Free I know you got soul: machines with that certain something by Jeremy Clarkson Page B

Though if you actually tried to turn it over in mid air, the wings would be torn off. Mind you, that said, tests have shown you can bend the wings upwards by 30 feet before they’ll break.
    Other things. Well, the factory where it’s made is the largest building, by volume, in the world. The first Jumbo was made out of 4.5 million parts. And some experts said it should only be allowed to fly in storm-free corridors because ‘there’s no way something that big could weather any turbulence’.
    Nearly right. So far it’s transported 2.2 billion people, which is nearly 40 per cent of the world’s population, and that isn’t bad for a plane originally designed to carry cargo.
    Although Juan Trippe had ordered planes for passengers, Boeing had agreed to the deal because they thought it could also be used as a transporter. That’s why it has the hump – so the cargo couldbe loaded more easily via a hinged nose cone into the fuselage. See. I can go on boring for Britain about the 747 until the end of time. And so can everyone else.
    The Jumbo has become a modern-day yardstick in the lexicon of superlatives. Like football pitches, and Nelson’s Column and Wales, it is now an established unit of measurement. For instance, I was told the other day that the nets being used by modern supertrawlers are big enough to envelop a dozen 747s. I have no idea how big they are, but I sort of get the picture.
    There’s only one thing blokes love more than an interesting fact and that’s a superlative. That’s why I like the 747, because it’s the biggest and the fastest and the heaviest… and the best.
    In the beginning it had a rough ride. In the 1,013 test flights the engines had to be changed 55 times. They even overheated on the very first commercial flight, which is why the ill-fated Clipper Victor was brought in as a last-minute replacement. Then there was a recession, which coupled with the technical problems meant the 747 was originally known as the Dumbo Jet.
    Oh, how things change. Most people today choose a specific flight because it suits theirrequirements on a particular day. Not me though. I tailor my travel arrangements so that I can go on a Jumbo.
    777s are rubbish, and while I recognise that the four-engined Airbuses are astonishingly quiet they’re still buses. And where’s the glamour in that?
    When I get on a Jumbo I’m always going somewhere exotic – they don’t use them on hops to the Isle of Man – and I want a taste of that on the plane. Which is why I like the stairs. Having decided a hump for the flight deck was a good idea, there was plenty of discussion about what might be placed behind it. A hair salon was one serious suggestion. A casino was another.
    It’s perfect now, as the best bit of business class. Up there you don’t have the sense of being a veal calf. And if the airline has its head screwed on, you’re also away from the peril of a screaming baby. Up there you can convince yourself you’re in an exec jet. Only you can’t, of course, because a Jumbo is so much quieter.
    The one place you don’t want to be on a 747 is on the flight deck. We sort of assume as we slide down to the runway that all is calm and automated up there at the business end but, let me assure you,this is not so. Once I was invited to sit in the jump seat for a landing into Houston.
    Firstly, I was horrified by the exchange between the pilots who hadn’t heard which runway they were supposed to land on. ‘Oh, just follow the bloke in front,’ said the captain to his young apprentice in the right-hand seat. Then we hit a flock of birds. ‘Got ’em,’ said the captain, but I hardly registered because I simply couldn’t believe how much effort the co-pilot was having to make. He was bathed in sweat as he manhandled the big jet out of that sticky, sultry sky.
    Nowadays no passenger is allowed on a flight deck, unless you’re away from America and in the free world, and I’m glad about that. I prefer to sit in