Goodbye Internet,

 It is time now to say Goodbye to these pages for good.

One is not good at this blogging thing, for years I've commented on the subject of this page and this here is the last post. It should be expected. Production is over and what little I can comment on, on here doesn't have much sway anymore, even though it never had any sway to begin with. 

That is not why I wrote on here.

I was invited to write on here by this page's Original poster. I don't know where he is anymore, although I suppose he does read this page sometimes. It would be good if he could update the table which is the subject matter of this blog.

This blog was somewhat a catalogue of  my observations. I wrote on here my thoughts and ideas also. Some of those were agreeable but most were not. It matters not really, for being able to post on here is more of a reward than a privilege (or is the other way round?). That people come here to read my ideas, some whom have better grasp, is indeed much more of a compliment to my meager efforts. I am no expert and never will be: it is time to throw away those salesman's glasses.

The subject matter of this page is much more complex than any notion I could possibly invent. I've spent a lot of time reading material on the 747. I've watched hours of video, read pages and pages of forum posts, piles of News articles, wads of Accident reports, photographs, watched dramatizations and even thumbed through model kit catalogues. I am intrigued by this legacy it leaves behind.  To me it is nearly an obsession. Yet obsession is what is necessary.

You cannot build an airplane without it. 

The Story for this long journey begins at the side of a river in Washington State. For me, this journey ends when I select 'publish' at the corner of this webpage. Can you imagine the technical transformation that is in just that one sentence alone, from fishing rods and rubber boots, to touchscreen mobile apps and computers, if  that sentence was written on a piece of paper, it would be less than a foot in length. It is an insult to the imagination that the Years and Years of obsession by engineers in the pursuit of perfection, can be summarily described in such a fashion. Yet this is what technology allows us to do.

Technology is the solution to Man's many ills. It has to be, because if there is a will there is a way. Technology is 'that way'. 

The 747 is a piece of technology, I flew on one last, many years ago. It is the memories of my childhood that accompany its legacy, I called it a legend, because in my time, it was one. Though it is still a legend today, my memories are from a different time. Where all around me, wherever I looked, the world was conquered by its form, its sound and its presence. Everywhere it lingered, it drew attention. We gazed upon it as part of our vision of our future, to the point where it was normalized, almost as if it were furniture.

Yet it filled our minds with ambition, to strive to do better.

Ultimately, this is the core of what the story of the 747 is. A successful attempt to do better. It did this and more, becoming more than just the sum of its parts, or just the manifestations of a man's vision. Instead it is his life-longs work, his blood, sweat and tears. We owe a lot to Joe Sutter and his team of visionaries. He said once 'Safety is always the priority, we must reduce the risks down to zero,  we never do, but we sure as hell, better try.' It is statements like these that embody the vision in His mind and in doing so become the driving force in the program that he ultimately managed.

Such will and determination should be mirrored by everyone, but alas life teaches us these lessons as well, perhaps in a less than subtle manner. 

Au Revoir internet, Goodbye and Goodnight.