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Building the A380
Gavinsblog writes "The Independent has a report on the construction
of the Airbus A380. Amazingly, a ship is being custom-built to ferry parts
for assembly, a custom fleet of trucks are also to be used - with roads widened
to suit. Oh and the assembly building is the size of two soccer pitches, and the
height of an olympic swimming pool."
Last time I checked, olympic swimming pools weren't very high. In fact, they actually went down into the floor.
We gave you the mobile phone, and now the world's biggest/best passenger plane. So what have the Americans ever done for us?
... how many poor people could eat a year with $260m.
perosnally, i don't see the benefit of a huge plane like this. somebody convince me.
Increases productivity, increases profits for companies, company expands, company hires new people, poor people get jobs, poor people eat. I trust that they feel they need to build this, that someone wants to buy it, or they would not bother.
Every time I hear how a company is investing millions in a new project, and someone says "think of all the poor people it could feed" I just want to spit up.
HOW the plane is used is irrelevent. How many many people NEED the fastest computer? Since I upgrade every year, it creates jobs. From Dell, to UPS, in China (for parts), on the docks in California. It doesn't matter HOW or WHY I need the new computer, it creates jobs.
Capitolism: Works every time it's tried.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
Who measures things in soccer pitches olympic swimming pools? What sort of standards are these? I was just getting used to meters, had a basic understanding of fathoms, and had heard of rods, but what the heck are these new units?
30M ~= 1 olympic size swimming pool?, so is it 60 meters tall? ~190 feet tall?
And just how long exactly is a soccor (soccer!) pitch (field!). My reports show between 100 and 130 yards (Arph! yet another measurement!).
Let's all get together and use either metric or english systems please. Your preference, I don't care because I can translate easily enough between those two.
ADVENTUR>You are in a maze of twisty little passages.
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Funny how all the comments on /. that question the basic ways in which society works are marked down as flamebait. The mods obviously are happy to question how capitalist society works when it throws up monopoly software houses, but don't go any further than that or else you're a goddam commie. (Yeh, mark me down as flamebait if you like, I got karma to burn and a world still to win)
Anyhow, the real benefit is from the additional efficency - if we can get more people from A to B more cheaply that produces a benefit. The real point, however, as the man with the beard might have said, is who gets that benefit? There is nothing wrong with the plane (apart from maybe the impact of auircraft fuel on the ozone layer and global warming) - what might be wrong are the choices we have made about the distribution of the benefits of advancing technology.
Hopefully it'll have custom jumbo-size seats to accomodate today's wider, fatter traveller!
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http://www.airbus.com/airbus4u/photo_album.asp
> At the peak of production, when Airbus is building four A380s a month, the main roads into Toulouse from the north-west will be clogged 12 nights a month with this slow-moving procession.
I'd bet that Airbus would kill to be able to use a CargoLifter airship. This is exactly what they are designed for. Can quietly transport 160 metric tons of any size and shape, for drop off at any location.
Oh dear. Looks like they are going bankrupt.
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Now the Eurpoeans are building something so ridiculously big that no Americans want it.
Talk about role-reversal.
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.
Nothing is perfect. Capitalism is like democracy. It's a rotten system, and the only system worse than democracy and capitalism is everything else.
just show me the poor people who get better from the outsourcing of the production of computer parts (or anything, like jeans, furniture, etc). they are being exploited for lower wages than you could imagine, and they are left no other option.
If you live in China, a job for $1 a day is better than no job for $0 a day. They can only pay $1 a day as long as people will work for it, as their economy improves, the universe of persons willing to work for $1 a day shrinks, thus they have to pay $2 a day to get workers (rinse, repeat).
The fact that some can work so cheap means I buy new computers every year, instead of every 3 years. This means everyone in the chain gets 3x the work, from shippers, builders, etc. It also means that I am significanly more productive (my computer speed is very relative to my productivity). It also means that there are jobs for 3 persons in China instead of 1.
free market economy only works within the boundaries of the self-proclaimed "free world". this does not include the countries outside this "free world" where people *are* poor and exploited by the "free world". think of this next time you buy one of your upgrades, levis, or ikea furniture.
I do agree with your general point. I am not for worker exploitation, but I also know that if we do $1billion in trade with China (as an example) then we are more likely to have influence than if we do $1million. If you refuse to do any trade, then not only do they not care what you think, but it reduces China's economy and their average income.
As an example: Over the last 20 years, China has invested greatly in manufacturing of electronics, building a lot of plants (with the help of western companies). As a result, they are better invested for the future, last year China was the only country experiencing double digit growth in their economy, the average citizen, while still poor, is much better off. This is also leading to small improvements in the political system as well. Very small, but at least in the right direction.
In order to make China a "free" place, you have to empower the people there. Opening our markets to them, trading with them, exchanging culture with them, helps do this. As long as we do the OTHER things necessary (push them to reforms, etc) then it the long run, the average Chinese citizen will be better. Even in the short run they are better than 20 years ago.
And now, instead of producing trinkets, China is producing some pretty damn good stuff. Their quality has good up dramatically. Its not a perfect world, but at least its moving in the right direction, thanks to Capitalism.
Tequila: It's not just for breakfast anymore!
The stops aren't designed to give the convoys R&R. They are designed to allow the convoys a place to get out of the way during the day time so that normal traffic isn't blocked. How would you like to be stuck behind a wide-load convoy of plane parts crawling down the middle of the highway at 15kph?
That's why they only travel at night, and why they get off the highway at dawn. A bit like vampires.
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Compare this with the space elevator. The estimated initial cost ($10 bn) is about the same as that of the airbus. Govt. spending on the space elevator: $570,000. Benefit of the space elevator: It would possibly have an enormous impact on the destiny of mankind.
If only governments wouldn't be so shortsighted...
The Afghanistan aircraft that was held hostage a couple of years ago and flown to the UK, before the hostage takers gave themselves up and claimed asylum (and the UK government actually seriously considered the applications, well done the UK government yet again on another feat of stupidity) had to be scrapped, not because it was damaged in any way, but because it did not have UK Air Worthyness certificates. The aircraft owners did not have the money to have it certified to UK standards, so they scrapped the aircraft.
NB. as far as i know, the asylum requests were finally turned down and the men are currently serving time in UK prisons.
I have done some work in Toulouse for Airbus, and been at both the Central training sites and also Airbus France itself, which is next to the airport. It is incredible walking out of an office across a hanger with two A319s into another office: it is strange to do that when so often at airports the aircraft are always outside, not inside what appears beforehand as an office building! But when I saw the giant hanger that is going to be the assembly area for the A380, it is just astonishing. It was about a month ago, so the roof hadn't been added, but even so it made me realise that the 'little' models in the reception really were not representative of just how big this aircraft is going to be. I've seen the one of the guppy transport craft take off from Toulouse as well, and I didn't really beleive that could get in the air, let alone the A380. It will be really impressive (for someone that really has never been that interested in aeroplanes) to see it fly.
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Some background info from a world trade law student:
One: European governments are subsidizing Airbus development costs, which according to the U.S. violates WTO rules on subsidies. Of course, neither the EU nor the Bush administration can really be considered champions of unrestricted free trade.
[rant] Although economists and common sense agree that free trade results in a net wealth benefit (note that this doesn't imply a "fair" distribution of that wealth), special interest groups that have much to lose from free trade (unproductive industries, unions) find it easier to exert political influence in favor of protectionism than the average person-on-the-street, who stands to lose a few cents a day on account of a specific protectionist measure, of which he is generally not even aware. [/rant]
Two: There is of course no economical or technical reason at all to distribute this kind of megaconstruction project all over Europe. It is estimated that all the silly moving around of pieces increases construction cost by a two-figures percentage. The reason, of course, is a political one: every nation wants a piece of the cake...
While Airbus' new assembly buildings for the A380 superjumbo airliner are impressive, don't forget that Boeing had to do the exact same thing some 37 years ago when the 747 airliner project was launched.
In a way, Boeing's project was more ambitious because they had to do the following:
1. Expand what was then a small regional airfield (Paine Field) to accommodate the production line for the 747, including new longer runways.
2. Expand the parking ramp to enormous size to accommodate 747's in the final completion stage after being rolled out of the assembly line.
3. Build the world's roomiest assembly buildings and a huge paintshop building that could paint a completed 747.
4. Upgrade the ship ports in the nearby city of Everett, WA to accommodate 747 parts, including fuselage sections.
5. Build a special railroad spur line to the assembly plant, with one of the steepest gradients ever attempted for a non-cog line railroad.
And all that construction mentioned above had to be done with the Pacific Northwest's notoriously rainy weather.
What Airbus is doing at Toulouse and Hamburg are pretty much just extensions to their current large assembly plants--nothing akin to what Boeing had to do from scratch to create the 747 assembly line.
This report is riddled with holes. For example everyone knows that the standard unit for length in sensationalist reporting is the football field, not the soccer pitch. And the standard unit for height is the Empire State building, not the olympic swimming pool. Also conspicuously absent is any comparison to the width of a human hair, or to how many times we could go to and from the moon of we laid something-or-other end to end. Very disappointing...
The P-80 was considered the best Allied fighter at the end of World War II. It arrived too late to see combat, even though 45 aircraft were delivered prior to the end of the war.
As for American casualties in europe I have anotherweb site for you . Soviet Suffered 13.6 million military casualties. Thats about 2.5 times the number of jews killed, and more than 30 times the number of americans troops lost(300,000). The germans lost 3 million. Where do you think Germany lost the bulk of its troops? Thank you Soviet Union, for getting rid of the nazi menace. Had the germans not attacked Stalin, all of europe would probably be speaking german today. Anyone tell you different, and they are victims of (UK and US) allied propaganda.
As for the US, its true that your presense probably have saved us from a communist takeover. So thank you US of A for that. Wether that is a good thing or not is debatable