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Airbus Launches 800 Passenger Jumbo Jet
voma writes "Airbus, the world's largest planemaker, will unveil its A380, a $16 billion wager that airlines will order giant aircraft to ferry passengers between major airports over the next 20 years. The double-decker A380 plane has a wing span of 80 meters (262 feet), almost the length of an American football field. It's 73 meters long and weighs as much as 569 tons (1.2 million pounds) when fully loaded for takeoff. It will have a range of 8,000 nautical miles."
Although the maximum capacity is 840 (in sardine mode), the typical configuration is about 555. Compare to the typical configuration for a 747 of 416. [Reference]
This is quite exciting for me, I once did some work on a project related to the A380 when it was still very much on the drawing board.
It seems the airline industry is going in two separate directions. Airbus is going for capacity while Boeing is going for distance. The problem with this airbus is that is is so big, it will only be able to land at the major hubs. This will take traffic away from the smaller airports and increase the load placed on the major airports. Boeing's 7E7 seems to be a better idea to me. Personally, I would rather fly Concorde!!
Airliners.net has some good information on the A380 aircraft, and the history of the devlopment.
You can also see tons of pictures of the A380, both the ground test aircraft and the first flight aircraft.
It wasn't the "air lobbies" that doomed Concorde, it was environmentalists and other citizens who didn't want supersonic flight over populated areas, or Concorde's excessive noise and air pollution. They also helped to kill the Boeing SST.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
A A380-800 carrying 550 passengers costs $270million.
A 747-400 carrying 436 passangers costs $215million.
Both work out at roughly $0.5million per passenger.
The Airbus requires the same length runway to takeoff and land, but it requires wider runways. Most airports can take the A380 currently, with only some having to expand runways or taxiways to fit.
The 747-400 has a range of 14,205km, with a max fuel capacity of 63,700gallons.
The A380-800 has a range of 15,100km, with a max fuel capacity of 81,900gallons.
That gives the 747-400 a rate of 0.2km/g.
And the A380 a rate of 0.18km/g.
Or, based on passenger numbers, the 747-400 has a rate of 1.02 gallons of fuel per 100km per passenger. The A380 has a rate of 0.9 gallons of fuel per 100km per passenger. (work all that out myself, phew). This gives the Airbus a more efficient fuel cost when carrying a full passenger load.
The A380 will be used mainly on the longhaul hub routes, such as LA to Hongkong, London to Hongkong, London to Sydney, London to New York, New York to Hongkong etc. You will see it on other routes tho, its just as good for those.
So far Airbus have sold 139 A380-800 aircraft, half of what it needs to break even.
That said, LAX was quoted in one news source (can't find article now) as already planning to make the necessary upgrades for an A380 to land.
Why do you think that Boeing can suddenly regain the market share lost on medium type planes to er... Airbus?
In the regional markets both companies are pretty much irrelevant.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Lots of great pictures of the A380 are accessible from this search page. Pictures cover part shipment by barge and truck, as well as the build and rollout of the first two A380s (#1 an engineering test platform that won't fly, and #2 that WILL fly).
In terms of pure weight on the tarmac the A380 actually isn't 'worse' than the 747. It's been specifically built with enough set of wheels to be 747 compatible in that respect, so that hardly any 747 serving airport will need work.
Gate distances are compatible as well, however to make the bird turn around reasonably quick there's a need for double level terminals and jet bridges. That way one can move passengers in and out without forcing them through the bottleneck of the aircraft stairs. These facilities (as well as large enough immigration areas/multiple baggage carousels etc) is what some large airports are still missing.
San Francisco International Airport is one of the few airports around the world that is more or less ready to accept the A380-800.
I cite these reasons:
1. The two longest runways at SFO (Runways 28R/10L and 1R/19L) were widened recently to accommodate the wider stance of the plane. They've also checked these two runways to make sure it can handle the sheer weight of the plane.
2. They've widened a number of taxiways to accommodate the A380-800.
3. Most importantly, SFO's vastly-expanded International Terminal that opened at the end of 2000 was designed and built just when Airbus was finishing its design work on the A380. As such, the International Terminal has gates with 80 x 80 meter gate spacing and high-capacity Federal Inspection Service (Customs and Immigration) processing areas to handle the deboarding of multiple A380's easily.
There is still an issue of taxiway spacing, but SFO officials are working out taxiing procedures for getting the A380-800 on and off the runway quickly to avoid congestion problems, especially during the middle of the day.
> Did anyone see that bridge that is higher than the clouds? That's worthy of a Slashdot story in itself.
Indeed :-)
Xenu brings order!
(There are a few days lost a year in the civil service, which is somewhat unionised.)
Some figures:
Working days lost per 1,000 inhabitants per year.
Watch this Heartland Institute video
3 litres per 100 km or thereabouts? OK, aviation fuel against petrol, but still
The current international price of aviation turbine fuel is about $450 per 1000 liters, which is probably lower than gasoline/petrol prices (comparing bulk prices of course) at whatever airport you are. This is partly because aviation fuel has longer alkanes and is more similar to kerosene, and partly because it doesn't need to be as hair-splittingly fractionated as gasoline.
The fuel efficiency of the A380 has been reported as "95 miles to the gallon per passenger", which should probably read "95 passenger-miles per gallon". (The mpg doesn't increase with more passengers). Assuming Imperial gallons here (BBC report), and assuming a complement of 555 passengers, the consumption comes to 16.34 liters of fuel per kilometer, or about 225,000 liters (180 tons assuming a density of 0.8 kg per liter) for a trip of 7500 nautical miles (13900 km). That number seems believable.
Now to estimate the price:
A380 fuel cost, for 225,000 liters: $101,250.
555 passengers need about 139 cars (assuming 4 per car). Assuming a fuel efficiency of 11 km/l (26 miles per US gallon), that is 175,645 liters of gasoline, which by US retail prices would come to approximately $88,000. European gas prices would probably make it higher than $100,000. I don't know about European *bulk* prices for gasoline.
Interesting numbers. How does the A380 compare to the 747, the 777 and the A340 in terms of fuel efficiency?
Time flies like an arrow. Fruit flies like a banana.
Your facts are so wrong, and your premise is just plain stupid. Airlines don't decide to purchase planes at airshows; they talk to the manufacturer for months or even years trying to hammer out the specifications, the price, delivery slots, engine choices, etc. etc. The fact that Boeing wasn't present at an airshow means little; Airbus is actually quite known for delaying the announcement of a new order until an airshow (they like to make a big media splash, so rather than announcing an order as its finalized, they'd rather wait for an airshow to announce several orders.) The fact that Boeing wasn't there and Airbus was had _nothing_ to do with the A380 order.
In addition, it wasn't Kuwait airlines that order 43 A380's, it was Emirates.