Although Air China no longer operates the 747 to Europe (except the recent surprise visit to London), it used to show up to the current 747 capital of Europe, Frankfurt. Hence, I decided to fire up the time machine and fly CA965 from ZBAA to EDDF onboard the Queen for a lovely early morning arrival just after the night curfew at EDDF lifts.
Taxiing between 25L and 25C as a SQ A388 barrels down 25C:
It’s sad that CA only flies it’s 747s domestically now, with the exception ZBAA-KJFK-ZBAA, as they once used to fly to many more destinations, especially in North America.
Nice! I’ve been thinking on flying the B747 for a little bit, but as it’s so old, I thought that it may not super fun. Can you tell me how was the flight? Like how it handlers etc.?
The 747 got a soft rework a few years ago, so it has wing flex, tilted landing gear, and all of that good stuff. It flies pretty well imo, it’s only major issue is fuel burn. It burns a TON of fuel on takeoff so I usually ensure I have at least six hours of extra fuel.
The 748 is super interesting and definitely a challenge to fly for sure. It’s my most flown aircraft to the point I’ve become so used to it’s janky-ness, my hand-flying on other aircrafts is janky.
Like Key said, there has been a soft rework, but I’ll give you the handling dynamics:
Be careful when taxiing as it’s a long aircraft, so oversteer is important. For breaking away, 20% power is ideal, then reduce to 15%, then you can taxi along nicely on a straight at about 10%. When taking sharp 90° turns, make sure your power is back up to 15-20% or else it’ll stop midway since it has no concept of momentum, and getting it to move again is a headache. Twin engine taxi (with just engine 1 and 4) is tough, hence I just shut down engine 3 only (as you can see in the pictures), unless the aircraft is unusually light, then you can kill engine 2 also. The difference between three running engines and two is night and day. Visibility is poor from cockpit view, which makes it even more difficult to taxi. Guesswork, experience, and familiarity with the airport you’re in is needed.
Takeoff flaps are 10 or 20, ideal trim is 80-85%. Keep the nose pressed down into the ground until Vr, otherwise it’ll rise due to the high trim setting. At Vr, once you pull back on the stick, you have to keep it super steady as the main gear will drag along for 3-5 seconds before the aircraft peels away from the ground. Also, be careful about lateral movement as a tad too much tilt will result in the union of your outer engine and the runway.
The nose will drop rapidly during climb when moving from flap 20 to 10 to 5. The drop in lift is dramatic. The autopilot is rough and will over-adjust. One trick to smoothen this movement is to SIMULTANEOUSLY bring down the vertical speed when moving from flap 20 to 10 to 5 so the autopilot doesn’t over-adjust trying to maintain a higher climb rate. No such issue exists with other flap settings and they behave as normal. These flap settings can cause the autopilot to dip the nose quite a bit during descent too, although it’s way smoother and less rough, but just keep that in mind.
You will also have to constantly play around with the trim to keep it neutral and to smoothen movements, it helps a lot. You can even reduce your Vs during climb if you’re hand-flying by just reducing the trim from 80%-something setting down to 70%-something. I use it a lot and it’s smooth and helpful.
Engines are OP. You never really need to use 100% power (A330, ahem ahem). Reduce your Vs after 10,000 feet so you can speed up to just below it’s max speed (345-347kts), after which you can increase your Vs so you can climb nicely with just 70-85% power (depending on winds and your weight). Even a light 777 feels underpowered at high altitudes once you fly the 748. Although, be careful around 18,000-22,000ft and 28,000-32,000ft as at that point the aircraft starts to overspeed and you’ll have to rapidly increase your Vs to manage your airspeed, and then bring your Vs back down before you start losing too much airspeed (I believe it’s a game issue, not 748-specific). Alternatively, you could cut back the power here, but I like to take advantage of the speed spike to gain a couple thousand feet quickly.
In real life, flap 25 landings are common, but good luck in IF. 80-90%+ trim will be needed, and a lot of guesswork because you will not be able to see the runway due to your high nose-up angle coming in. Ideally, only do it when aircraft load is below 20%. Landings in general obviously require practice on this aircraft, and you generally have to flare early (~30-40ft), and harder, even more than the 77L and 77F. I haven’t done a flap 25 landing in a long time, but obviously the flare in that config is even earlier, and you have to be very careful during approach as it has a tendency to wanna fall, which is very dangerous on short final because you will not be recovering in time and there goes your smooth landing (Brace! Brace! Brace!).
During approach, set the autopilot speed a couple of knots below. For example, if your approach speed is calculated to be 150kts, set 147kts on the autopilot and watch it magically maintain 150kts. Also, advisable to configure earlier due to it’s janky and unforgiving physics when playing with flaps.
Fuel situation is tricky. If your flight is short, like 5h, you can make do with SimBrief’s calculation, maybe a bit on top just to be safe depending on your weight and winds. As the flight time gets longer, more margin is needed. Generally, you can add 2.5-3.5h on top of what SimBrief says. A 9h flight will have 12-13.5h of fuel. A 13h flight might need as much as 17.5h of fuel. Fuel situation will always be in the red for the first half of the flight, but a good estimate for whether you’re safe is if your remaining flight time is within 1-2.5h more than the fuel remaining (say your remaining flight time is 12h, and your remaining fuel is 10h30m, you’re good). Towards the second half of the flight, you’ll start seeing the two figures get close together, meet up, and change positions. Don’t worry if the last one doesn’t happen as long as they’re close to each other. If the two numbers aren’t close by this point, start looking for alternate airports because you might not gonna make it.
You can load waaaaaaaay more cargo in the rear than the front. Equalise the two manually as much as possible during flight planning. This makes takeoffs and especially landings much easier since you’re not tail-heavy.
Phew! Hope this entire essay helps! As for the 744, I don’t fly it as much, but gosh is it way easier to fly than the 748. Here are the 748’s official flap speeds to help you out:
