This post is about two things I have always found fascinating (1) The (historic) Cathay Pacific (Airways) and, (2) The one and only Boeing 747-400 (aka the Queen). The post is inspired by a recent post, by another member, here, with a set of excellent images of a Cathay 777. Cathay Pacific is an airline hard to overlook, in our SIM World, or in the Real World. I am quite sure all of us have seen the amazing videos of Cathay Pacific 747s landing in their home-town Kai Tak Airport (a few of us, here, probably even partaken in the experience, first hand, in fact, I recall someone saying so, a while ago...). I have known of Cathay Pacific since as long as I got interested in aviation, well before my involvement in SIM. So, this post is about one of my favorite airlines, Cathay Pacific, and their 747s. Though, it's not about Kai Tak, still, I wish to recommend, here, two short video clips (from among the numerous, on-line), highlighting the mastery exhibited by those Cathay Pacific pilots (and, of course, other airlines routinely did so, too), landing their jumbos into Kai Tak Rwy 13, just moments after executing that improbable 45 degrees (final) right turn...!

So, if interested, please search for:

1. Cathay Pacific Boeing 747 Landing Kai Tak (Peri road) [45sec] - (Note: This 45sec video has an incredible opening...please keep the volume up and wait for the 747 to show up...)...
2. Cathay Pacific Boeing 747-200 Crosswind Landing Kai Tak (1998) [1min 8sec] - (Note: In this video, observe the tree-branches swinging wildly because of the strong wind, and, of course, the amazing crosswind touchdown...how the Pilots straighten up such a massive plane, so quickly, after touchdown, I, as a non-pilot, find nothing short of phenomenal)...

Now, besides the Wiki, there are abundant interesting articles about Cathay Pacific and the legacy of its 747s. The 747s served as the mainstay of the airline for 37 years carrying the bulk of its passenger load and singularly establishing Hong Kong, as the International destination, that it's today. The very first -400 variant of the 747 had joined the Cathay Pacific fleet in June 1989 and faithfully served the airline for 25 long years, logging some 52,986,150 miles – that's enough to get to the moon and back 111 times...(a testament to the longevity of legendary 747-400)...! I found this quote by a Cathay Pacific spokesperson (and a former pilot of the 747), "The 747 fundamentally changed the way people were able to travel. Being able to carry more people for far greater distances than before meant the 747 effectively shrunk the planet. As a result, it helped make Hong Kong become a world city.”

The Cathay Pacific's remarkable story (it's said, one of the most romantic in aviation history) is also the story of two remarkable individuals, Australian Sydney de Kantzow and American Roy Ferrell, both ex-Air-Force pilots (and seasoned pilots who had flown over the Hump, in the Himalayas). Ferrell purchased the airline's first a/c, a DC-3, in New York, nicknamed Betsy, and, they flew it to Hong Kong, and founded the Cathay Pacific Airways, on September 24, 1946 (~3 months from today, Cathay would be exactly 75 years old). The far-sighted Ferrell, affixed "Pacific" to the name, by speculating that, one day, their new-born airline might fly across the Pacific Ocean, which would finally happen in the 1970s, when Cathay Pacific flew non-stop from Vancouver to New York, with its B707s/DC10s.

Here are a few notable firsts by Cathay Pacific to ponder about:

. The first international airline to fly to Japan/Osaka
. The first Asian carrier to launch a freighter/cargo service brand
. The first to fly non-stop from Hong Kong to Vancouver
. The first to fly non-stop from Hong Kong to London
. The world’s first non-stop transpolar flight (New York - Hong Kong) over the North Pole

Cathay has now retired all its 747s in 2016. The plane’s final passenger flight was between Hong Kong and Tokyo, on October 1, 2016. To evoke, maybe, just the minutest feeling of that final Cathay 747 flight, I've (symbolically) flown, here, the iFly 744v2 (a SIM I'm really fond of), from VHHH to RJTT (see SimBrief MAP, below), in its entirety (a rarity for me, these days, with all my flights being typically less than 300 miles).

Now a bit about the 747 and my (virtual) 747 flight here:

The 747-400, easily identified by its (unmistakable) hallmark upper-deck hump, revolutionized travel, and also set the navigational standards of long-haul automated flight. One of the most endearing aviation memories of my life was my first flight, as pax, in a 747, not so much the actual flight itself, because, at cruise, it felt so smooth and quietly humming, as if one is sitting in one's living room (along with strangers, of course...🙂...), but, it was my first impressions, from the waiting lobby, of it colossal body, with its massive and bulbous nose sticking close to the glass partition, and, hundreds of feet behind it, the jet's high tail impressively reaching upward...when the 747 was first created and flown, it was (unimaginably) twice the size of any existing (commercial) jetliner, but, my thoughts were much more simple, "how, in the world, does this thing get up there and stay up there...?"....

We, here, say, there is not much to do during the navigation of an advanced jetliner "simulation"...that assertion mostly seems true, at least, from our amateur sim(aviation) perspective,...🙂...though my 747 SIM experience, here, (after a very long break), turned out, nonetheless, to be immensely enjoyable,...plus, while I've been (lately) flying my beloved Pipers a lot, this post, reflected a change of pace, and, helped bring my 747 proficiency up-to-date a bit...🙂...in my own purely make-believe world...

With this (iFly) 747 SIM, there is so much time one can spend, but, minimally, all I've done, here, for this flight, is as follows: I uploaded the SimBrief Flightplan (see below), already (conveniently) created in the correct iFly FPLN format, into the FMC, set-up the basic FMC steps, then, I inspected but left (untouched) all (default) Speed/Altitude constraints, as is, after having to delete the DISCOs on the LEGS page,...then, in my (virtual) SIM World, the FMC/Autopilot/Autothrottle/LNAV/VNAV did their miracle, from shortly right after lift-off (through a wide right turn (see images) from VHHH's westward Rwy 25R over South China Sea, and, then, up north across the Pacific...to FL310 cruise, then iFly (faithfully and predictably) initiated the automatic VNAV guided (auto-speed-controlled) descent at the T/D point, all the way till capture of RJTT ILS Rwy 34R for the final touchdown...(please see images for various phases of this flight)...so, it was, essentially, hands-off navigation for the ~1700 miles trip...if one has never flown a (virtual) but "good" simulation of a 747 (iFly surely qualifies for one) from A-to-B, one might just try it once for fun, instead of taking my words for it,...after all, where else, we, empowered "simmers", will ever come close to the most unique thrill of being in command, in the advanced "glass" cockpit of a jumbo 747...🙂...

Hope you enjoy this story or/and these images of the 747-400, affectionately called "Queen of the Skies", considered, in its glory-days, a magnificent (and most beautiful, still so, in her current form of 747-8...) flying-machine, shown, here, in the graceful colors of Cathay Pacific...(btw, in one of my concluding shots, please excuse the (tiny) B737-800 of "Orbit Airlines", hanging on the Rwy, a bit too long, blocking the touchdown of the Queen...)...

Thanks for your interest and comments...!! Good flying...!

[iFly (744v2)]

Stunning shots! You forgot to go around?

...🙂...A go-around would have taxed the skills of this pilot a bit too much...

I did touch down,...🙂...uneventfully, here it is...

Superb shots from one of the big airliners i like to fly a lot and often..

I like this Cathay livery very mutch; don't realy matters on what plane you see it, it always looks just good 😎

cheers 😉

15 hours ago, pmplayer said:

I like this Cathay livery very much; don't really matters on what plane you see it, it always looks just good 😎

Yes, wholeheartedly agree...🙂...!!