Boeing Boeing
By Tony Vallillo
The image is among the most iconic in aviation - a view out the window of a four engine jet, but with a twist - everything outside is upside down! What on earth, or above it, was going on there?
What was going on there, as the pilot of that airplane told his boss, was selling airplanes. And they sold a bunch of them as a result of that maneuver; more than that - they touched off a revolution in travel, and jump started the jet age. But how, you may ask, did it come to barrel rolls in jet transports above hydroplane racers?
Just prior to World War II, the Douglas Aircraft Company had something of a monopoly on building airliners. Although the Boeing Company had, in fact, raised the bar in air transport design with their ground breaking model 247 in 1933, they were hoisted upon their own corporate petard, as it were, because of their status as part of a larger conglomerate which included Boeing Air Transport, the predecessor of United Airlines. The airline thought it had a good thing going with the advanced Model 247, and managed to corner the market by taking virtually all of the first few years' production. This left competitors, principally TWA, potentially in the lurch. They responded by getting Douglas Aircraft to design and build first the DC-1 prototype, and then the DC-2. This airplane was superior in just about every way to the 247, and when it was further expanded into the DC-3, Douglas' hold on the air transport world was secured, and DC-3's flew all over the world for decades.
Meanwhile, Boeing found its own niche in the development and construction of large bombers during the war. After the war they created a giant airliner, the Stratocruiser, based largely upon the design of the B-29 bomber. Although they sold only a relative handful of the Stratocruisers as airliners, the USAF bought hundreds of KC-97's, which was an air refueling tanker version of the Stratocruiser. The airline version was troubled, in the beginning, with numerous design issues with the engines and propellers; these planes were, for the most part, retired in favor of Douglas airplanes like the DC-6 and DC-7. But the military version flew all the way into the early 1970's with the Air National Guard - one of my pilot training classmates ended up flying them in Texas in those years.
The big event at Boeing in the late 40's was the development of a large bomber powered by the new turbojet engines. This was the B-47 Stratojet, which was soon augmented by the even larger B-52 Stratofortress. In those early days of the cold war, these planes (particularly the B-47's) needed to be refueled in the air in order to achieve the range needed to accomplish their strategic bombing missions. This was done, in the beginning, using piston powered tankers like the KC-97, but this was an interim solution and was unsatisfactory.
The tankers, at their top speed, were still in the low speed range of the jet bombers, which all had highly swept wings for fast flying, but which performed poorly at low speeds. What was needed was a fast jet powered tanker plane to complement the speedy bomber fleet. Boeing figured this out even before the Air Force did; after all, the planes were all made by them, and they knew better than anyone the weaknesses of the piston powered tankers. But initially they were unable to convince the AF to fund the development of such a jet tanker. So Bill Allen, president of the firm, decided to take an enormous gamble and bet the farm, or in this case the company, to develop the plane themselves. $14 million later (a gargantuan amount in those days), this gamble emerged as a one-off jet airplane, the Boeing model 367-80.
Dash Eighty, as she was affectionately known, was a hand built prototype - literally put together from parts that were mostly custom made. Put first through exhaustive testing, which, as intended, revealed a few flaws which were rapidly corrected, the jet was also taken on a fairly extensive round of demonstrations both at home and farther afield. This was all an effort to arouse some interest in the unique airplane, from both the airlines and the military. The airlines were not at all enthusiastic about anything as new as this, having just coughed up the money to order the latest DC-7's and Super Constellations. Nor was the thought of the inflight explosions of the first jet airliner, the British Comet, far from their minds. Thus there was not exactly a stampede of customers to Boeing's "showroom". So it was that in early August 1955, on the occasion of the annual Hydroplane races on Lake Washington in Seattle, Bill Allen arranged a fly over of the Dash 80 for the benefit of nearly every airline president in the country, all of whom had been invited by Boeing to enjoy the races and the delightful Puget Sound summer weather.
As it turned out, Allen got more than he bargained for. Boeing's chief test pilot at this time was a colorful character named "Tex" Johnston. Tex decided to put on a real show, the better to "sell" the new airplane. He chose to demonstrate the Barrel Roll maneuver because, if done correctly, it is a one G maneuver, as Bob Hoover spent a career demonstrating at airshows around the world in later years. Tex practiced the maneuver in the Dash 80 at altitude several times the day before, and on the appointed day he flew low over Lake Washington, right over the head of just about every airline CEO in the country, and performed a perfect barrel roll. Then Tex turned the ship around and did it again in the opposite direction! To say that the airline brass was impressed would be the understatement of the jet age - Eddie Rickenbacker of Eastern Airlines, who apparently arrived a day later and missed seeing the spectacle, told Tex that had he known of it ahead of time he would have demanded to ride the jump seat!
Bill Allen was not so enthusiastic. After having nearly suffered a heart attack (figuratively, not literally, although he reportedly asked one of his lieutenants, who did have heart trouble, for some of his pills!), he called Tex on the carpet the next day and asked him just what in the **** he thought he was doing. "Selling airplanes" was the laconic reply. And that is exactly what happened. In fact, some would place the origin of the "jet age" squarely on that day, August 6, 1955. It is not unreasonable to deduce that, had their confidence in the sturdy construction of the Dash 80 not been assured by those rolls (most of the airline brass were not pilots, and knew nothing of the relatively benign nature of the maneuver), it may have been years before orders would be forthcoming for any jet transports. Tex Johnston literally sold the airplane and the entire concept of jet transportation in that one moment. And according to company lore, just about every Boeing jet, at least through the 767 series, has been rolled at one time or another during testing.
Almost immediately, Boeing derived two airplane designs from the Dash 80 - the airliner that would be known as the Boeing 707, and the Air Force tanker, called the Boeing 717 internally, but designated the KC-135 by the USAF. These were two largely distinct airplanes, and neither was a clone of Dash 80. The KC-135's were all identical to each other, and were a bit larger than the prototype in nearly every dimension. Most of them, all built prior to the early 1960's, are still flying today, albeit with newer and much more powerful engines. Surprisingly, most of them have less time on their airframes than some of the 777's still in airline service, since they spent a good deal of their time over this 60 or so year career sitting on the ramp on alert. They will not all be retired to the boneyard until around 2030!
The airline version, the 707, was even larger than the KC-135. Original specifications, based upon the tanker version, had been for a cabin with 5 across seating, similar to the later Douglas DC-9 series. But the airline bosses, particularly C.R. Smith of American, knew that they would need a lot of paying bodies in the seats to turn a profit on these expensive beasts, and so it was that Boeing was "persuaded" (actually, Smith made Allen an offer he couldn't refuse, decades before that phrase became popular) to enlarge the cabin to accommodate 6 across seating, as Douglas was planning to do with their entry into the jet race.
The 707 came to be built in a bewildering number of variants, as Boeing, eager to rack up sales, tried to cater to each airline's unique needs. Eventually, the family included three basic types, within which there were a number of subsets. The broad types were the 707-100 series, which were the original model; the 707-300 series which were a stretched long range version better suited to international flights, and another version aimed at shorter range operations from shorter runways. More on that last version later.
Within the -100 series there were several unique types, built for specific airlines with specific requirements. For Qantas, Boeing built the -138's, which had a shortened fuselage and longer range. This, by the way, was the type that John Travolta owned and flew for many years. For Braniff, which by this time had acquired routes into the Andes region of South America, Boeing built the -227, which had more powerful engines for the "high and hot" environment. The majority of the 100 series were the standard issue, which were almost all converted a few years later to -100B status with the addition of the new and more powerful turbofan engines.
The 300 series were more standardized, although Boeing did cater to a great deal of customization in the cockpit equipment and the cabin design. When the turbofan engines became available, the 300 became the 300B, although apparently none were converted while in use - all of the 300B's were new builds. The B's also had larger wingtips which carried a bit more fuel for better range. Within the 300 series were also the 300C's, which were cargo only variants.
There was also a -400 series, which was a -300 airframe with Rolls Royce engines, built specially for the British airline and a few of the Commonwealth airlines. Boeing, it seems, would do just about anything required to assure a sale!
And then there was that short range version. That came about early on, as a result of the inconvenient truth that the original non-fan 707's needed a very long runway to operate at anything near max weight. We are talking in excess of 10,000 feet here, and although the major international airports like Idlewild in New York did indeed lengthen some of their runways to accommodate this need, there were still only a handful of airports in any given country that could take on the early jets. The "Jet Set" had to content themselves with flights between only the most major cities worldwide. As the passenger popularity of the smoother higher flying jets grew, both passengers and the airlines were very interested in expanding the jet experience to more and smaller airports.
Boeing met this need with a redesign of the basic 707. The 100 series fuselage was shortened by around 10 feet, the entire structure was made lighter by using lighter aluminum alloys and the wing was modified a bit. The latter included a "glove" of sorts on the leading edge of the wing inboard of the inboard engine. This had the effect of increasing the sweep of the inboard leading edge, while also adding a bit to the wing area, increasing low speed lift. The leading edge devices were redesigned to add to this increased low speed lift, and the fuel capacity was reduced, resulting in a reduced range but also an overall weight reduction of around 30,000 pounds compared to a dash 100. All of this added up to an airplane that could operate reliably out of runways somewhat shorter than a dash 100 - say around 7000 feet as opposed to 10,000 or more.
Boeing had originally designated this airplane the 707-020. But the launch customer, United Airlines, had what amounted to a PR problem. United had been a major Douglas customer over the years, and had originally ordered the DC-8 instead of the 707. From the beginning, they had extolled the virtues of that choice in all of their advertising, to the point that both the marketing department and their board of directors felt that they would look fickle ordering a bunch of 707's at this later date. Boeing never had any problem catering to the whims of a customer, and so it was that the public name of this new plane was changed to the Boeing 720 - the only Boeing jet airliner to depart from the 7_7 designation scheme.
Although United was thus able to create the impression that what they were flying around in the early 1960's was a completely new airplane, this was most certainly not the case - the 720 was merely a light weight, hot rod derivative of the 707. Originally powered by the same JT3C straight jet engines as all the rest of the 707's, it lacked water injection, since that power boost was not needed on the lighter airframe. Almost all of them were converted to the 720B configuration the minute that the fan jet JT3D engines were available; and, thus equipped, they were sprightly performers, leaping off of runways and booming up to altitude far faster than the other variants. In the USA they were operated originally by UAL and Eastern, which never operated any other version of the 707, and by Northwest, Braniff, Pan Am, TWA and American, all of which did have the other series in their fleets. In fact, American, Pan Am and TWA did not refer to the airplanes as 720's - they called them 707's, and only the crew or a few very knowledgeable passengers knew the difference. That difference, by the way, as far as a layman could tell, was the single overwing exit as opposed to the 707's two overwing exits (although Eastern's 720's did have the double overwing hatches due to their extensive use in overwater operations).
When I hired on as a pilot at American in 1977, we operated a large fleet of 707's, although by this time the 720's were long gone, replaced in the 1960's by the much better performing 727 series which could operate from runways as short as 5000 feet (this was actually a requirement of the design, at the behest of Eastern, which wanted to operate the 727 in and out of LGA).
Within my first year on the line I was sent back to 707 school as a flight engineer, and thus began an era in my career during which I flew both the 707 and 727 regularly, first as a line FE and then as a flight engineer check airman. This was an amazing opportunity for several reasons. First, I now had access, even at my lowly level of seniority, to twice as many trip selections each month (for in those days one could be dual qualified). Second, I now flew with Captains who were significantly older than the 727 group, and who had, early in their own careers, flown with some of the pioneers, pilots like George McCabe, Walt Braznell, Howard Woodall, and other true early birds. From these men I heard tales of the really old days, and I gained a greater understanding of what those original pilots had to endure, back when the job was much different than it is today.
Compared to the 727, the 707 was a bit more complex, as one might imagine, and although the pilots were doing essentially the same thing in both airplanes, the FE was much busier in the 707, if for no other reason than the fact that he or she had four of everything to be concerned with as opposed to three. The fuel system had additional tanks, not only for the fourth engine but also auxiliary tanks for much greater range (that American used on only one occasion that I was involved with). The pneumatic system was an entire order of magnitude more complex than the one on the three holer, with not only engine bleed air to manage, but also a system of turbo-compressors on the inboard engines that were the actual source of the A/C and pressurization air. The air conditioning cooling was produced not by the air cycle machines that I had been familiar with on the C-141 and 727, but rather by an actually more effective Freon cycle system that more closely resembled the design of a home air conditioner. Only the hydraulic system was simpler - on the 707 hydraulics powered the rudder, brakes, flaps, steering and speed brakes. A simple system of two engine driven pumps provided the pressure for this assemblage. The other flight controls (ailerons and elevators) were not hydraulic boosted at all, and were operated by a system of anti-servo tabs, like the ones on the 727 which were, on that airplane, only used as a backup manual system in case the hydraulics failed.
Tab operation, on an airplane this big, resulted in heavy roll and pitch forces on the yoke. In the pitch axis this mattered less, since one could (and just about everyone did) fly the airplane with the pitch trim, which was electrically powered. But in the roll axis, there was nothing to relieve the heavy, truck like feel and response of the tabs and it is more the wonder that ol' Tex had been able to roll the heavy beast so low to the ground. It would not have been a feat for the faint of heart, or the weak of strength. Back in the day, when the airplanes were new, the truck-like feel and response was less of an issue, since all the piston airliners flew like trucks, at least compared to modern designs. But by the time I was flying it, the career progression might lead one to fly the 727 first, and then the higher paying 707 a bit later on, at which point the natural delight of flying the remarkably responsive 727 (the best flying large jet ever designed, in my humble opinion) would give way to the now objectionably heavier feel of the older airplane. The lure of the bigger bucks, though, overcame any distaste over handling!
I never flew the 707 in either pilot position, although I got a good bit of time in the pilot seats in the simulator, and a generous Captain once gave me a takeoff in the actual airplane (that is as much as I will admit to, now that the statute of limitations has expired!). I found the airplane to be as advertised - more or less like the 727 with hydraulics shut off. Roll was heavy on the stick forces, and ponderous in response to inputs. Anticipation was key here - you needed to know when to begin and end roll inputs and in both cases the time for that was just a bit prior to what you were used to in later designs. Things seldom happened immediately in the 707. Pitch was a bit more responsive, albeit heavy enough on the yoke that trim inputs were the preferred method of inducing a pitch change. Flown that way, things were manageable. I never had a landing in the airplane, but if the simulator was any indication (and it usually was) they landed like a big Cessna, with a pronounced flare-and-hold-it-off, and even a bit of a tendency to float if the speed was a bit high. Real grease jobs (referred to today in the sim community as "butters" for some reason unknown to me) were regularly achieved, at least by the veterans, and it was rare indeed that a 707 landing would set off seismographs (as the 727 was capable of doing on a much more frequent basis).
The 707 was a very versatile airplane. At AA it was used, at least during my tenure, for trips as long as transcons (although by this time the premium runs like flight 1 were all widebodies) and as short as JFK-ROC. We had a sub fleet of around a dozen that were configured as freighters, and these flew all around the system, particularly in and out of the Caribbean. There was really no such thing as a typical 707 trip, at least out of New York. One of my favorites, and one of the first actual trip selections I was able to hold as a very junior FE in the late 70's, was a selection that left JFK around 6 in the evening, non-stop to San Diego. After a 24 hour layover in that delightful town, it returned as a red-eye the following evening, leaving SAN around 9pm. The runway at KSAN was not long enough to accommodate an actual non-stop flight to the east coast, so a stopover was made at KPHX to refuel and pick up more passengers. Then the transcon was resumed, arriving at JFK around 0600. We also had both passenger and freighter trips as short as JFK or EWR to ROC, SYR, BUF and CYYZ and back. These flights lasted only an hour or even a bit less, but the 707 filled the bill well enough in those days of cheaper fuel.
At the international airlines, of course, it was used on the long hauls, overwater from continent to continent. Until the advent of the 747, the 707 held down all of the most prestigious flights worldwide - JFK to London, Paris, Zurich, and to and between just about everywhere else. Only once did I ever fly a trip that used the extra range of the -300 series, and that was a charter flight from JFK to Paris, long before we acquired the authority to serve that route on a scheduled basis. We actually had around five of the -300's fitted out in an all coach configuration as a charter fleet, and our charter department was aggressive in seeking out opportunities to use them in that manner. Interestingly, on that Paris trip in question, all three of us up front were check airmen! In airline lore this is a sure sign of troubles to come, so we were all exceptionally attentive to our duties, the better to ward off the bad karma!
The max weight of the basic -300 series was actually around 400,000 lb, but American and probably most other domestic airlines that used it had certified it to a considerably lower number - in our case 350,000 lb. This was done to save money on landing fees, which were and probably still are based upon the certified max gross weight of an airplane. The FAA will certify whatever the airline wants, but when we selected 350k, we were bound to it from then on. Fortunately, by the time we actually got routes longer than east coast to Europe, we had other airplanes such as the DC-10 and 767 to fly them.
The 707 was eventually retired not because it was getting too long in the tooth, but due to the increasing cost of fuel. I flew the 707 until the very end of its tenure at AA, around 1983. Most if not all of ours went to the USAF to be shorn of their engines, which were then used to re-engine part of the KC-135 fleet. By the mid 1980's about the only place you could find a 707 in the US was at KMIA, specifically on the north side of the airport in an area we knew as cockroach (or sometimes corrosion) corner. This was a living boneyard of old airliners that were still in use nightly on cargo runs into Latin America and the Caribbean. The various versions of the 707, as well as a good many DC-8's, were literally worked to death in these hardscrabble services, bearing the haphazard liveries of companies you had never heard of. There, and in South American, Africa and the Middle East you could still find, and even fly on, the former queen of the sky.
The USAF, as I said, is still flying a good portion of its original KC-135 fleet, now re-engined with the massive CFM-56's. Thus equipped, it is finally a good performing airplane. And there are a few dozen actual 707-300 airframes in the inventory, mostly the AWACS with a few J-Stars and TACAMO airplanes performing special missions. Boeing built over 1000 707's, a total that pales in comparison with the 737 numbers, but which was very respectable in the day. Finally, many today (myself included) think of it as the most beautiful jet transport ever built. Certainly nothing in the skies today comes close.
The 707 In The Flightsim World
In the world of flight simulation, there have been a number of representations of the 707 over the years, for various platforms. In the older versions of MSFS, we had the freeware Historic Jetliners Group, which had (and still has) just about every variant of the series modeled, with excellent externals but limited cockpits and system functionality. There was also a 707 from Captain Sim, which was also very good on the external appearance, and a bit closer to "study level" with its 3D cockpit (although to date there has never been anything like a true study level 707 on any platform). For X-Plane there had been a reasonably decent payware offering of a 707 by someone named Wilson, but this is no longer available, more's the pity. There is also a very nice KC-135, and this might conceivably be redone as an actual 707, but nothing along those lines has happened yet. There is supposedly a 707 in the works for MSFS 2020, and we shall see what we shall see.
At the moment however, the world, or at least the X-Plane world, has been taken almost completely by surprise by a new offering - a freeware Boeing 720. And it is an outstanding piece of work indeed! It was developed by a single individual whose nom de plume is Shenshee, who has been designing cars for racing simulations according to his curriculum vitae on the download page, and for whom this is a first attempt at an airliner. Well, all I can say is keep an eye on this individual, for this 720 is a real home run!
Let's start with the externals. This looks very much like the real thing, and in this respect it is essentially payware quality - certainly as good, and perhaps a wee bit better than the Wilson offering. Boeing narrow body jets have a certain "look", particularly around the nose, and Shenshee has caught this almost perfectly. Wings and tail are also impressive, as are the two engine variants that come with it - it has both the straight jet JT3C and the fan JT3D, selectable at the touch of a button on a special panel that you can call up with a click of the mouse.
The flight deck is fully modeled in 3D, and in appearance is very much like the 707's I flew. The textures are not up to the standards of something like PMDG, of course, but who would expect them to be? As it is, they are very good and both the pilot panels up front and the FE panels in back are quite realistic. The instruments are very similar to those found on the 707 or 720 back in the day, and the autopilot is more or less an exact replica of the one we had on the 707. It works the same way too, and is just as limited in functionality! No altitude capture here - you have to pay attention to it, just as we did in the long ago.
the overhead of a modern airliner.
Up front most of the switches work, and have more or less the desired effect upon their systems. The overhead is where you will find some non operational switches, but the ones you need, like the engine start switches, the lights, pitot and window heat and pax signs do work. In other words, what needs to work to fly the airplane does work. The same goes for the center panel and console. Here Shenshee has included a much appreciated animation - when the gear handle is raised, it subsequently goes into the center-off position all by itself, thus precluding any strange interaction with the Honeycomb Bravo landing gear lever!
On the FE panel we again find that what you need to operate the airplane does in fact work. For some reason the essential power switch is non functional, but that is of little import, since there are no failure modes to worry about. In this airplane you have to engineer your own failures, although I imagine that there is also the option of using the X-Plane interface to do some of this dirty work. Overall, about half of the switches on the FE panel are operative and animated - enough to start the engines and manage the fuel system. I honestly don't know yet whether or not some of the operative switches actually do anything besides move and turn lights on and off, but I am sure that no one who flies this airplane will have any interest in being the FE any longer than it takes to crank up and go! And no, you don't need an AI flight engineer for this airplane - just start up, set and forget. Even the pressurization system can be dealt with that way.
Enough talk, let's go fly! There were no APUs on any of the airline 707's that I ever saw, those being a later addition when a few of the airplanes were converted to private use. They were all operated on the ground with ground electric and high pressure ground air. These two can be selected or deselected using the same special panel that also controls which engines are displayed, whether or not there is an HF antenna on the tail, whether cabin lights are on or off (yes, there is a complete 3D cabin, and it is a pretty decent effort!) and a few other items of interest including the current gross weight (although this is not in pounds, sad to say!).
So... in order to start the engines you need to choose ground air and electric plugged in, and on the FE panel turn on the ground electric, and the ground air. Ensure that all of the engine bleed valves and the isolation valves on the pneumatic panel are open. You might as well close all of the bus tie breakers on the FE electrical panel at this point. We had them closed just about all of the time - in fact, the only time I ever opened one was if there was something abnormal going on with the electrics.
fuel levers at around 25-30% N2.
Engine start was a two person act in the airplane, but there will be only one of you to do the work. We started them 3,4,2,1 at American, but some airlines may have had a different order. Raise the guard and left click the start switch. In the airplane this was a spring loaded (to off) switch and was held open by the Captain during the sequence. This action opens the engine start valve and allows the high pressure air to spin the starter turbine. This gets the N2 spool going, and you can see the N2 rpm increase on the center panel. Shenshee has accurately modeled this spring loading. But to watch the N2, you have to move your view down to the center panel, which would normally involve "letting go" of the start switch. What you have to do here is that, as you left click the start valve you then right click your mouse (hold both clicks down) in order to drag your view down from the overhead panel to the center console, so that at around 25-30% N2 you can release your left click on the start valve (which has still been active even though you moved the cursor off of that switch) and left click on the fuel lever, which will animate itself into the "run" position and the engine will continue to start on its own. Wait until everything stabilizes (these engines did not start as quickly as modern engines) and then close the guard on your first start switch and repeat the process three more times, in whatever order you want. After all four are started and the start switch guards closed, you can go to the FE electrical panel and close all four generator breakers one at a time. After that it is time to get rid of the ground electric and air, and crank up Better Pushback. Since we always left the gate with all engines running on these airplanes, you could actually save yourself some time by merely starting your sim session with engines running. This is one airplane where that would be more accurate than not!
Set the pitch trim at around 25% MAC on the center console, and set the flaps to 20. If you are using the Bravo throttle's Cessna style flap lever programmed to raise or lower one detent per input, you will find that although there is no detent in the sim for flaps 10, the first input on the flap lever gives you 10. Takeoff in a 707 was made with flaps 20, or in some cases 30 and not 10 so keep that in mind.
During taxi the airplane responds very realistically to inputs such as nose wheel tiller and rudder pedal, and you have to give it some thrust every now and again to keep it rolling, also prototypical for a heavy airplane. Takeoff is exactly like I remember it from the old days, and the pitch rate on rotation is spot on - a bit slow and stately. Once airborne, the illusion is complete, as it rolls smoothly but not quickly in response to your inputs. If you happen to have a Honeycomb Alpha, you are in for a very realistic experience, since the Alpha is itself quite heavy and stiff in the pitch axis, which just happens to make for an outstanding simulacrum of a 707 in pitch. With such a rig, you will definitely be flying it with trim. And speaking of trim, the trim wheel on the Bravo is a perfect replica (except for size) of the real thing and has exactly the same effect on the airplane as manual trimming did in reality.
I cannot say enough good things about how this Shenshee 720 flies. I have been using it for a few weeks now, and even though the brand new PMDG 737-800 has just been delivered into my "hangar" I am still using the 720 far more. I guess I'm just at a point in my life where I enjoy reliving a portion of my youth! But most of that attraction has to lie at the doorstep of the realism of this 720. It responds almost exactly like the real thing seemed to, at least from the FE seat!
A word or two about the autopilot would be in order. This autopilot is an exact duplicate of the ones we had on the 707, and works the same way. It has none of the modern conveniences, like FLC, or VNAV, or Altitude Capture. What it has is a pitch wheel, which is used to raise or lower the nose; and which can, with a little manipulation and attention serve as a Vertical Speed mode of sorts. This is how climbs and descents are handled. In real life, most pilots hand flew the bird to altitude and for most of the descent, since it handled well enough, especially when flown with pitch trim. The autopilot's basic roll mode is a wing leveler with a turn knob. The turn knob induces a roll, proportionate to the amount of knob rotation and capped at around 20 or so degrees of bank. Just use the turn knob to turn the airplane, remembering to return it to center to level out. Now what that autopilot did have were a few lateral modes like heading select and nav tracking (for VOR or Localizer). These, when selected with the rotary knob on the left side of the A/P unit, worked pretty much like their modern counterparts on a 737. In heading mode you turned the airplane by moving the heading bug on the HSI. In the real world, we did not use nav tracking much since it had a tendency to wander left and right instead of nailing the course and holding it. Instead we used heading select to steer the airplane to hold a VOR course.
The autopilot had two approach modes - Auto GS and Manual GS. We used Auto, and this would track the localizer from the time it was engaged (you pretty much have to be on course to engage this, or at least you did IRL). It also captured and tracked the GS, provided the GS was intercepted from below, which is the usual method. Manual GS would track a GS captured from above, and since that is almost never done, we never used it. All things considered, the A/P could fly a coupled ILS approach to CAT II minimums of 100 feet and a quarter mile. There was, of course, no automatic go-around of any kind! Nor any auto-throttle, other than the carbon based variety; i.e., the FE. And the FE generally did not handle power on the approach, although he or she did in climb and cruise.
Landing it is particularly evocative. Although you must take great care to manage your speed and altitude, if you happen to have much in the way of chops flying heavy airliners in XP you will have little difficulty handling this. If you lack the "experience", your flights may not go so well in the beginning. Just like the real thing, you have to be smooth and anticipatory with this bird, particularly with level offs, which must be anticipated. Nearing level off is not the time to be getting distracted; because, among other things, there is no altitude capture. That job is yours and yours alone, even on autopilot!
On approach, lower the flaps to 20 around 10 miles out, and let it slow down to around 180 kts. It will take around 3000 lb/hr per engine fuel flow to hold this condition. Drop the gear and set flaps 30 just prior to glide slope intercept. Start down the chute and lower the flaps to full in increments, and shoot for a ref speed of around 140 kts. Again, it should take between 3 and 4 thousand pounds per engine to fly final at this speed. Over the runway, flare it almost like a Cessna (not too much or it will float all the way to China), and when it touches down, make a real effort to lower the nose, since what looks like nose on the runway may in fact be nose wheel 3 feet in the air. Landing animations (spoilers and thrust reversers) are excellent. Get on the brakes early because this airplane uses up a lot of runway on landing, not unlike a real 707.
I have been looking for a 707 on any of the sims I have installed ever since I lost the Captain Sim when I took FS2004 off the system. I would have settled for any sort of wretched offering. But low and behold, Shenshee has surprised us with freeware perfection! In most previous iterations of FS or XP this would be payware, and well worth a modest price. But for something that looks this good and flies this well to be free? Well, let's just say that I violated the ancient canons of my former profession and sent a couple of brewskies Shenshee's way. I hope that I am not the only one to do so, because work of this quality should be applauded in some measureable way. Thanks, Shenshee, for bringing me back 45 years to the beginning of my airline career!
Happy Landings!
Tony Vallillo
Shenshee Boeing 720
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