After that chap fell out of a plane's undercarriage and landed in Clapham, I looked

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Originally Posted by Sir C

:-( I'm not a spotter, honest!

747s will all be gone within a few years, b. It's sad, really. There have been few airliners quite as elegant as the 'Queen of the Skies' as she is often dubbed. Now all airliners look the same. I can barely tell one form another.

When I started going to Heathrow as a child you'd see 747s, VC10s, 707s, DC10s, TriStars, Tridents, BAC 1-11s, Caravelles... all distinctive and individual. Now the aircraft, like the passengers, are dull, dull, dull. :-(

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Oddly enough, you only appreciate how elegant the 747 is now it's being replaced by much uglier, more utilitarian efforts. The A380 is an ugly lump of a thing and the Dreamliner just looks fat.

The BAC 1-11 was the first aeroplane I ever flew on. I seem to remember that the DC-10 went through an unfortunate period in the late 70s/early 80s when it kept crashing. Or am I imagining that?

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Originally Posted by Burney

Oddly enough, you only appreciate how elegant the 747 is now it's being replaced by much uglier, more utilitarian efforts. The A380 is an ugly lump of a thing and the Dreamliner just looks fat.

The BAC 1-11 was the first aeroplane I ever flew on. I seem to remember that the DC-10 went through an unfortunate period in the late 70s/early 80s when it kept crashing. Or am I imagining that?

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Happily the A380 is now dead in the water. The Dreamliner at least has the saving grace of being lovely to fly on.

I don't think the -10 had a bad record, but there were some high profile incidents. Sioux City was a famous one.

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Originally Posted by Rich

Have you seen the B748 in BOAC livery?

https://www.google.com/search?q=747+...FY7MOQNTdnbsM:

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Yes, I saw a couple at Heathrow last week. They made me extremely nostalgic for a lost age of elegance.

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Originally Posted by Sir C

Happily the A380 is now dead in the water. The Dreamliner at least has the saving grace of being lovely to fly on.

I don't think the -10 had a bad record, but there were some high profile incidents. Sioux City was a famous one.

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I see Emirates are now flying the 380 from Dubai to Muscat. Seems a bit of an overkill.

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Originally Posted by Sir C

Happily the A380 is now dead in the water. The Dreamliner at least has the saving grace of being lovely to fly on.

I don't think the -10 had a bad record, but there were some high profile incidents. Sioux City was a famous one.

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Here you go. Knew I wasn't imagining it. I seem to remember it was quite a thing at the time.

https://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/20/u...r-crashes.html

"...frozen black man..."
:hehe:

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Originally Posted by Burney

Here you go. Knew I wasn't imagining it. I seem to remember it was quite a thing at the time.

https://www.nytimes.com/1989/07/20/u...r-crashes.html

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Blimey, 4 fatal incidents? That's not many, really. I'm inclined to think it was perception more than statistical reality.

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Originally Posted by Sir C

Blimey, 4 fatal incidents? That's not many, really. I'm inclined to think it was perception more than statistical reality.

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I think it was that they all happened in a relatively short space of time. I just remember it because there were jokes about it and yes, the public perception seemed to be - probably quite unfairly - that the DC-10 was a deathtrap.

The initials nearly cover it

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Originally Posted by IUFG

"The garden wall was covered in blood" :puke:

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My old man works maintaining bedsits for a chap (he has 120) and this sort of thing came up quite often. One muslim chap banged his head off the floor and died but it was a few weeks before forensics got at him. So they did their thing and sealed off the room. My old man had to get the room ready for another guest a week after that. Turned out forensics left a heap of his guts just laying on the floor. So you can imagine how much flies and maggots were about the room.... My Da just had to shovel up what was left off him and chuck it in the bin.

The chap's brother was staying in another one of the bedsits. Colourful family. He got arrested for being in ISIS and sent down. When cleaning out his room it was just filled with pictures of said chap in the ISIS garb holding AK47's