What is the most successful airplane in terms of mileage? I mean, what airplane has flown the most? How many miles/km? Not a model or a series but 1 single airplane that holds the record.
Concordski
>>947067
Pretty much guarantee you it's some older model Boeing or Airbus commercial jet that's still in service. My guess would be a very old 747.
>>947319
Sounds about right. Kalitta Air still has a couple 747-200Fs
>>947329
Caspian Airlines still operates a 747-100.
>>947067
The Douglas DC-3, by far. Over 1,000 are still in use as regional airliners, 70+ years after the first one rolled off the factory floor and onto the apron.
>>947358
Actually, scratch that, it's only about 400. Still, for a plane closing in on its 8th decade of service, that's not bad.
Also worth noting, there's turboprop DC-3s out there, so that might be where the number's getting skewed.
>>947358
It depends on the distances being flown. A bunch of short hops isn't going to put it over the top of a 747-100 doing long haul. But who knows? There's no way we can get figures on any of this.
>>947359
Skewed down?
>>947067
I'm trying to find source, but I believe it is a B747 model.
But then I wonder if there are some former SAC B-53's that have some extreme mileage. Many have been extensively rebuilt several times over and typically did long haul flights to their failsafe points plus loitering.
>>949693
>B-53's
Gawdammit... I meant B-52's.
Still don't have any numbers here, c'mon guys give me some numbers, 1 million, 2 million, 10 million miles, etc etc
>>949759
I think there's no data for that. We have reasonable guesses. It's either an old long distance air liner, or an old military strategic bomber - those things used to be kept in the air 24/7 on rotation for nuclear response.
>>949785
Jesus are you seriously telling me that those things worth millions don't have odometers
>>949759 Planes are logged for hours, not miles. So you'd have to average out a guestimate. If a B-52 has logged 50,000 hours for example (a guestimate on my part, but seems reasonable), and we average that at 550 mph, that works out to be 27,500,000 miles. That's not compensating for climb/descent angles, or wind speed & direction, both of which affects the mileage relative to the ground. That's why we never measure it by miles, but by hours. For helicopters, even more so.
>>949808
Found numbers for one particular B-52...at 54 years young and last off the production line, its the newest in the fleet. As of 2012, it had 21,000 hours on it. Cruising speed is actually 525 mph, so that averages out to 11,025,000 miles. I expect some B-52s will have more, but then again the most-used ones would be the first ones to be retired. Happy now?
>>949808
Having them is one thing, posting the current mileage of planes on the web is another thing.
>>947358
>square windows
Wait, I thought those were dangerous!
>>950203
>he thinks that square windows cause stress concentration that leads to cracking due to fatigue
How bluepilled can you get?
why was I interested in this: I wanted to compare the numbers to the mileage of the Graf Zeppelin which clocked 1.2 million miles
A320
Discovery has flown 148,221,675 miles.
Just throwing that out there.
>>950447
The ISS has been up since 1998 at a speed of 17,100mph.
It has flown 2.6 billion miles.
>>950450
>believing ISIS propaganda
Reported to the FBI, CIA, and NSA
If you don't like America you can git out
>>950203
i don't think those planes fly so high that pressure differences inside and outside can cause damage.
>>952306
The DC-3 isn't pressurized at all. No point in worrying about cracks around square window when there's no stress in that area to begin with.
This only became a factor because the Comet (which was pressurized) had higher service ceiling than props (even pressurized ones like Connstellation and DC-6/7) and better climb rate.
>>949759
>>949818
https://www.planespotters.net/airframe/Boeing/747/23817/D-ABVB-Lufthansa
This particular LH 744 retired with apparently over 120,000 flight hours. I'm not familiar with which aircraft has the most, but I'd imagine a civil airliner widebody would hold the record.
I'm not familiar with military aircraft at all, but I'd imagine the fact that utilization is important at an airline means these 747s have racked up far more hours over a shorter span of time.
>>947067
>How many miles/km?
0.6214
That's not an attribute of any aircraft in particular.
>>949693
space shuttle
>>949812
relative to ground doesnt matter idiot
all that matters is amount of Planck lengths traversed
and yeah one atom of a plane traverses a different amount of Planck lengths than another atom of a plane but just being approximate obviously, averaging all the atoms of the whole plane
>>954011
You thought that was clever and funny. Protip: It wasn't. Go back to shitposting about an irrelevant broschure that hardly anyone even knows exists. On second thought, don't. Leave /n/ forever instead.
>>954016
"148,221,675: The number of miles Discovery has traveled after 39 space missions. This is a distance record unmatched among NASA's space shuttle fleet. The miles traveled by Discovery could have carried it to the moon and back more than 288 times, or on 1 1/2 trips to the sun."
You are sort of correct, I think, although virtually all of those miles were travelled hitched to a ballistic rocket or free falling through vacuum, and not in controlled flight per se.
>>949808
They dont. Aircraft are like boats in that you log hours, not distance traveled.
>>950203
That aircraft doesnt have a pressurized cabin. It didnt become a problem until airplanes started being pressure vessels
>>947358
Doesn't matter how long ago the first one was made. The 1000 planes still in the air could have been made last year for all we know. You know what I mean.
Maybe a 747, 737 or 727. Braniff was flying a 747-100 that was nicknamed Fat Albert. It made a daily round trip Hawaii-DFW and then DFW-Gatwick. Was only on the ground a few hours every day. It made the trip pretty much every day from 1971 to 1982. I believe it was the highest hours in flight of the 747s officially. It was in the air 15-18 hours a day.
>>954212
i highly doubt they made 1,000 DC-3s last year
707
US military still operates them.
>>947067
i saw a plane fly around long beach airport that had this shape. completely silent, big, no lights, looked like a moving cloud
>>956728
Process the last sentence in the post.
