An Oregon man who has spent more than 15 years living inside of a decommissioned Boeing 727 airplane converted into a home wants to build another in Japan.
Bruce Campbell acquired his current Boeing 727 in 1999 and stuck it on a 10-acre lot in the Portland woods.
Since then, he has updated his website, AirplaneHome.com, which charts the progress he's made to turn the plane's cabin into suitable living quarters.
"If a conventional home is a legacy age family Chevy or Ford, an airliner home is a fresh new Tesla or Porsche Carrera," Campbell told mySA.com.
Boeing first commissioned the 727 in 1960 and only planned to build 250 at the model's outset, according to the company website.
By the time Boeing ended production on the 727 in 1984, the company had manufactured 1,832 of them.
Campbell said in an interview that the plane's design "seemed to offer the most attractive overall characteristics. It's a reasonable-size home for an individual or small family, but not so large that it can't be transported over public roads."
The renovated 727 contains many of the amenities found in a normal home: A kitchen, sleeping space with a cot, laundry area, and a bathroom.
"Airliners, free of hundreds of passengers and the clutter of their seats, are a sheer thrill to live within," Campbell said. "They impart a near-science fiction aura to an otherwise ordinary life, truly."
The next step?
Campbell, who spends half the year in Japan, is looking for a decommissioned Boeing 747-400 — which seats a maximum of 660 passengers, more than three times as many as the 727 — to create a new home in the Japanese city of Miyazaki.
United Airlines, British Airways, and Delta Air Lines all have 747-400s in use.
Campbell said he believes "a superbly executed second project which very nearly fully preserves the original aircraft in all its sleek, gleaming majesty will attract a great deal of world press interest for a very long time, and thus be of considerable promotional value to a partner airline."
