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US aviation: The Boeing 747. The
Boeing 747 is a familiar aircraft to most people; so familiar that it
can seem banal. This is partly because its shape is similar to that of
other aircraft; the shape of an efficient and cheap airplane has become
clear over time, but also because the Boeing 747 has been so widely used
for so long, and by so many different airlines throughout the globe,
that the profile of the 747 has become the shape of a large, long
distance plane.
The 747 was designed to carry the most passengers and cargo as made practical sense with modern airports, and while the 747 has been surpassed in maximum capacity by other aircraft like the Airbus A380, which can carry more passengers, and the Antonov An-124, which can carry more cargo, nobody even to this day has produced an aircraft which could beat the 747 and do so at a profit to both the user and the manufacturer.
Looking
at the more modern Airbus A380 for example, built some 37 years after
the introduction of the 747, one may safely say that if an airline has
enough passengers to fill it on its regular flights for a given route,
and fill it all the way, the Airbus is the better plane for that airline.
The
problem for the airline is that there are not in fact, many routes
where one may fill 525 seats and have a convenient schedule with regular
departures. If the schedule is not convenient, then people might be
willing to wait a bit, but they will not buy business and first class
tickets. Now if one makes a single seat class, in the "all-economy
configuration," perhaps on a tourist route, the plane can carry more
people, and spread of cost over more and cheaper tickets, but then, you
have to fill 853 seats, not 525. Compared to the Airbus A380, the
Boeing 747 is thus able to fly more routes profitably, and the Boeing is
also more flexible in handling cargo, and switching from long distance
to short range flights. In fact, the trend in the airline industry has
been to use smaller, two engined but long range planes and fly directly
from one smaller regional airport to another, rather than to make
passengers switch planes at major airports, a trend that has reduced the
need for EITHER the Airbus A380 or the Boeing 747.
Moreover,
while on those few, very busy routes, the Airbus might be more
profitable for an airline which is carrying passengers, Airbus, the
maker building the aircraft still has the problem that in the relatively
small numbers required, the A380 is not very profitable to make. The
Airbus as of yet, still has production costs higher than the sales
price, and while this is likely to change by 2015, it is quite possible
that the Airbus A380 will never actually earn a profit after covering
the design and infrastructure costs of its manufacturing facilities.
By
contrast to this, the Boeing 747 production is now in decline, but over
it's 40+ year life, it has been the most profitable industrial venture
in history. So why has the Boeing jumbo-jet done so much better than
the Airbus? The reason is not really about technology, but is about
methodology and the goals behind them.
When
the Boeing 747 was first designed, most people, including the
leadership of Boeing, thought that it would quickly become
obsolete. The future was supersonic! Boeing was developing a supersonic airliner, a European coalition, which was the conceptual predecessor of Airbus, was developing the future Concorde, and the Soviet Union was developing the Tupolev Tu-144.
In the meantime however, Boeing customers, particularly Juan Trippe, the pioneering head of Pan American World Airways, were asking for a larger plane. The Boeing 707
and its competitors had made air travel possible for many more people
than had been able to afford to fly before, and the new jets were so
numerous that the runways were becoming clogged with traffic. If the
individual jets could carry more people, then the airport runways would
be less congested in the same way that a bus reduces traffic jams compared to many smaller autos on the same road.
Boeing
listened to its customers, and then went all-out to satisfy their
needs. The airlines needed the new plane quickly, and Boeing agreed to
design and deliver the new aircraft in 28 months, only two thirds the
normal time. Building an aircraft which could carry more than twice the
number of passengers than the Boeing 707 would require a very large
factory, with the airplane's tail fin alone being six stories high, and
Boeing found a location, and built a building which is still today, the largest building in the world by volume,
some fifty six years later. These are technological feats, but key to
their meaningful success, creating a wonder of technology, scale or
engineering was not the goal, but a result. The goal was to satisfy the
airlines that Boeing made planes for.
In
listening to its customers, who were asking for "old fashioned" planes, Boeing did not want to set out to provide
an aircraft which could actually be harmful to their interests, and so
Boeing designed the plane to be multifunctional, so it could be easily
converted to a pure cargo aircraft (unlikely that
supersonic aircraft would render these obsolete), or to carry mixed cargo
and passengers, if there was not enough need for one or the other.
This
extreme focus on the needs of the consumer was not limited to Boeing
either. The customer of Boeing was the airlines, and the airline most
responsible for the design of the 747 was Pan American. Their
own understanding of the role of the 747 is very revealing. To quote
Juan Trippe the 747 would be "... a great weapon for peace, competing
with intercontinental missiles for mankind's destiny." This desire to
transform the world by allowing people to travel en masse, is customer
focused, but also a step away from the emphasis on luxury, or the
prestigious speed of the Concorde.
Ultimately
it is this difference in priorities and customer focus which have
rendered the competitors to the Boeing 747, whether back in the late
1960's, or today, in the 21'st century, either failures or equivocal
successes. None of the supersonic airliners, including the one Boeing
itself was trying to build, provided a large enough benefit to the
passengers to justify their widespread use. The Airbus A380 set out to
surpass the Boeing 747, and indeed has in many technical respects done
so, but it was designed specifically to beat Boeing, rather than because
airlines were looking for another giant plane of this type. The size
and scale of the Boeing 747 are a result of attention to airlines, and
the passengers who fly on them, rather than a desire to beat out
competitors, or to be advanced and hi-tech.
Pre-selection - TC December
2013
2013
As usual, the preselection contains a mix of songs intended to be interesting, competitive, or representative, listed in alphabetical order.
THE CONTESTANTS
(1) - All Pigs Must Die - "Of Suffering"
(2) - Allah-Las - "Busman's Holiday" By Request
(2) - Allah-Las - "Busman's Holiday" By Request
(3) - Banks - "This Is What It Feels Like" By Request
(4) - Chelsea Wolfe - "Feral Love" By Request
(5) - Daughn Gibson - "You Don't Fade"
(6) - Hayfield & Crow - "Runaways" By Request
(7) - Marc Anthony - "Espera"
(8) - Matt Nathanson - "Earthquake Weather"
(9) - Sara Bareilles - "Islands"
(10) - Selena Gomez - "Love Will Remember"
The pre-selection songs on YouTube
(1) - All Pigs Must Die - "Of Suffering"
(2) - Allah-Las - "Busman's Holiday" By Request
(3) - Banks - "This Is What It Feels Like" By Request
(4) - Chelsea Wolfe - "Feral Love" By Request
(5) - Daughn Gibson - "You Don't Fade"
(6) - Hayfield & Crow - "Runaways" By Request
No YouTube available. On Bandcamp .
(7) - Marc Anthony - "Espera"
(8) - Matt Nathanson - "Earthquake Weather"
(9) - Sara Bareilles - "Islands"
(10) - Selena Gomez - "Love Will Remember"
The voting format is the same as in the Countdown International, 12, 10, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2 and 1
points: the highest number of points for the song you like best, the
lowest number of points to the song you like least. Just send a message
or post a comment with your votes.
If you have enough free time, go ahead and write the reasons that you like and dislike particular songs, or parts of songs (but only if you want to).
Suggestions for future pre-selections are also very welcome.
