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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."
The trend towards super duper jumbo jets comes at the expense of the smaller regional jets which were all the rage 5 to 10 years ago. Companies like Bombardier and Embraer have run into trouble selling their small and mid sized jets as the airline market in general has tanked post 9-11. The only real growth area of the airplane manufacturing business is these jumbo jets, as their sheer volume (with the 555 seats) allows them to keep individual prices lower given the cut-throat pricing that discount airlines can provide. The moral for the consumer is that the quality of air travel will continue to decline. I personally prefer to fly in a small jet where I can feel less like cattle, screened, and herded into these flying apartment buildings that rather than afford greater space just pack in more and more people so as to struggle to make a profit in what is essentially a state-subsidised market in crisis... :P
Will that be supersized?
With all that space I sure hope they managed to find a better place for the multimedia boxes they put under the seats in Cattle Class. If you're anything over 6ft, you suffer.
Medraut
The plane is also the same kind of dimension as the B747, so that no US airport can "refuse" landing ;-)
European industry has learnt a lot from the Concorde failure where the US air lobbies has successfully limited the airport landing slots.
So? /.
The roll-out is a landmark and can be signalled as such by tech sites like
I'm interested in the aircraft industry but don't frequent their news sites as much as some other fields of interest.
Then when such a landmark comes along I find it nice to be reminded, especially when in a discussion forum people can give their opinion about what is no doubt a new class of airliner.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
Boeing is being sponsored by the US govt too, so don't give me that holier than thou bullshit.
there has been a years long dispute between boeing and airbus. airbus got sponsored while boeing got govt loans with 0 interest, or loans they didn't need pay back (sonthing like it anyway).
imo this is a case of the pot calling the kettle black.
big business buys politicians. always has always will.
Just because the US government does it more stealthy through for example "defence contracts" that for "reasons of national security" cannot be shown to the public?
Although the legal mess that came about after the contract negotiations for new tanker planes is encouraging.
At least this is some sign the US military is willing (or is it forced?) to look further than domestic manufacturers.
"The likes of Facebook and WhatsApp are free to those whose privacy is of zero value."
This reminds me of an old Newsweek (europe) cover a few years ago, this was about Netherlands and sayed something like "Gay marriage, drugs, euthanasia : are the Netherlands showing the future of europe ?"
So, you can add those 3 things to your agenda, and also
- International Court of Justice
- landmine ban treaty
- America's cup 2007
#include "coucou.h"
Why do you think UPS ordered it?
;-)
Melius mori in libertate quam vivere in servitute.
So does one exclude the other? I wouldn't think so.
Well, admitted. It's probably somewhat hard to cram 550 odd people into a 7E7, but where does it say that the A380 has a smaller range?
Personally I think Boeing started to lose it after the 747. Granted, the 767 was successful, but at the cost of a lot of lost 747 sales. I think they didn't sell a single passenger version of the 747 since 2002.
What I believe lead to Boeings "demise" was what happened to a lot of companies when they got fat and lazy: Arrogance! After they bought MD Douglas they thought they remained the only game in town, because those [and this is my fully fictional fantsay] "dumb Euros can't distinguish their arse from a hole in the ground anyways." Well, guess what. They where wrong! Dead wrong!
I also think that Boeings reasononing that "not selling 747s prooves that there is no market for super jumbos any more." is spurrious at worst and wishful thinking at best. Or would you place a $5'000'000'0000 order on a 35 year old plane design, when you know that a product is released in acouple years that doesn't only incorporate all of todays aviation knowledge, but is also likely to reduce operations costs by a significant amount? Provided of course that you can fill them adequately. Not bloody likely
I don't think that Boeing is beyond recovery. But they will first have to stop to whine, start to listen to their customers again and being willing again to take risks (they had a 600p plane in the pipeline, which was scrapped not too long ago).
While I personally agree that I rather fly on a smaller plane, I do think that the massive changes in the East (China / India) will literally scream for such large jets in the not too far future.
We'll see.
ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Make no mistake, Boeing was able to flatten canadian, british and french passenger jetliners because most of it's development costs have been borne by military bomber contracts like the B-47.
They built the statue of liberty and helped the american's win the war of indepdence.
Just because they didn't go on your war for more oil doesn't make the worthless.
The aircraft is said to have "relaxation space, bars, duty free shops"
Funny, that's what they said when the double decker 747 came out. Of course, we all know what really happened: they converted that space into more passenger seating as fuel costs skyrocketed. Something tells me the same thing's going to happen this time around, too.
I hate flying.
You have two hands and one brain, so always code twice as much as you think!
Why?
Oh boy! Yes!
Americans really *do* need to get out more!
I lived in the US between 1960 and 1989 and boy, do I *never* want to live in the US again!
I live in Northern Italy now - it's like heaven (Lombardy) vs hell (Texas).
Why do Americans think they have such a great lifestyle - it looks like total consume-to-the-max shit to me.
The Engineers were wholy French: the Eiffage company, heir of Mr. Gustave Eiffel's company.
For your delight, please note that this is bridge was privately funded: Eiffage will earn a toll for each vehicle crossing the bridge during many years to earn the money they just invested in the Bridge, and then the state will own it.
I am not Remy Mouton, unfortunately: http://remy.mouton.free.fr/art/
Using USPTO statistics alone isn't really a valid way to back up your point, is it. I agree that the US does have the most patents issued, but if you move out of the domestic market the rate is much reduced.
3 /ch3.pdf contains what appear to be more helpful statistics, putting Japan at the top of the patent table. A slight caveat on that is that the study focuses on Patents of Invention, rather than those of Industrial Design, or copyrights
http://www.european-patent-office.org/tws/tsr_200
It is what you make of it. There are places I can live, and places I could not live. It is your fault if you cannot see the beauty of Texas. It is my fault if I cannot see the beauty of Italy. (I've never been to Italy)
""Boeing will continue to be profitable, but without the glory.""
US Shareholders do not expect glory. They expect profits.
Boeing is being very smart not to try to compete with the A380. After all, the A380 program is the recipient of millions upon millions in legally questionable bailout money already, so there's no reason Boeing should throw good money at competing with it until the legal hurdles are worked out. The A380 still may never come to fruition, so the wait-and-see stance is appropriate.
If the loan is paid back, it is at an extremely low interest rate, far below the prevailing commercial rates. Why can't you and I get a loan like that?
Maybe you and I didn't come up with yet another aerospace prestige project, like the Concorde, or the Arianne rocket.
Same thing with farm subsidies; the US is a notorious hypocrite there, bitching against European farm subsidies while pouring lots of money to US farmers...
Your problem is that you're not thinking big enough. Were you building busses instead of SUVs and actually filling them to capacity, people probably would be applauding.
Big can be both economically and environmentally viable. Especially so in the case of air travel. SUVs, however, are neither.
Huh? I didn't know Halliburton even cared about astroturfing on slashdot!
I never said oil supplies were going to run out within a decade. I merely said that that prices were going to rise enough to make small planes unprofitable.
I am aware that as prices rise, more drilling sites will become profitable. But the fact that rising prices increase viable reserves does not change the fact that they did rise in the first place!
Nonsense. You do know the amount of oil on this planet is determined by geology, not economics, right?
What economics tell you is merely that oil will never "run out", but that once it gets rare enough, it will be so expensive that nobody will be using it anyway. So yes, economics will keep supplies at a sufficient level for centuries, but definitely NOT cheap.
People do not like SUV's because they cause too much pollution and waste too much resources for the emount of useful work they do.
This plane will actually use less fuel and cause less pollution per passenger than the smaller planes.
As far as "spitting on the graves" why does everyone assume that the soldiers that died in ww2 are guaranteed to love Bush's imperialism?