Betteronacamel

Agreed. Rather like most cars nowadays, difficult to distinguish a lot of planes from each other from a distance. I live on the flight path into LHR (the bit just before they lower the landing gear) and of course can still remember the Concorde coming in during the evening. Even during the dark winters, you knew it was Concorde! But I shall miss standing on the river opposite Putney and seeing the BA 744s coming in. Somehow the 'Whale' looks ungainly by comparison.

Whilst I have flown the 789, and would agree with you that the air quality makes for a more comfortable flight, I would suggest that, anecdotally, the actual seating down the back is rather sub-optimal. I believe the expression is 'densified'. AKA uncomfortable.

Oh, to have just one more trip in 1K out and 64K back on the Queen. Does anyone think that BA will keep one of the frames in a museum somewhere so that we can visit?

Yellowbelly

Rumours Lufthansa also looking to retire their B747s:-

Genius1

Not the 747-8, thankfully (yet).

GBOAC

I did raise this and indeed strated a thread on this matter when the retirements were announced.
Preserving a BA 747 - The need for Action Now!!!

I was basically greeted with 'nice idea but it will never happen'. Not what I was expecting.
I have written to BA expressing my support for the idea, and also written to other museums and government agencies as well asking for intervention. If more people did this, and also people used contacts and influenced (and I'm sure there are people here who have high-up contacts in BA and the avition world), then maybe there would be a chance....
It would be a huge draw at whatever museum were to host it.
Don't need final plans now, just an in principle agreement and for BA to fly said frame to storage at that location (with agreed maintainance program, which I'm sure wouldn't be too hard if it is an existing heritage/maintainance facility), to give time for public access and long-term preservation to be put together. Once they are scrapped, no one can come back in 2 years and say 'can we preserve one'.
Even flying one out of Kemble will be expensive (especially since engines removed etc).

Maybe Teruel is a better bet for recovery given the aircraft there were prepared for long-term storage in a dryish environment.

Either way, there seem to be very few people on here actively making noise about this (how can we make this happen, rather than 'it can't happen')!

mjh0

G-CIVT was positioned out to Teruel in Spain back in April this year along with VA/VR/VS/VX. All 5 will be broken up and recycled there, handled by Tarmac Aerosave who have handled a number of earlier 747 retirements. All bar VX are "old friends" with at least a couple of flights each in my log.

gliderpilot

Did you get anything back from the museums? In my mind Manchester would be a good bet given Alpha Charlie is already there. Other than that, negotiating a space next to Alpha Bravo at Heathrow is probably the cheapest solution, albeit non accessible to the public (maybe they could be made accessible?!). Other museums are tricky given runway lengths.

regardless. Hope something happens but I unfortunately think it’s erring towards unlikely 🙁

Globaliser

I'm trying to keep the locations up to date in the wikipost.

AdamUK

Does anyone know whether these are the only moves this week?

BOH

As I posted earlier in the thread, the FAA museum at Yeovilton would be perfect as it has a pre-production prototype Concorde already there, is a very well established and large aerospace museum, a huge army of volunteers who maintain the existing exhibits. Plus it is located in the west country which is of course is a main UK tourist area. It also has a long runway and plenty of room to park another large exhibit.

The volunteers there are mainly made up of retired BAC / BAe / Airbus / RR Bristol folks, plus a number of ex-aircraft and engine fitters from the FAA at the airfield and Leonardo Helicopters (formerly Westland) just up the road. Maintaining and preserving a 744 (particularly if outside) is a fair and frequent task and no one better in doing this than ex-airframe and engine fitters from the industry.

It could also be used as a conference / publicity venue for hospitality, product launches etc - the Concorde 002 based there is already used for that so there a department already there that can market this.

mjh0

IVN went to Kemble. I've updated the wikipost.

JPMND

My penultimate trip on a 747 was CIVI seated in 64K to the way to JFK at the end of last year. Will miss the intimate upper deck

AdamUK

My gf follows a BA pilot on Twitter and I believe the Cardiff to Kemble flight will now be tomorrow at 1300 instead, due to paperwork issue.

TheMan123

Is CIVE still due to leave today?

Genius1

Yes, around 14:30 now.

TheFlyingDoctor

Yes, still showing as scheduled for 13:30 UTC (i.e. about 50 minutes from now!)