Jumbo and the Gremlins

Pan American executives knew that they would run into all sorts of problems in getting their 747 jumbo jets through what airmen call a new plane's "learning curve," and they tried to anticipate as many as possible (TIME cover, Jan. 19). But a variety of major and minor difficulties, some of which could hardly have been anticipated, last week turned the 747's first commercial flight from New York to London into an alternately frustrating and funny experience for the 352 passengers.

Engine Trouble. First off, the main portside door in the forward economy-class cabin refused to close. Operated by compressed air, it jammed when a late-arriving passenger interrupted its automatic closing cycle, and mechanics had to labor for half an hour to reset the system. The 747 was taxiing away from the terminal when a sudden gust of wind blew directly in the exhaust vent of the right outboard engine, causing the fuel to flare up and overheat the engine. The plane had to be brought back to the terminal, and Pan Am rushed to roll out its only other service-ready 747 to take over the flight. "It's marvelous," said Mrs. David Susskind, wife of the TV producer. "A dozen bathrooms and no engines." The switch involved painting out the name Clipper Victor on the second 747's nose and replacing it with Clipper Young America, the grounded plane's name.

At 1:50 a.m. Thursday--15 minutes after the flight had originally been scheduled to land in London--the passengers, minus 20 dropouts. finally took off. The flight lasted 61 hours, about 20 minutes less than the same trip in a Boeing 707 or Douglas DC-8. In the air, passengers found the 747 to be comfortable, quiet and smooth riding. At London's Heathrow Airport, baggage handlers who had managed to unload a 747 in 18 minutes in an early test took almost 45 minutes to do the job for real.

More Space. Problems with 747 service continued at week's end. A later takeoff was delayed almost five hours by trouble in the compressed-air system. In Washington, Federal Aviation Administration officials took note of another complication caused by the 747's bulk. Because of swirling air currents that the plane leaves in its wake, the FAA ordered controllers to keep 747s two to three times the normal distance away from other planes in the air, horizontally and vertically.

Of course, these are the kind of gremlins that infest almost any new airliner in its early service, and there is little doubt that most of them will soon be overcome. For example, Pratt & Whitney engineers quickly came up with recommendations for avoiding the engine trouble that delayed the inaugural flight. This problem occurs only rarely and is not dangerous. The engineers suggested that airlines have a man in the 747 cockpit watch the engine temperature gauges continuously during taxiing. If engine overheating is noticed immediately, they say, the pilot can shut down and restart the engines before they are damaged. Pratt & Whitney men think that no major modification of the engines themselves will be needed.

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