Flying the 747

The type rating, the sightline from the upper deck, the handling and the reputation — why 747 pilots talk about the aircraft the way they do.

The 747 has a reputation among pilots that is out of proportion to its performance figures. It is worth setting out where that comes from, because it is not nostalgia alone.

The type rating

A pilot is licensed on a specific type, and converting costs an airline a great deal of money and several weeks of a pilot’s time. That single fact drove more of the 747’s history than any aerodynamic decision.

The 747-400 removed the flight engineer, so its rating covers a two-crew aircraft. The 747-8 was then deliberately designed to share a common type rating with the -400, despite having 787-derived displays — meaning a -400 pilot converts with a short differences course rather than a full type conversion.

That was a real part of the 747-8’s sales case, and it explains why its flight deck looks more like a 1988 aircraft than a 2011 one. Boeing could have made it far more modern and chose not to.

Going the other way, the three-crew 747-300 and earlier aircraft required a flight engineer — a separate qualification for a role that no longer exists at most airlines.

Sitting 30 feet up

The flight deck is roughly three storeys above the ground and well ahead of the nosewheel. Neither is intuitive.

On landing, the wheels touch after the pilot’s eye has already passed the aiming point, and the flare is judged from a sightline quite unlike a narrowbody’s. On the ground, turning requires the pilot to taxi past the turn before beginning it, because the main gear is a long way behind — which is exactly why the aircraft has body gear steering to tighten the geometry.

Pilots converting to the 747 consistently describe the height, not the size, as the thing that takes adjustment.

How it handles

The consistent report is that it flies smaller than it is. The controls are well harmonised, the aircraft is stable, and it responds predictably — helped by the fact that roll control is split between inboard and outboard ailerons and spoilers so that authority stays sensible across the speed range.

It is also a genuinely fast aircraft. Cruise is Mach 0.855 on the -400 and -8, which is quicker than most of what shares the airway, and the 747-8’s wing was designed to cruise as fast as or faster than any other passenger aircraft.

What it demands

Weight. A 747 at maximum takeoff weight is close to a million pounds, and everything follows from that: long runways, high speeds, energy that has to be dissipated on landing, and the most demanding rejected-takeoff certification test of any airliner.

Planning. Fuel, weight and balance on a four-engined aircraft with eight tanks and transfer between them is more work than on a twin.

Respect for the numbers. Tenerife and the Tradewinds overrun are both, in different ways, about the consequences of a decision made a second too late in a very heavy aeroplane.

Why pilots talk about it that way

Partly because it was the aircraft that made long-haul flying ordinary, and flying one meant flying the routes that mattered. Partly because a type rating on it was, for decades, the top of a career.

And partly for the reason most often given: it is a big, fast, honest aeroplane that does what you ask, and there is not going to be another one.