OK, let me connect the dots, right away, in my Title...🙂.... I was watching, over the weekend, a re-run of the 1967 movie "GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER"...You might recall the opening credits, with a United Air Lines Douglas DC-8 arriving from Honolulu in San Francisco, and as expected, plentiful exhaust smoke seen pluming from the airplane's four Pratt & Whitney JT3C engines (Side Note: United changed its stylization from United Air Lines (UAL) to United Airlines (UA) about a decade later). But, for this post, I will focus on another UAL a/c, a Boeing 727, that also featured in the same movie, and got me triggered for this post. In the plot of the storyline, later on, Poitier’s (movie) parents also fly in from Los Angeles, this time on a United Airlines 727. After they meet, the small talk between the two pairs of parents, goes as follows:

"Did you have a pleasant flight?"
"Very pleasant flight. Thank you. Only 40 minutes from L.A....Four hundred miles..."
"It's incredible, isn't it?" 

The flight, in this bit of dialog, belonged to that of a 727-200 (tail number N7007U) ...! And the livery of this B727-200, shown in the movie, (also same as that of the aforesaid Douglas DC-8), is the well-known and beautiful color scheme that had launched United Airlines into the jet age, the iconic blue and white "wedge" design (unveiled in 1957). It was a relatively simple livery, featuring an all-white top and a blue cheatline that ran the length of the fuselage and through the windows. Here, in my virtual world, I could not find the (exact) B727-200 (N7007U), so, instead I've used (see below), a B727-100 (N7001U), of the exact same livery, which was, btw, the Boeing 727 Prototype Airplane (#1 727 built, so-to-speak), Boeing's first ever domestic Jet, that had flown years before the very first 737 would fly. My 727-100, below, is in the same blue and white wedge color scheme...as seen in the movie...! 

The B727-100 had a most basic SPERRY Autopilot Control Panel on the original aircraft (see pedestal and pop-up Autopilot panel shots), and no FMC...no LNAV/VNAV etc...! The "3 to 1" descent planning formula and VOR-to-VOR type navigation ruled the day...! So, here, I have added two gauges (one for Descent management and another for enhanced HSI guidance) as (2D) pop-ups (see screenshots below), into the panel of this B727, for a bit of extra fun and navigational convenience...! I've tested this 727 with an experimental (short) flight (see Sim Brief MAP), in my favorite NZ region, lifting off NZAA (Auckland) Rwy 23L, banking right, and tracking direct to WP (Whenuapai) VOR, ~15 nms north, see cockpit image shots showing, together, both my "add-on" HSI and the "on-board" HSI gauges. 

Past the WP VOR, I've flown further to ~50 nms out from Auckland to an altitude of 25,000 ft, and then retraced my path southward, back towards NZAA, to eventually capture the ILS signals of Rwy 23L. It's during this (return) phase of the flight, that I've made use of the (nice) Descent Calculator Gauge (see pop-up shots), by making use of the "Required V/S" parameter that's continuously displayed on the helpful the gauge, and manually controlling my descent, to a BOD altitude of 2,500 ft, ~15nm away from the Auckland Airport. After that point, I've captured the Localizer signal for ILS touchdown into Rwy 23 (see landing shots).

Hope you enjoy these pictures of the 727 in the (iconic) UAL color of the trijet that had featured in the delightful (and old-fashioned) movie "GUESS WHO’S COMING TO DINNER", one, that, of course, also contained its set of wonderfully acted characters...!

Thanks for your interest...!!

Great, i loved to fly this bird at my FSX time, ever will be missed..

Fine shots !

cheers 😉

Very nice set of shots! 😉 

Wonderful shots of one my favorite birds back in FS9, FSX. The other one was their 707. CS was such a well respected developer back in the FS9 days. Since then they have slowly fallen off the cliffs. It's a bad joke, where they are today!

Simpler times that I miss for sure , thanks for the great FSX memories mate . 🤥

On 7/11/2022 at 12:41 AM, pmplayer said:

Great, i loved to fly this bird at my FSX time, ever will be missed..

Fine shots !

cheers 😉

Agree, pmplayer, once you flew this bird in the virtual world.... it stays with you....one of CS's best from old times...I have all their 727-100/-200/-100F/-200F variants, love them all...

 

On 7/11/2022 at 9:30 AM, Alaska738 said:

Very nice set of shots! 😉 

Thank you, Alaska, for the comment. Appreciated...!

 

On 7/12/2022 at 1:51 AM, bernd1151 said:

Wonderful shots of one my favorite birds back in FS9, FSX. The other one was their 707. CS was such a well respected developer back in the FS9 days. Since then they have slowly fallen off the cliffs. It's a bad joke, where they are today!

Thanks, bernd...! True, they had indeed created a wonderful set of Boeing classics in their glory days...🙂.... (haven't been there in decades, except occasionally to pick up some additional variants of the old classics...they have a complete set for the legacy 707/727/737 series ....still unmatched to this day...) ...

 

21 hours ago, johnbow72 said:

Simpler times that I miss for sure , thanks for the great FSX memories mate . 🤥

Simpler times...🙂.... for sure...was glad too to watch that movie one more time.... that triggered me for this post....🙂...

 

Edited July 13, 20223 yr by P_7878