By: wysiwyg - 30th January 2003 at 23:14
RE: 747 SP
it is the meeting of 2 cells but I don’t remember enough to say which ones other than as the name suggests it is inter-tropical.
By: EGNM - 30th January 2003 at 10:59
RE: 747 SP
Hadley, Polar and Ferrell cells i presume then Wys? – Ferrell meeting Hadley i presume ?
By: wysiwyg - 30th January 2003 at 00:05
RE: 747 SP
No it’s not the Sahara it’s the ITCZ. It’s the convergence between the north westerly prevailing winds and the south westerlys. Where they meet the only way is up so you get a tremendous line of serious squalls that spread right accross the continent and go up forever. In the northern hemisphere summer it moves north and in our winter it heads south. The ITCZ runs right round the world but it’s effect is almost negligable over the sea. The other main place it has serious effect is in the far east.
By: mongu - 29th January 2003 at 23:45
RE: 747 SP
Would the ICTZ be the thing that makes African flights really bumpy in the middle of the night? Whenever I’ve done the LHR-JNB or LHR-LUN/HRE runs, we get noticeable turbulence mid-flight, so maybe around the equator area. Then again, maybe it is the Sahara air?
By: wysiwyg - 29th January 2003 at 23:33
RE: 747 SP
It’s a bit of a mixed blessing. Overflying deepest darkest saves up to 2 hours flight time (and a highly likely tech stop) but brings about all sorts of problems itself. The ITCZ (inter tropical convergence zone) is much much more vigorous over mainland Africa and can lead to some serious thunderstorm avoidance but the main problem is lack of air traffic control. There is a certain amount of radio work on HF with places such as Dakar and Kinshasa but they do not actually give any info and don’t have any radar. All you do is give them position reports once in a while. There is actually an IATA VHF frequency that we use to call all the other aircraft within earshot and actually do our own controlling to make sure we don’t all meet up in the same place at the same time! As a further precaution the sensible ones in African airspace deliberately fly 2 miles offest to the right of the airway centerline as you cannot guarantee some rogue African isn’t coming the wrong way up your airway at the wrong level!
African airspace – deep joy!
By: mongu - 29th January 2003 at 21:26
RE: 747 SP
Yes, they had to fly around the coast of Africa, because they were banned from overflying black Africa. Other airlines (like BA) served JNB and CPT with B742’s – maybe they were not subject to the same restrictions.
By: carl727 - 29th January 2003 at 16:46
RE: 747 SP
[updated:LAST EDITED ON 29-01-03 AT 04:50 PM (GMT)]Thanks for all the responses !! By the way i have a hunch that the reason SAA purchased 747SP’s was because at one time they had fly around the African continent. This meant that the regular 747s had to re-fuel at SAL which is a small island off the African west coast, where as the “SP” could do the trip to Europe non-stop !!??
By: batbay - 28th January 2003 at 00:13
RE: 747 SP
Thanks for that Wysiwyg, we were actually waiting for over an hour before leaving MNL while the Captain tried to find out if there was a tool at Rockhampton. When we eventually got rolling he told us that Qantas Ops had confirmed that the tool was there…………Well, it got the Flight moving!
And for carl727 – I just found a site: www.747sp.com
By: wysiwyg - 27th January 2003 at 23:27
RE: 747 SP
batbay – It sounds like the starter selector for the number 3 was tech. The engine is then started by using bleed air from an already running engine by getting someone to manually open a pneumatic valve in the side of the engine casing. This is where the tool comes in.
By: EGNM - 27th January 2003 at 21:45
RE: 747 SP
Sounds interesting to me! – y couldn’t the japs help out – i’m sure they’d have com up with some sorta of idea!!!
By: batbay - 27th January 2003 at 21:31
RE: 747 SP
Back in December 2000, when Qantas were using them, we flew from Manila to Sydney via Rockhampton. It was the first,(and possibly last?) time a 747 had visited that fairly small airport.
We stopped there to pick up about 150 Japanese students for the onward flight to Sydney. It was not a straightforward operation, 747 passenger doors are considerably higher than the average medium sized aircraft aren’t they? Did anyone check if the steps would reach? No. Can Japanese students jump that far. No. Solution – put the steps onto a lorry.
The other problem was technical in that , for some reason, due to a fault with Number Three engine, it could only be started with a “special tool”. Was there such a tool in Rockhampton? No. Never mind, there are some clever tractor mechanics there, and one of them helped to get the engine started “by improvising”.
By the way, if you have to share the aircraft with 150 students,hope they are Japanese – totally well behaved and polite!
By: KabirT - 27th January 2003 at 15:26
RE: 747 SP
Yea…thanx alot for that A330C.
By: A330Crazy - 27th January 2003 at 13:00
RE: 747 SP
[updated:LAST EDITED ON 27-01-03 AT 01:03 PM (GMT)]Now I found a good website last night that will tell you exactly who operates what.
http://www.bird.ch/avmark/library/e_libr00.htm?11,28
Its an online aircraft Census… very very useful!
By: Carl - 27th January 2003 at 12:16
RE: 747 SP
I read recently that 45 SP’s were produced and at the time of the book around 22 were still in use.
That book is now 2 or 3 years old so probably around 15 – 20 still operational I would guess.
By: GFox - 26th January 2003 at 19:27
RE: 747 SP
Theres only a couple of airlines that operate the SR aren’t there, two being ANA and UPS?
By: KabirT - 26th January 2003 at 13:00
RE: 747 SP
Yes but the base is same…SR means short route or something like that..
By: Bhoy - 25th January 2003 at 16:37
RE: 747 SP
SR isn’t the same as SP…
isn’t that just the domestic version of the 741?… designed for frequent rotations?
By: KabirT - 25th January 2003 at 15:40
RE: 747 SP
To add to the list…CAAC and ANA(not SP but SR).
By: KabirT - 25th January 2003 at 15:35
RE: 747 SP
Right now it will be damn expensive to operate a a B747SP…its spares are rare to find. Syrian has been using its 2 B747SP since early 1970s…..high time to replace them.
By: wysiwyg - 25th January 2003 at 09:08
RE: 747 SP
About 10 years ago when leasing prices were very high, Virgin were offered Saudia’s old SP’s at knock down prices. They thought about it but refused as they are a very difficult aircraft to make money with. They are expensive to run (same cost as a standard 747) but with only 75% of the ability to earn revenue.
As a personal view, I think it makes a 146 or a Beech 1900d look beautiful!
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January 24, 2003 at 6:12 pm