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But that's $50K a year for half-time work and when you only need to drive to work a few times a month (assuming you're doing long-hauls with overnight stays), you can live well outside of expensive cities.

That makes the pay more attractive.

Long hauls are the most desirable routes, and routes are usually bid according to seniority. A captain on an A-320 flying Detroit to Hong Kong has a very different work life than a first officer on a Bombardier regional jet working for a feeder airline, flying Chicago to Iowa City to Fargo to Duluth.

PEDANTIC ALERT!!!!

There is no way an A320 would ever be assigned to a Detroit-Hong Kong route. The range isn't there, and it isn't ETOPS certified.

The distance from Detroit, MI to Hong Kong is approximately 12,620 km. The typical range of an Airbus A320 with 150 passengers is around 6,100 km.

Any captain scheduled to fly such a route should look for a transfer immediately, not matter what the pay is!

Since you're being pedantic, the A320 does have ETOPS-180 certification, which AFAIK is sufficient for DTW-Hong Kong.

https://www.airbus.com/newsroo...

I've been on planes landing in ridiculously high side-winds that I'd have a really hard time believing an autopilot could ever land safely, or for that matter, a human controlling the plane remotely - for the simple reason, that in these cases one needs to actually 'feel' how the plane reacts, and neither an autopilot, nor a remote joystick-operator can accomplish that. On a sidenote, there is no way in hell I'd trust hundreds on human lives to an autopilot built with technologies that we have today - what we call artificial intelligence, and what we have as machine learning are so far from such a thing, that it's not even funny. Unless we'll have R. Daneel Olivaw piloting that plane, I'm not boarding it :P

You are correct.
Here's the Airbus manual.
http://www.airbus.com/fileadmi...
Autoland in high crosswinds is not done, especially in bad weather.

From TFA:

Before that, Airbus proposed eschewing windows and building its cabins out of transparent polymers.

What that really means is that Airbus wants to turn the entire cabin into a window.

Also from TFA:

Hope you're not too attached to looking out the windows when you fly — the designers of tomorrow's airplanes seem intent on getting rid of them.

Well, I guess that technically, Airbus would be "getting rid of the windows", but if the end result is that everyone on the plane has a better view, I don't think it supports TFA's argument at all.

What? Your comment is ludicrous - the 787 hasn't logged the most fight time at all.

The 787 was certified with 1,779 hours using 8 test aircraft (just the Rolls Royce engine certified thus far, expect another two hundred hours or so for the GE engine to be certified).

The A380 was certified with over 2,600 hours using 5 test aircraft (both the EA and RR engines certified) - http://www.airbus.com/company/aircraft-manufacture/how-is-an-aircraft-built/test-programme-and-certification/

But I agree with your comment about them delaying and delivering a safe and competitive aircraft - thats what they did several times over the past three years.

What a load of bollox.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/industry/defence/8585437/Airbus-pulls-Grizzly-out-of-Paris-Air-Show.html
http://event.airbus.com/airshows/bourget2011/news/news-detail/article/airbus-with-new-order-record-at-paris-air-show-2011.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/43515274/ns/business-us_business/t/airbus-soars-over-boeing-saleswise-air-show/

But you are right if everyone looked at their top end products at least Airbus have one you can actually buy. 827 orders for something for which 0 have been delivered isn't worth anything, I bet over 95% of those contract are voidable purely due to the delays in achieving delivery milestones.

To go back to the original posers point the current new orders on products lines that can be delivered is a better indicator or which organisation is doing better. The future looks sweet for Airbus.

... Airbus is going to eat it on the over sized beast they bet on, and the 787 is likely to look like the right size going forward....

Then, when you've recovered from you fit of national penis size competition angst, I wonder what you'll have to come up up with when the A350 files?

Boeing was doing it right when they designed the 777, which is and has been a massive success (it killed the A340's market almost completely, two engines are cheaper than 4), but Boeing forgot that time marches on and that truly large planes like the 747 or the A380 will still be needed for the forseeable future as large hubs are going nowhere in a hurry. Boeing was lost with the whole Sonic Cruiser thing and wasted a lot of time before they came up with a new concept that wasn't so radical as to scare customers off (which the sonic cruiser almost certainly did).

Boeing's back-tracking to do the 747-8F when Airbus was flopping around with the A380 delays was a good concept in order to capitalise on the market need for large freighters (the A380F was cancelled after UPS and Fedex cancelled their orders), but it was something that was done in the spur of the moment and the passenger version, the 747-8 has been a major flop, and with only Lufthansa having ordered any there have been reports atht it will be cancelled. But the fact that Boeing did try to get back into the large passenger plane market shows that they themselves would have designed and built the A380 if they had know that there would be a market for it.

And national penis size competition guys like you would then be crowing about how the US was making the world's biggest passenger plane instead of engaging in envious relativsim because, in all honesty you don't give a shit about the 787 or how good or bad it is (economics etc), becuase you certainly didn't give a shit when you were buying and driving humungous cars that guzzle gas. No, you care about not having the biggest or the fastest.

You seen that flying wing concept that Boeing and others have been working on in recent years? That will be the next chance for the endless duel to duke it out again over who makes better (read bigger) planes, especially if they run on hydrogen and need huge space for the tanks.

Fly by wire planes? I hate to break it to you, but outside of the occasional ultralight (which would have trouble damaging a car, let alone causing mass destruction), fly by wire doesn't exist.

"One of the A300-600 and A310's notable innovations had been the introduction of electrical signalling on secondary flight controls, replacing the web of cables and pulleys tradionally used. Béteille wanted to take this evolution further with the next Airbus aircraft - to computer-driven digital "fly-by-wire", in which the deflections of the flying control surfaces on the wing and tail are no longer driven directly by the pilots' controls, but by a computer which calculates exactly which control surface deflections are needed to make the aircraft respond as the pilot wishes ... The A320's fly-by-wire technology was not only a way of improving flight controls and reducing weight..."

"The flight-control system for the 777 airplane is different from those on other Boeing airplane designs. Rather than have the airplane rely on cables to move the ailerons, elevator, and rudder, Boeing designed the 777 with fly-by-wire technology. As a result, the 777 uses wires to carry electrical signals from the pilot control wheel, column, and pedals to a primary flight computer."

There are, accoding to this document 160 planes on order from 14 customers as of May 2007.

I was going to type a couple of numbers for you, but they are all there:

http://www.airbus.com/en/aircraftfamilies/a380/a38 0/specifications.html

To insinuate that France is some kind of tech backwater is straight out of the warped and slowly dying rednekkk bullshit freedom fry loving ass hats that now inhabit the White House, et al.

Even though I could mention AirBus, I won't...

A simple acronym will suffice to put this Franco-Bashing to bed:
ITER

In the long run, Boeing is in better shape than Airbus since Boeing is diversified and Airbus is not.

http://www.airbus.com/en/
http://www.boeing.com/flash.html

Go to Boeing's products heading, defense systems, space systems, commerical aviation, military aviation.
Airbus builds commerical airplanes, that's it.

Yep, Boeing makes these awesome Sky Buses

Carerul, you don't want your dad's employer to get sued by their competitor.

http://www.airbus.com/en/

Not quite. EADS was the 2001 link-up of German DaimlerChrysler Aerospace AG, the French Aerospatiale Matra S.A. and Construcciones Aeronáuticas S.A./CASA of Spain. More history here. Airbus is now part of EADS, but has existed for a lot longer than EADS. Airbus history

Nope.

Is it an African or European airline?

Is it powered by RR or GE/P&W engines?

Whatever, according to the manufacturer, the maximum speed is 0.89 Mach.

http://www.airbus.com/a380/seeing/learnandplay/pdf /A380_airbuscolours.pdf

Jet engines, the last time I checked, were fairly inefficient in terms of miles per gallon....

According to the A380 Specifications page, the A380 has a maximum range of 8,000 miles and a fuel capacity of 81,890 US Gallons. This means it flys with an average 0.098 mpg.

A 2005 Honda Civic Sedan with an automatic, according to Honda's Specifications, has an EPA rating of 29/38 mpg - three orders of magnitude better than the A380.

But, remember that the A380 is moving 555 people so it's not quite an apples to apples comparison.

Assuming the average number of people in the Honda is two, the mpg per person on the highway (which is probably the more accurage comparison) is 76 mpg.

Now, comparing this to the A380 with an average passenger load of 525, the mpg per person is 51 mpg. So by going on a purely mpg comparison, the A380 is about two thirds as efficient as the Civic.

BUT this doesn't take into account the fact that the A380 will probably only have 4 pilots (or less than 0.8% of the people on board) to go 8,000 miles (but fully 50% of the people in the Civic are responsible for driving 8,000 miles) and the A380 will take 15 hours or so to go 8,000 miles and each Civic will take 123 hours (assuming no stops) to go 8,000 miles at 65 miles per hour.

myke

Sorry, sad to see that the server of the local radio station (NDR in Hambug where parts of airbusses are assembled and then flown to Toulouse with a A300-600ST) was not able to sustain.

CC.

Direct link to (crappy but watchable quality) videos:

Take off
In flight

Direct link to (crappy but watchable quality) videos:

Take off
In flight

airbus.com offers two little videos (needs flash): http://www.airbus.com/a380/seeing/discover/index.a spx

Except a cargo plane full of media.

Yeah. I can imagine the Beowulf clusters of hard drives flying over us at the moment. If it's actually possible to make a Beowulf cluster of those things.

I wonder how many GBs will be flying through the air if one of those new Airbus A380s were cleared out and filled with 100GB HDs.

From their website:
"The A380, which will seat 555 passengers in a typical three-class interior layout, will enter airline service in 2006."

Any particular reason for putting this up on /. ?!

Unveil it? What the hell? This is not even remotely new information. This plane's info has been available for quite a while, even on Airbus' website. See their own website. Not only that, but one of the links in the article is just a blank page that says "Europe"...

Not to mention countless other places:

google

pretty pictures

chat about this back to 2001...

No, I hope you make it in your chosen career. We have a lot of AE majors here and most of them are very nice people. The aeronautical field is improving (w.r.t. jobs). In Denver, Adam Aircraft is trying to get a plane certified by the FAA; the guess is that this will never happen (composite spars). In Albuquerque, Eclipse Aviation is trying to get certified and sell cheap jets. Older companies (e.g. Piper, Cessna, Beech, Learjet) expect to do well and some are hiring right now. Airbus has "four established hubs of Airbus activity in North America". Boeing is another player in the aeronautical field.

Do you have any other intrusive questions about my personal life?
I do not have any questions about your personal life. I believe Apple computers are good for certain people and Linux computers are good for certain people. If I have a concern about Apple, it is that its hardware is overpriced and underpowered; if these things do not matter, then use a Mac. For "grandmas", Apple might produce a very good product.

After all, in terms of simple loss of life, cars kill about the same number of people every year as a jumbo jet going down with all hands, and we accept that as necessary.

US Highway deaths 2003 - 42,643 source

Airbus A380 (due 2006) - 555 passengers source

Seriously confortable aircraft like airbus A380 (flash required) is a better choice on my humble opinion.

Yeah, they're only up to 555
http://www.airbus.com/media/a380_family.asp

I would hope that it would take on more the flavor of the old time passenger cruise lines of the late 19th & early 20th Centuries. Still, once space travel starts to really emerge, it is going to be a very capital intensive business. Almost all of the capital that Wall Street & other exchanges can dig up is going to help fuel this next economic expansion.

I predict that over the next 15-25 years you will see Wall Street (especially once the X-Prize has been won) get into space in a major way. You will see the whole dot Bomb thing happen all over again, unfortunately, with fly-by-night companies that do little but promise the Moon (this time in a more litteral fashion). Some companies are going to emerge and become very successful, but many others are going to take a whole lot of money from people and throw it down the drain.

If the X-Prize team list is an indication with over 26 different teams listed, once it has been proven to be a practical business you will see many others jump into the business. Companies like Boeing, Airbus, and Thiokol (all companies you seemed to miss) are more than likely going to come in and join the party as well. They all have some sort of rocketry/avaition experience, deep pockets, and an aire of respectability when they start producing spacecraft.

In this regard it would be more like the P.C. industry, where it started in a bunch of garages and small industrial parks, where several millionaires arose from relatively modest beginnings. In this case we have a few "modest" millionaires who are perhaps going to turn this into billions.

Interesting is that it covers "7 times" of what a normal air tank covers. As amateur I would assume that it takes similar time to cover the burning area, it just takes makes re-fitting faster. It is probably harder to fly as whell.

Beside that the chemical and biological "homeland" security aspect is ridiculous. You dont have such planes equipped in time fight such attacks.

Interesting is that it covers "7 times" of what a normal air tank covers. As amateur I would assume that it takes similar time to cover the burning area, it just takes makes re-fitting faster. It is probably harder to fly as whell.

Beside that the chemical and biological "homeland" security aspect is ridiculous. You dont have such planes equipped in time fight such attacks.

What happened to all the really big airplanes that were supposed to be on their way?

They're right at it.

Due 2005.

What happened to all the really big airplanes that were supposed to be on their way?

They're right at it.

Due 2005.

What happened to all the really big airplanes that were supposed to be on their way?

They're right at it.

Due 2005.

How big do you want 'em?

Actually, there is a strong movement towards smaller, more efficient jets to supplement the hub and spoke airliner infrastructure here in America. But the new Airbus A380 is going to be as big as anybody (who doesn't want to build new airports) is likely to need in the next several years.

They require completely new airports - out of the question in most large cities, where the cities grew around the airport and there is no possibility of expansion.

Apparently, LAX can already handle the new Airbus A380... at least, to the same extent it can handle existing aircraft. (For years now, the space between the jetways has been inadequate for two planes to pull out side by side... they have to dovetail them carefully.)

Where the problem really lies is not in the physical size of the runways and terminals, but the people-carrying capacity of the big hub airports. They already run most of them on a pulse system, where all the flights come in at the same time to make transfers easier. This means you're handling all your traffic at once, and have to hire enough people, open enough gates, etc. to handle all those passengers simultaneously (while those employees sit around with pretty much nothing to do for hours at a time between pulses). By increasing the number of people that can arrive on each plane, you stress the baggage claim, security checkpoints, vendors, etc. *inside* the airport a great deal.

But for an airport like LAX, this isn't an issue. Flights are constantly arriving and departing, and 86% of the passenger traffic is beginning or ending their journey... very little transfer traffic, so not much pulsing. They're not overly concerned about the A380s. I think the Department of Transportation is more worried about the added street traffic they might generate.

(does Airbus have an answer to the 767 or 777 yet?)

Yep dude.
http://www.airbus.com/product/a330_a340_background er.asp

I wouldn't write off the inventiveness of the aerospace industry just yet. Get ready for the Airbus A380.

The future is NOW!

1. In general. Yes, this is Airbus, and yes, this is the general accepted terminology for what fly by wire is.

2. SC is not going to be doing a ground up redesign of Spaceship 1. There is only one reason for that; it is a race. They want to win. Shortcuts have been taken, and will continue to be taken. No, aero parts won't be pop riveted on (I am not as stupid as you want to assume), but these new parts will exert stress' on the airframe, as well as the outer skin of this vehicle. Obviously the engineers that designed this vehicle did not take into account certain testing procedures (shortcut by them, or by mgmt in not telling them what was to be done, or not mgmt knowing what was to be done when they {engineers} were in the design phase).

It is expensive to do this right. A plan is required. A plan includes more than just a goal and a general idea of how to achieve said goal. There are many different ways to achieve low orbit "space" flight. Just in launch techniques (rocket off the ground, tow, piggy-back, etc) you can do things many different ways. It's not just design a ship, figure out how to launch it and then test it. You have to know where you are, where you want to go, and how and when it should be done. Not to mention contingency plans for failures at any given point.

This being a race and all... I am certain that this has not been done. This is what scares the hell out of me wrt civilian space flight. Wild west seat of the pants just doesn't cut it. But I am sure you knew that ;-)

boeing and airbus have diverging opinions on the evolution of the airline industry. airbus thinks bigger is better and has spent billions to develop the A380 super-jumbo jet. boeing responded to what was then the A3XX announcement by drawing up plans for a 747X stretch derivative that would make it almost equal in terms of capacity to the A380.

building the 747X stretch would have involved adding two new fuselage sections to the existing 747-400ER. i'm not sure if this would also mean having to modify the wing design or not, which of course would have been costly (but not nearly as costly as developing the A380 from scratch). after tossing this idea to the airlines, they decided that the super-jumbo just didn't have the interest to merit two competing airliners. superjumbos would require costly modifications to airports, and outside of certain southeast asian routes, won't have enough traffic to make an investment in a 747X worthwhile. boeing brass apparently decided that the future of aircraft development would be smaller, faster aircraft that would be able to service more direct routes (rather than megahubs that the A380 would service, requiring most passengers to transfer to other aircraft to reach their destination).

this philosophy brought about the sonic cruiser. the sonic cruiser was never meant to be supersonic, so any suggestion that the FAA ban on supersonic flight over US territories killed the sonic cruiser is false. boeing tossed the idea to the airlines and decided that such a revolutionary aircraft would be too expensive to develop at this time. right now the boeing company is looking at the 7e7 program, which is a more traditional, but more efficient, aircraft, using more efficient engines, airframe, and wing design, combined with technology to reduce maintenance time and costs.

who will win? who knows... anyways, this was a long digression, but your point that the FAA ban had anythign to do with killing the sonic cruiser is wrong

How will this help boeing against Airbus A380? This new plane is a midsizer thatll just help you hop between midsized airports where you'll board the A380 for your final destination..

Actually its either an A320 or A340. The 380 doesn't go into service till 2006. But the thing is crazy when it does go into service there wont be anything else in the air like it. boeing doesn't have anything in the works to match it.

here is a link

The A321 and A340-312 are two very different jets. I, however, don't know them well enough to tell them apart from that photo. A321, Seating 166-220 and the A340-300 family, of which I believe the A340-312 is a model.

The A321 and A340-312 are two very different jets. I, however, don't know them well enough to tell them apart from that photo. A321, Seating 166-220 and the A340-300 family, of which I believe the A340-312 is a model.

Now yes, there maybe some coolness lost to the Concorde, but come on... The grand stairway alone makes it all up for me... Finally, a plane suitable for tall people (under 6'6" need not apply :P)

Here's one of the Interior.
More Photos can be got here.

Here's one of the Interior.
More Photos can be got here.

A (non Concorde) flight from NY to Heathrow takes just about as long as a flight from NY to LA. The only really long flight out of the US is LA to Hawaii, but there's not enough demand on that route to make replacing 747s with A380s feasible.

There's also the problem of airport infrastructure. an 80m wide double decker airplane will have a very hard time fitting into any gate spot in an airport anywhere in the world, currently. The only exception I can think of is Hong Kong's Kai Tak airport. It is so new that they might have engineered it with larger gate spots to accomodate future aircraft. Airport infrastructre is actually a pretty large design factor in new airframe development. Airbus is pushing the envelope with something as big as the A380. Airbus even offers documentation on airport planning for A380 accomodation.

Part of airport planning is passenger flow. That's a big issue with the A380. How do you get 555 people off of an airplane quickly? The standard one or two Jetway gate isn't going to work. If I remember correctly, the A380 has fourteen extis, eight on the main deck (four per side) and six on the upper deck (three per side). The rear most doors are father back along the aircraft than any current jetway system can reach. To really use an A380, airlines are going to have to pay to get their airport concourses upgraded. Not something they will do lightly. Not something I expect to see them do in the US.

The infrastructure changes are what is giving most carriers cold feet with regards to the A380. It'll be very hard to run numbers that show upgrading to the A380 will be cost effective in a reasonable time-line, imho. Pacific rim carriers have the best chances of making it work. Now the question is whether or not they're interested.

I guess the poster has never heard of Airbus Industrie.... click here to know more.