days.
What passes for domestic first these days is inferior to what you once got in the back.
OTOH, fares in constant dollars have never been lower than they have been for the past few decades. The other side of that coin is that you once flew on half empty airliners. Today, they're packed to the gills and all of the middle seats are occupied. Six abreast used to not matter, since the middle seats were almost never used. You also used to have great predictability in terms of what you'd pay for a trip as well as no gotchas imposed by any airline. You take the good with the bad.

 

[Ducked]

Had a 707 flight not that long ago to the archaeological sites at Aswan, hopping over the dodgy gun-toting areas of middle Egypt. Some apparent oil leaks on the cowlings, and rather dirty toilets, but otherwise OK.

Oh wait...not that long ago turns out to be about 13 years. Time flies Concorde.