Seen on the street in Kyiv.

Words of Advice:

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *

"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown

“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie

"Thou Shalt Get Sidetracked by Bullshit, Every Goddamned Time." -- The Ghoul

"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad

"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown

"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers

"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck,
"FOFF" = Felonious Old Fat Fuck,
"COFF" = Convicted Old Felonious Fool,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset,
A/K/A P01135809, A/K/A Dementia Donnie, A/K/A Felon^34,
A/K/A Dolt-45, A/K/A Don Snoreleone

Sunday, January 12, 2014

Your Sunday Morning Jet Noise

NASA's SOFIA observatory:


SOFIA is a heavily-modified 747SP. As airliners go, the 747SPs were pretty rare. I don't believe I've ever seen one.
Posted by on or about 08:59
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5 comments:

Mark Rossmore said...

We had a sports delegation from the kingdom of Bahrain visiting us here in Pensacola for a week. Their "Air Force One" equivalent is a 747SP... which they left parked smack-dab in the middle of our terminal apron the entire time. It blocked the primary taxiway in and out of the terminal, and we couldn't taxi between it and the terminal.

The funny thing is that it was right outside the range of the terminal lights. At night, even though it was painted white, you couldn't see the thing, except when the airport beacon would flash across it. It was like a stealth 747.

1/12/2014 12:56 PM
Chuck Pergiel said...

Spots around the door are to make any distortion noticeable, maybe? Noticeable upward curve of the wing in one shot.
When I looked it up I found that Fry has one he uses for the San Jose Ballet.

1/12/2014 3:11 PM
BadTux said...

The core problem with the 747SP is that the frontal area is that of a 747, meaning that fuel consumption is correspondingly higher than that of single-deck long range competitors with less frontal area. When fuel became expensive airlines looked at that, looked at the new fuel-efficient long range airliners that various venders were promising, and decided to wait for the new airliners instead. The only people who still fly these as airliners are in the Middle East where fuel is cheap.

1/12/2014 3:42 PM
Old NFO said...

The DC-10 variant of that bird is sitting at LAX, and available for contract... :-)

It used to be at Ames, so we got to see it on a regular basis!

1/12/2014 7:04 PM
Frank Van Haste said...

I always liked the look of the SP. In Joe Sutter's memoir, he explains that they built it to get really long range (think NY-Tokyo). At the time the truncated 747 was the only way to get that. PanAm was the launch customer; they built 45 of 'em.

Joe had a bet with the PanAm rep; if the airplane came in overweight, he'd pay out $0.10/lb...if it was below target weight,the payoff went to Joe. The PanAm guy wound up Joe Sutter a sack of 6,500 dimes.

The book is "747: Creating the World's First Jumbo Jet..." Recommended.

FVH

1/18/2014 1:54 PM

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