I’m slightly ashamed to say (actually I’m not ) I always used to travel Up the Top. One really doesn’t want to mix with the Unwashed Masses...
Never managed a journey up top but once got an upgrade during a business trip to Malaysia to sit up front first class style on the return leg Very nice. well looked after long time
BA reckon they are scrapping them to become carbon neutral by 2035 - how can a fuel guzzling monster machine be carbon neutral?
I worked in the Seychelles during the late seventies and made friends with the local BA ground engineer Frank Soler. On one flight home for leave, and thanks to Frank, I was allowed into the 747 cockpit jump seat during approach and landing in Nairobi. It was at dawn and the sun rising over the rift valley is something I shall never forget. Interestingly on taxing the pilot used a window winder like handle to maneuver the huge aircraft. Seemed quite odd.
Forgot to mention, my late father-in-law was a 747 pilot with SAA. He always said it never felt like work flying a Jumbo. My wife flew several times in the jumpseat in the cockpit with him. Despite this she says she has no inside knowledge of what oil they used as Captains didn't involve themselves with such grease monkey trivia.
They do have rather pathetic-looking steering tiller thingies . Once went round the BA hangers with my Sis, in the days when you could do such things. If you had a word with the maintenance supervisor - God help you if you didn't - you could clamber all over the things. Went inside a 747 that had been completely stripped inside, apart from the silver blankets. They are bloody vast inside, like the village hall. You could have a decent game of six-a-side football in there...
I don’t like that song but I saw them on Whistle Test before Airport even came out and they were very good tbh
