What the.....?

[PR19_Kit]

I'm just watching 'James May's 20th Century' on Discovery (Sky 533) and he's on about the Dragon Rapide being the aircraft that opened up commercial flight to the British public. All well and good but........

He compares it to an all white 747 which is conveniently parked on the airfield he's flying from. This 747 has four engines as you'd expect, but in DUAL PAIRS on the inboard pylons, like a B-52! Not only that, it has drop tanks on the outer pylons, again they look like B-52 items. The engines aren't B-52 size as far as I can see, but they aren't quite as big as the usual P&W JT9-Ds.

Two questions, 1) What's all that about? and 2) Where is this weird oddity?

It's not Kemble, I know that too well but it could be Bruntingthorpe or Blackbushe perhaps? Anyone any answers?

[pyro-manic]

It's at the Top Gear test track. It's an old 747, that was altered for the Casino Royale film. We've had a few other topics on it recently. It's not airworthy. IIRC, there was some computer trickery used to further alter it's appearance in the film.

[Hobbes]

yup, it's at Dunsfold.

[jester]

It was originally bought, without engines, to provide an airliner for film/tv crews as they can't get to film on aircraft easily now because of security post 9/11. They realised it looked wrong without engines so got some to hang on it.

[kitnut617]

Go onto airliners.net, in the top right search bar type in James Bond 747, a couple of pics come up.

[PR19_Kit]

kitnut et al,

Excellent pointer, thank you.

Those nacelles look pretty good, real state of the art, but as for them being '..similar to that of a B-52 Stratofortess' I can only suggest the writer has never seen BUFF close up...........

[Joe C-P]

Captain Slow can _fly_?! 

The Top Gear gang are whiffers, just working in 1-1 scale.

[B777LR]

In real life:

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2006/08/29/207684/pictures-james-bond-casino-royale-modified-boeing-747-xxx-on-show-ahead-of-movie.html

In the movie:

http://www.sergelin.ru/movies/007.asp

And the action scene itself:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RtnPYqBee1o&feature=related


Word was that they tried to get the A380 instead, but Airbus refused...

[PR19_Kit]

Hm, yes, something doesn't stack up there.

The wing-engine-tank combination is the same on the Dunsfold 747 and the 'Skyfleet' in the film, but the fuselage nose is all wrong. In the film clip there's almost no Upper Deck bulge and the cockpit windows are much lower on the nose than any 747. And the nose has no step in it.

So how did they do that?

A 1/1 scale Whiff job on the Dunsfold aircraft?

Oh yes, if you were driving a tanker full of JetA1 would you REALLY T-bone a bendy bus? I don't think so..........

[jcf]

Hm, yes, something doesn't stack up there.

The wing-engine-tank combination is the same on the Dunsfold 747 and the 'Skyfleet' in the film, but the fuselage nose is all wrong. In the film clip there's almost no Upper Deck bulge and the cockpit windows are much lower on the nose than any 747. And the nose has no step in it.

So how did they do that?

A 1/1 scale Whiff job on the Dunsfold aircraft?

The nosejob is CGI, the line of the top of the bulge is extended forward and aft to give a double-decker effect, the new nose line intersects at an angle and the cockpit windows were moved down.

Jon

[B777LR]

Hm, yes, something doesn't stack up there.

The wing-engine-tank combination is the same on the Dunsfold 747 and the 'Skyfleet' in the film, but the fuselage nose is all wrong. In the film clip there's almost no Upper Deck bulge and the cockpit windows are much lower on the nose than any 747. And the nose has no step in it.

So how did they do that?

A 1/1 scale Whiff job on the Dunsfold aircraft?

As Jon said, CGI. They didnt paint the plane either, and the tail has also been extended, not to mention winglets
Has something to do with Boeing having copyright on the 747s design. There is another example of this in Iron Man (although this is 100% CGI, no modified 737-800s used here): http://philsaunders.blogspot.com/2008/05/and-on-that-subject-stark-jet.html

[PR19_Kit]

You'd think if they could CGI a nose that big they could do the whole thing, weird engines and all.

Very odd.

[Jeffry Fontaine]

I remember this discussion had come up before on the forum and here is the link: real life whif
There was also an image link within the topic to the Airliners.net page with an image of the aircraft taken from above