“Whether it was strain, arrows, airspeed, whatever, we had to measure all that data onto a tape machine.”
The 747 made the whole planet feel reachable, and now the last ones are getting parted out for scrap. It was overbuilt, analog, and made by people who measured stress onto tape machines. Nothing flying today carries the same romance because nothing today is allowed to be that uneconomical. The jumbo jet died because efficiency won, which is exactly why its replacements are forgettable.