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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."
Europe wins again. Tought luck Boeing.
An FP a day
keeps the doctors away.
-DT
ZING!
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...
Where's the American version, that holds 400 jumbo passengers?
Don't blame Durga. I voted for Centauri.
With 1.2 million pounds it must have powerfull turbines ^^
I though the problem with the airline industry wasn't plane capacity but the more nimble competitors cherrypicking the mist profitable connections.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
I hope that the security against hijacking will double as well.
The wings for this plane are so big that they are floated out to see on a huge barge down the Dee Estuary in Wales, and taken by ship to be assembled with the reat of the plane in Toulouse, France. On the way, the wings pass on a special vehicle through several hunred yards of farm land and cross a main road. Thise Europeans know how to do big engineering projects.
I stole this
a $16 billion wager that airlines will order giant aircraft to ferry passengers between major airports over the next 20 years I think Airbus is making a really big assumption there. Dont we remember how the Concorde had to be retired due to almost no demand but high cost of running? And what if another September 11 incident occurs and knocks the airlines out of business again? Then surely Airbus will be in a big, big trouble...bigger than their plane
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
... so we won't need to have a beowulf...
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.
Impressive stats. How many Libraries of Congress can it hold?
If you RTFA, the 800 seat version is only available within Europe and Asia-Pac. Americans will have to make do with a 400 seat version due to, erm... wider seat requirements
I thought slashdot hates giant megacorps. Airbus is worse than even Microsoft.
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]
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.
Boeing 747-400 has a wingspan of 211ft 5in (64.4m), max takeoff weight of 412,770kg and a maximum range of 8,430 statute miles.
Even those who arrange and design shrubberies are under considerable economic stress at this period in history.
Does it run Linux?
Things should get really interesting here. As I understand it, Airbus and the European aerospace industry in general has been gradually overtaking Boeing and the US industry for a decade or more now. This plane is sort of symbolic - after 40-odd years as the only game in town, the 747 is suddenly no longer the biggest passenger plane suitable for regular use.
This seems to be just another chapter in a gradually emerging rivalry between the EU and the US. Other chapters have included:
- the great banana and steel trade war
- Freedom Fries vs french fries
- the EU vs Microsoft
- Germany and France vs the US over Iraq (although that may have had something to do with sanity vs idiocy too)
- the Euro vs the Dollar, especially in major oil and currency markets
- snooty French people vs loutish American tourists
- the new european GPS equivalent (Magellan?) vs GPS
- everyone on Earth lead by the EU vs the US over Kyoto
- the european vs US approach to Israel and the Middle East
- increasing secularism (EU, see for example banning of headscarves) vs increasing evangelicalism (US/Jesusland)
Anyway, all this adds up to something quite interesting over the next 20-50 years. We have one very old, very industrialised bloc of about 500 million people who have finally decided to stop killing each other for the first time in history and cooperate. Across the atlantic we have 250 million odd people who have been undisputed leaders of the world for several decades now. Other factors of great interest include the massive US military budget compared to Europe's relatively small one, and the big question of who will adapt better to a world without oil and with a powerful China and India in it.
Read Pynchon.
almost the length of an American football field
How many volkswagon beatles lined up side by side would be needed to encircle the Earth 12 times as is needed to match the height of stacked A380 planes from here to the moon?
"Backups are for wimps. Real men upload their data to an FTP site and have everyone else mirror it." -- Linus Torvalds
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!!
It was put on hold until the in-flight McDonald's could be properly integrated with the cabin.
So, the one unit that I can't basically convert in my head is the one that's not converted here. Here is Google's easy conversion.
This makes me proud of being European and I'm a Brit. Fuck Blair's 51st state nonsense with Chimp-boy
Nice link that does not work in Firefox, very helpful...
realkiwi
The aircraft is set to have "relaxation space, bars, duty free shops". We shall see.
Because I know MINE sure is!!
I could put up with bringing my OWN warm sodas and little bags of pretzels (hey, if I'm bringing my own, I might just splurge and bring PEANUTS!!), if only my butt didn't feel like a size-12 foot crammed into a size-8 shoe all the way from Shanghai to San-Fran!!!
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Where the hell do you buy a veil that big anyway
*Groan * I'll get my coat *leaves in disgrace, after making such a bad joke*
In somewhat related news, Boeing recently unveiled a prototype section of its 7E7 Dreamliner:
e /s tory/4440746p-4194580c.html
http://www.thenewstribune.com/business/aerospac
From that article:
The 22-foot-long fuselage section represents the fruit of years of development by Boeing engineers in composite technology. At 19 feet in diameter, it is the largest pressurized composite airliner fuselage section ever built by Boeing or any aerospace company....
The huge structure is just one piece, not the thousands of pieces of aluminum and fasteners it would have been had Boeing made it of metal.
Propz to the story submitter for converting all the numerical infos except the aircraft range : around 15 thousands kilometers.
Trolling using another account since 2005.
The big bird can go 5800 miles, not 8000.
Apparently, preview mode only helps if you AREN'T an idiot...
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to see how the flying public reacts to the first accident or near accident on one of these things.
Personally, I welcome our massive economy-fare overlords. I fly constantly, but rarely have ever ridden in a 747. If they can take the bulk hub/hub passenger loads, I hope that will drive down prices across the network.
Even simply debarking from a full 747 from an unfavorable seat can take seemingly forever. This one will take a significant amount of time.
-Styopa
all /.ers sending protestation email to bloomberg should help !
Let's advocate pro standard to keep our mind open.
It's just going to be a larger cattle-carrier. It'll take even longer to get into and out of, and every time one crashes there will be 800 people dead versus 400 with a 747. virtually every new passenger airpcraft has been touted as "ultra-luxury" but in the end they pack as many seats as humanly possible. Big Friggin Deal! Only Boeing seems to be trying to increase passenger aircraft by increasing the internal air pressure at high altitudes.
There was this movie showing an oil king having both a tennis court and a swimming pool in his plane.
Now, he would also have a football field...
Trolling using another account since 2005.
Satan's dick A/nd OBVIOUS THAT THERE
Working on the flight systems for this plane as I write this :-)
Pretty amazing plane. I have seen mock setups for the plane that include a bar, casino, and shopping areas.
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.
That is an impressive list of superlatives for a vehicle vulnerable to someone with a laser pointer and a grudge.
And its cargo deck is equivalent to... how many Congress Libraries?
sgis ddo ekil t'nod i
.. please start to make these long-haul flights more of a PARTY and less of a cattle-like ordeal?
.. maybe airline companies could have the "House Flight To Sydney" DJ linueup, or something. Virgin could tie in their rock-star factor and have some *real* entertainment on-board, perhaps?
.. it just seems like, with these big-ass 800-passenger jumbo jets around, flying on long-haul should be more like Love Boat and less like "School Bus", know what'm sayin, yo?
I've been around the world 3 times, filled 4 passports so far, and I have to say: FLYING STILL SUCKS THE BIG ONE!!
Why can't we have concerts on board these flights, maybe a small club-like atmosphere in the upper decks, make the whole thing a little more interesting
I dunno
; -- the corruption of government starts with its secrets. a truly free people keep no secrets. --
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.
I think the focus by aircraft manufacturers should be on speed and less noise instead of girth
The new plane carries 555 ppl, vs a common 747 carrying 524 ppl. Airbus the claims that commercial aircraft need to "carry more passengers", what the hell is 21 more spaces going to do to the airport clog? (the plane is more efficient and higher lift capabilities, but that doesn't solve the passenger issue!)
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.
Really? I can't see anywhere in either of the linked articles that mentions 800 passengers. Both of them say 555. I guess michael didn't feel there was enough misinformation in the submission to measure up to the usual standard, so he added some of his own.
Yeah, the A380 is old news to aviation buffs, but we're not all hardcore aviation buffs, are we?
Here's a good collection of pics from airliners.net
Amateurs discuss tactics. Professionals discuss logistics.
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
Boeing and Airbus have different philosophies regarding air travel. Airbus sees big planes going hub to hub, while Boeing envisions smaller planes going point to point. With more point to point travel, you can avoid so called mega hubs such as Chicago O'Hare and Atlanta.
It's also to important to note that Southwest Airlines is one of the more profitable airlines today, and they run a mostly point to point network. Guess which system the legacies run?
If you are looking for more amusing Boeing vs. Airbus threads, be sure to check out airliners.net.
Americans don't really need to fly anywhere. Everybody else on the planet seems to want to come here.
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
The A380 is taking the tack the 747 took, in that much of the room is generously allocated. Large amounts of seating room per seat, even in coach, and things like minibars and waterfountains occupy space that airlines will likely turn over to single-seat 24ft^3 passenger spaces. If reconfigured, you can stuff 800 souls onto one of these planes.
the world's largest planemaker
;-)
is true now, whichever way you split it
Exercise caution when modding this message up: the author acts like a jerk when his karma is excellent.
http://www.thenewstribune.com/business/aerospace/s tory/4440746p-4194580c.html
the url tag is your friend!
And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
...in the upper level lounge, like the Boeing 377 Stratocruiser?
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
"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."
I bet this would also leave a 16ft hole in the pentagon, no wreckage, no crater and no video footage.
Boy do I feel obsolete :/
[Loud Speaker] Ladies and Gentlemen, we will now begin bording rows 780 thru 800.
1 hour later...
and now rows 500 thru 520...
Science: Galileo Forced To Change Its name?1 7/1220208&tid=160&tid=14
http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/
This is the unveiling of the first actual complete plane, not an anouncement of the design plans or some computer generated image.
This is a huge landmark (airmark?) in many ways, not the least of which is that it is now the biggest passenger plane in the world. A week ago, and for at least the 40 years, that title belonged to Boeing and the US.
And as you tread the halls of sanity, You feel so glad to be, Unable to go beyond. I have a message, From another time..
Perhaps 'flop' is too strong of a word, by Airbus is being too ambitious by half by going after the passenger carrying market. This plane is only suitable for long-haul flights, like New York to Tokyo or Paris to Rio de Janiero Which means the total global market for this aircraft as a passenger ferry is on the order of a few hundred - nowhere close to the break even point.
Also, most airlines have considerable risk sensitivity. The idea of one plane carrying as many as 800 passengers could crash and generate 800 multi-million dollar lawsuits will probably wave off quite a few passengers. Lastly, this plane is limited to a scant few airports worldwide that will be able to service it. Airbus was very saavy in making the A380 so that it could pull up to modern day terminals. However, they can't assure that it will fit between modern day terminals, particularly at already crowded ports like Phoenix or Atlanta.
Luckily for airbus investors, they won't lose their shirts. The A380 will have an illustrious career as a cargo hauler what with all that internal volume. It's also the logical choice in modified form to carry large rocket parts and transport other aircraft.
Who gives a fuck if a few Americans die? I find it rather funny to watch.
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).
The French version will hold 1600 passengers, seated '69' style, but it never actually gets off the ground.
Somewhere out there, there's some jerk saying, "I'm gonna need a bigger laser."
But seriously--I don't think there's enough air travel businsess out there to justify it. Between the cavity searches and the fuel costs, airlines are already struggling. How are they going to fill that bad boy?
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
I find the article at Airbus v. Boing (pun intendet) a lot better. Cheers
Darn, 4th Class is tough on those 245 passangers without seats.
-- www.globaltics.net
Political discussion for a new world
I wonder what will happen to all these huge airliners when peak oil hits (and stays above)$100 a barrel. Perhaps they can be used for student housing.
Do other people think the A380 is ugly?
I mean this is a serious question, though it's admittedly not not a very good topic for objective debate.
I've always liked the lines of the 747, but the 380 just doesn't look nice to me.
Is the U.S. corperate mind control taking hold?
Some touchy mods around today I see, I'm an American FWIW, just being funny!
You might like small planes, but these are why the market in the US needs state subsidies. Take a look at the UK / Ireland and their low cost opperations.
Easyjet and Ryanair are modelled directly after Southwest Airlines which is florishing in the Post 9/11 environment. Your CEO's worked closely with Herb Kelleher. What state subsidies are you talking about?
By the way, the A380 is the poster child for state subsidies. Eurogovernments have provided billions in 0 intererst loans which are not likely to be repaid.
an ill wind that blows no good
It isn't so much that Boeing wasn't nimble enough in this case, it was too jingoistic. Remember the year (2001-2003) when everybody in the US (well, the white house and the mainstream media anyway) was all anti-french, "Old Europe", and all, becasue France and Germany wouldn't back the invasion? Well, that year Boeing didn't go to the Paris air show, where a lot of deals are signed. Airbus wasn't as stupid (they're not American anyway) and they got an order of 45 A380s from Kuwait airlines. That is a big order. An order that the extended version of the 747 then being planned did not get. So all of a sudden Boeing starts talking as if they made a strategy shift to smaller planes.
No one gives up a race they've been leading for 40 years just like that! Boeing was stupid, they should've gone to Paris and eaten french fries, they probably would've gotten some orders, and the jumbo jet wars wouldn't end up so lop-sided.
The passenger version goes 8000, the freight version goes 5400.
The article forgot to mention that getting the thing airborne requires about as much energy as getting a football field airborne. It manages to waste even more power than your 'average' airplane.
That google image link has Google textads for ebay... "Airbus A380 for sale. aff Check out the deals now! www.eBay.com" and "Low Priced Airbus A380 Huge Selection! (aff) ebay.ca"
Personally I find that frickin' hilarious.
Although the Airbus A380 may be able to hold 800 people, it will certainly never do so, as it is only certified for up to 580 passengers, if I remember correctly (or possibly 540). Also, some airlines, like Singapore, are planning to further reduce the number of seats and offer it as something of a premium service, with extra room and amenities.
What techincal challenges would there be to extending the upper deck of a 747 to carry a few more people? They already did this with the 746-300. Could it be stretched all the way to the tail?
Only France banned them.
The French are particulary fervant about the separation of religion from the state.
In French schools, the wearing of any religious dress or artifact is banned - no matter what the religion.
They might not have them in cattle class, but they do exist (Virgin Atlantic as it happens).
If is not bad enough with TSA lines and congesting parking lots, it could take an hour to board and unboard this fully loaded monster.
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.
Am I the only one that thinks that plane is the ugliest I've ever seen? I understand function coming before form, but man, that thing is ugly.
Being american and somewhat nationalistic I'm rooting for Boeing but I still am glad to see a good competition with Airbus forming. That's good for everyone.
Smithers, I've designed a new airplane. I call it the "Spruce Moose", and it will carry two hundred passengers from New York's Idyllwild Airport to the Belgian Congo in seventeen minutes!
www.timcoleman.com is a total waste of your time. Never go there.
The thinking behind this is that airlines will use it to fly hub to hub only. That means that essentially no air travel will be direct. You will take the BUS to a hub near where you are going and then you will get off and board a smaller plane to get you to the airport where you are going. So unless both ends of your trip are in a hub you will transfer once, possibly TWICE. Even with trans oceanic travel - you will take a BUS from one hub to another and then get on another plane. So plausibly, a trip from Washington DC to Frankfurt Germany would entail regional trip to NY, a BUS trip to Heathrow, a regional trip to Frankfurt. Now consider that if you are a business traveller you will have 6 one way tickets to keep the cost down. This will require you to be strip searched 6 times on your round trip.
The article says 555 passengers, so where did the other 245 passengers come from on this article?
Congrats airbus, you've bet the farm on this one and the industry still isn't sold on it. Aviation doesn't need another big ass airplane, it needs an efficient one. Airbus's stated 15% operating expense savings over the 747 is going to be difficult to attain. "Maybe there's not room for two planes, but now, there's only one." and analyst said. Sounds like a roll of the dice to me.
The A380 has a better range, a better capacity, yet only adds 6% more passengers and will require each airport to spend millions retrofitting to support it. Sounds like a aircraft which will be attractive mostly to cargo carriers to me.
I hope the airports retrofitting to handle this monster are going to recoup that money from increased landing fees for those carriers who fly these things, not everyone else. Redesigning airports to handle an aircraft that only adds 31 seats is ridiculous.
The A380 is no different than the Concorde in that it's all about being first and not about being sustainable. Look for the A380 in a desert storage airport near you in 10 years.
Now boarding at gates 1 through 30....
If they take it on the chin and lose a lot of money, the EU will just "loan" them some more. Airbus isn't going away.
but I was actually fucking serious!
This is going to be a hard sell not because it's larger, but because it's 4-engine aircraft. Twice the number of engines means twice the maintenance cost. The main reason why Boeing had done the smaller 777 was because airlines wanted a large, long-range aircraft that would perform well on only two engines. Plans to do a larger 747 were scrapped when they failed to spark any interest with the major international carriers.
...and boy! Let me tell you...
Italy, (and Lombardy in particular) is an absolute paradise while Texas (ugh!) is a fuckin' desert, an utter SHIT HOLE!
Some crack-head mods obviously mistook the parent post for sarcasm or such thing. Well, for me, it was right on the money!
I think it was Napolean who derided the British as a nation of shopkeepers. He was referring to their crass mercantile system, symptomatic of less class snobbery, as compared to the French. What he didn't understand was that the British could (horrible word) innovate much faster than the French. French society was much more static and rigid and bureaucratic than the British.
Infuriate left and right
I have a few suits by Gaultier and Paul Smith, but none by Armani.
I can remember the upstairs bubble on a Pan Am flight, (that really dates me), having a bar/ lounge area for the first class passengers.
Airbus will be able to claim the Corvette for the next quarter-century. Boeing is right when they say the market is not there for ferrying 600 passengers at a time -- that passengers prefer point-to-point flights rather than hub-to-hub. But the market exists, and Boeing is neglecting to mention the growing market for overnight cargo. FedEx is the A380's biggest champion.
But the market is not big enough for two players. Since the A380's announcement, Boeing has been flirting with 747 mods, such as this one that turns the currently unused rear attic into private but windowless sleeping cabins. But Boeing couldn't generate sufficient interest (i.e. firm pre-orders).
Boeing will be left to pursue the unglamorous but profitable mid-size and long-distance markets. E.g., the 777-200ER will combine 300-440 capacity with one of the longest reaches available, possibly enabling Europe<->Australia routes for the first time.
The next big glamour will be the Concorde replacement. Currently, the thought is that supersonic travel can never be made economical enough; that customers would rather bask in luxury aboard an air-yacht like the A380 than pay the price for an unsubsidized supersonic airplane. And given the technical hurdles of the sonic boom (which I think can be solved, but not for the next 30 years), supersonic travel would be limited to only over oceans, which is counter to the current point-to-point market demand.
Given that Boeing recently backed out of supersonic research, it'll be a good long while before it can reclaim the glory crown from Airbus. For 35 years, Boeing held the crown with the 747, inspiration of countless Hollywood movies. Now it's Airbus' turn for the next few decades.
Boeing will continue to be profitable, but without the glory.
FLIPPER....
Damn thing looks like a dolphin, doesn't it?
It's not just the runways which have to bear the heavier weight of this super-jumbo, but the taxiways and parking pads, too.
The base I was stationed at in Germany could handle a C-5A Galaxy, but only if it stayed on the runway. If it had gone onto the asphalt taxiways it would have sunk to the axles.
Chip H.
800 passengers just means a greater chance that my luggage is the last off the plane.
Chip H.
Has anyone thought of how long it will take to board this sucker when the flight is booked out.
It still costs me more to fly from Boston to D.C than it does from London to say Berlin. Yes the distances are greater but we still pay less for flights of similar distances, I say this as a Britain living in America and am still in disbelief at the prices here.
both fed/ex and UPS will have these planes. The big issue that many airlines face is that are given a limited number of gate slots. Usually these slots are regardless of plane size so an A380 will be a big benefit for those who need efficiency.
As for Boeing, I do not see a real problem for them as this A380 is behind schedule and over budget just as predicted and still needs to sell 140+ planes to reach break even. The market may be big but there is a bigger market for medium size planes.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
AirFrance A-380 Flight 3842 to Paris will now begin boarding rows A39 to A57 at gate 34. Passengers not already in line are advised to enter the end of the queue, located in terminal G, just past the third McDonald's on your right.
-- I prefer the term "karma escort."
http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ac/c-5.htm
I havent been able to this question. Why is that there exists "No single airline" flying non-stop between US and India? Distance between new york and bombay,india is 12565 km (7790 mi). By the discussion above there are quite a few aircrafts that have the desired range.
José Manuel Barraso (head of European Commission, Portuguese ex-PM) will also attend to mark the pan-European Union nature of the project.
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
"I have flown in a lot of 747s and have NEVER seena bar."
Well maybe if you worked harder?
Yeah we know how to do big engineering projects... like a giant spike. Also known as the world's tallest sculpture (i.e. anything taller that other countries have built actually DOES something, e.g. Eiffel Tower - radio transmitter).
-- *~()____) This message will self-destruct in 5 seconds...
The interesting point here is that almost all the cases you mention can be summarised, not as US vs EU, but as US vs France.
:)
:)
- the great banana and steel trade war: France is probably the only banana producer in Europe (overseas territories), plus there was the question of specific import agreements with former French colonies (Lome agreements). As for steel, the steel giant of Europe, Arcelor, is mostly based on French production sites (my dad works in one of them).
- Freedom Fries vs french fries: self-explaining
- the EU vs Microsoft: this may be the exception. This was pretty much a Brussels-centric affair, with little to no coverage in national medias.
- Germany and France vs the US over Iraq : people often forget that it was Schroder who first opposed any war in Iraq. However Germany has never had much weight in international politics. France has much more clout, so the world hears them more. However in this situation it's not so much US vs EU, as US + UK + Poland against the rest of the whole damn world.
- the Euro vs the Dollar: ok, this is also a real EU issue, the European Central Bank has total control over monetary affairs now.
- snooty French people vs loutish American tourists: well we're still quite happy to take their money
- the new european GPS equivalent Galileo vs GPS: Like almost all matters related to space, it was initiated by the French. The French initiated, designed, funded and built most of the Ariane project as well. The toughest part was in convincing the Brits, who were quite happy with buying US-made rockets.
- everyone on Earth lead by the EU vs the US over Kyoto: see war in Iraq. You really have a problem with your administration, but you knew that already.
- the european vs US approach to Israel and the Middle East: It's quite ironic that, pre-1967, France was Israel's best friend in the West ! The French helped Israel start their nuclear programme. At that time, the US were quite wary of Israel, because they had ties with the USSR and showed sympathy with socialist ideals (kibbutz anyone ?), which was enough to draw both defiance from the US and sympathy from De Gaulle's France.
That was before 1967, when Israel invaded what is now known as the Palestinian territories, and "the little country that could" was suddenly seen as a nation of religious fanatics who invaded other people's lands because their god told them to - not exactly the best way to make yourself popular in arch-secular France.
- increasing secularism (EU, see for example banning of headscarves) vs increasing evangelicalism (US/Jesusland): the only country that banned headscarves in school, AFAIK, is France. They did take some flak from some other EU countries - in particular, from Britain.
Thomas-
a plane crash kills 300 people.
800 deaths goes beyond tragedy. This will really entice terrorists...
I just don't like this concept. I'll stay on the ground, thanks..
Somewhere, there's an Al-Qaeda cell waiting to take delivery of the new Airbus.
</tacltessness>
#-#
Ad Astra Per Aspera
A rough road leads to the stars
you know even though I had read all about this thing it still amazes me how huge this thing really is. It's as WIDE as a FOOTBALL FIELD! Jeebus criminy, the thing is a flying building. Can't wait to ride! ;)
Did you know you can be apathetic to apathy? Not that I give a shit...
Actually, it's still a very big bus when it flies. Then it becomes some kind of... air bus.
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.
Throwing facts in the face of UK media's sensationalization and anti-french bias.
How dare you!
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
1000 liters, 95 Imperial gallons, 16.34 liters per kilometer, 180 tons, 0.8 kg per liter, 7500 nautical miles, 11 km/l, 26 miles per US gallon.
Sir, do you work for NASA?
The funny thing is, that Thales (a french company) will do the design of the next generation of british carriers:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/2706727.stm
Huh? Where does this interesting tidbit come from?
Generally speaking, the only time airliner engines are throttled back to idle in flight is just prior to being shut down due to being on fire.
"Crossing the Atlantic on one engine" in a 747 would be quite a feat. Lots of rudder trim, I guess.
The engines are run at equal power settings. Period. Airline operators don't play around with asymmetrical power settings.
Additionally, engine hours are based upon running time, not power settings. An engine running at idle for 1 hour accumulates the same time as an engine running at METO power.
"The more corrupt the state, the more it legislates." - Tacitus
What about safety? Never mind terrorism, planes do occasionally crash. That's not too bad (he said, callously) if there are "only" 200 or so, but imagine if a couple of these go down, for whateever reason - that's 1600 people there.
Safety is going to have to be considered some time. Economics rule at the moment for obvious reasons, but as these things get bigger the fatality rate per crash is going to be huge. I know there is a single engine plane which has it's own parachute and IIRC NASA were working on a parachute system for airliners. Anybody got any info on that? In any case there's going to have to be some work in this field if they're going to lug 1000 people about per plane.
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.
Not Poland, but... A340-500 16,700 KM with 313 pass 777-200LR 17,446KM with 301 pass.
I believe I read in an older edition of Gerard Frawley's The International Directory of Civil Aircraft (ISBN: 0760315930) that there was a high-density configuration for this aircraft that was planned for just over 1,000 passengers.
Have you looked at music lately? I'd prefer listening to a chorus of screaming kids to what they would place on airplanes. You only think mainstream pop music is bad, until you hear how bad it can get.
I don't know. I fly Chicago-Madras once a year myself. The flight is always packed full. I always have to transfer at Heathrow or Frankfurt. Beats me why there's no non-stop transarctic service. Both the A340 and the 777 can comfortably do *all* US-India flights (including fuel and crew safety margins). (The A340 already does a JFK-Changi non-stop run). I figure that it will probably be a private Indian carrier who'll fill this market, not Air India and certainly not any US carrier. All they need is one A340 and they're set.
Planes are the wrong solution for the problem. What we should be using are Airships or Zeppelins. Instead of cramming people into a steel tube, you can create a small flying hotel and all for lower fuel costs than a jumbo. Admittedly, it's slower than a plane, more like a very fast yacht, but people used to put up with far worse in the last century and these days we have tele-conferencing, email and reliable phone systems so there should be less urgency in flying for most of us.
And just imagine flying across the Atlantic whilst sitting round a dining-table. Hell, larger ones might even have space for a small kitchen. We (the species) need to slow-down and make better use of the technology we have. I mean, hasn't anyone else ever seen Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade? - "No ticket!" Didn't it look grand?
Aide-toi, le Ciel t'aidera - Jeanne D'Arc.
Try flying on a Virgin 747 from London to NY.
They have bars (and sometimes a gym) available. It's kind of bizarre to be enjoying a drink (in the rompersuit/PJs they give you) at 30,000 feet in the middile of the atlantic. Especially as last time the guy next to me was Tom Jones.
This thing may be marginal as a passenger plane, but as a freighter, it will be a big win. FedEx and UPS have each ordered ten. Most of the firm orders are for freighters.
My guess would be (lack of appropriate) bilateral agreements*. Even if the aircraft has the range, if it doesn't have permission to depart from, overfly, and/or land in the country or countries concerned, it gets messy.
Others probably have more insight into the actual agreements currently in effect than I.
*Bilateral agreements - agreements between two countries outlining which flights are allowed to do what in the other's airspace. The agreements can be very broad or very limited.
This is nothing new here at FedEx. We have already put in an order for quite a few of the cargo versions of this aircraft. As far as widebody goes, we use Boeing's MD-11, MD-10, DC-10, and Airbus A300 and A310. The largest is Boeing's MD-11 and if our calulations are correct, the new A380 cargo will carry more cargo with only 75% of the fuel it takes at present. On our LAX run, we have 4 MD-11's that go from MEM to LAX and back nightly. With the A380, We could cut that to two A380's and save a ton on fuel. Our orders for the A380 will be mostly for high volume flights like LAX, ORD, JFK, and most international flights.
A twin gets up to cruise altitude in about 1/2 to 1/3 of the time of a "quad".
This is because of "excess thrust".
This results in better passenger travel experience for the twins, like the long range 777 and 7E7.
A 777 or 7E7 fying out of Singapore for London, for example, will take 30 minutes to get to cruise, 20 minutes to "seatbelt light out". The 747, A340, A380 take 3x as long.
EXCESS THRUST:
To operate commercially, a plane has to be able to take off and fly with one engine out. So really, from an engineering standpoint, you can think of a 2 engine bird as a 1 engine flying machine, with an extra engine that has enough power to fly the whole airplane. In contrast we think of a 4 engine bird as a 3 engine bird, with an extra engine which is big enough to replace 1/3 of the required "flying power", in case 1 of the 3 goes out.
So a 747 has about 50,000 lb excess thrust, and a 777 has 100,000. you can do the same calculation for the A330 and A340, which share the same structure, except for wings and engines.
"Behind the scenes" reasons why Airlines go Boeing or Airbus, is explained here.
What's past is NOT ALWAYS prologue for the future!
Here's a picture of A380 #2 just after painting...
The 7E7 is the only all-composite passenger aircraft. The composite fusalage construction permits higher cabin pressures and humidity. This results in far better passenger comfort, especially on long flights. I addition, very large windows are possible.
As I heard it said once. .
Jumbo Jets mean that when they crash, a LOT of people are killed, not just some.
All your eggs in one basket.
Though, I suppose they'll be needing massive transport. The next wave of prison camps will not be serviced by trains. Denver airport is designed to be the hub of human cargo transfer. In a few more years, (or months), if you're on a flight to Denver, it'll be both free and one-way.
-FL
Speaking as a European, I'd like to congratulate the United States on its latest airliner.
Seriously. 50% of the A380 subassemblies come from the USA. Boeing is playing the "it's an evil foreign plot to topple American dominance of the aerospace industry!" card, but that's just self-serving FUD. Remember, for each $280M A380 that sells, American companies pick up 50% of the assembly work. Similarly, large chunks of Boeing's products come from EADS, BAE systems, and other non-American contractors.
So let's get over the jingoistic flag-waving and evaluate this rather impressive piece of hardware on its actual merits, shall we?
In cattle mode like the 747 is used, you can expect to see about 750 passengers minimum. The numbers you quoted for 747 are in cattle mode. I do not expect airlienes to give you bars and stuff. Maybe more legroom.
My Aurora : http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o91ZsGwJYyg
FB : https://www.facebook.com/TanveersPhotography
The A380 is bigger and heavier almost in every respect. The C5 is a little bit longer, but not by much.
C5
Wingspan- 222 feet, 9 inches
Length- 247 feet, 10 inches
Height- 65 feet, 1 inch
Max Weight- 840,000 pounds
A380
Wingspan- 261 feet, 10 inches
Length- 239 feet, 6 inches
Height- 79 feet, 1 inch
Max weight- 1,208,000 pounds
But both come up short to the An-225.
Why is it when Americans make big vehicles, we're fscking taken behind the woodshed and mocked and slapped....
but when the Euros do it - its the greatest thing evar?
oh wait... its kinda like getting your ass saved in a world war, then spitting on the graves of those that saved your ass a scant 40 years later.
wankers.
guns kill people like spoons make Rosie O'Donnell fat.
Airbus claims it is 20% cheaper to run than a 747-400.
This is according to a Discovery Channel programme on the A380, so I don't know how accurate that actually is, or if that figure is for an equal number of passengers or not.
The A380 has 50% more floorspace at least, than a 747.
That's great, but how far will it fly over land?
side note: deals are "signed" or "announced" at the Paris show, but they are usually agreed before the show. All big manufacturers like to say "we signed that many deals" during the show, even though it was all agreed beforehand.
There are many Muslim extremists who are salivating over this one. Put a bomb an board on a couple of these planes and you've killed quite a few!!!
They might as well paint a bulls-eye on the side of this. Terrorists always go after the most spectacular targets; this seems custom designed to attract attacks. "Hey look Osama, now we can kill at least 800 people in a single attack!"
Argue with his math if you want, but why slap him around?
I think his lawsuit point is interesting, and his cargo carrying point is valid, too. The Fedex guy who posted earlier did the numbers to prove it.
Buddy Holly
Richie Valens and you forgot The Big Bopper!
"The day Microsoft makes a product that doesn't suck is the day they make a vacuum cleaner."
The A380 will find a market. Crowded airlanes and gates mean bigger planes save a lot of space at critical points. Some are arguing that Boeing dropped the ball on this one.
But the flying within the US is poised for a huge shift. NASA has been working on their Small Aircraft Transportation System is designed to allow safe flight outside the big crowded airlanes and between the small uncrowded regional airports. And direct flights, even with slower planes, mean shorter flights with no transfers and less ground transportation. Once this is off the ground it will completely cannibalize the first and business class market from the big planes for anything less than trans-continental, hub-to-hub, or international flights. All that will be left will be the cattle-carrier flights for the more efficient big planes.
In otherwords, the A380 will in the near future be mainly in use for low-margin economy passengers. And they even lose a large chunk of those passengers against the inherently shorter and simpler small/medium airport direct flight.
---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?
The airline business model of the A380 is very sensitive to gas prices.
For airlines to make a profit, they have to fill the plane with passengers. One jump in gas prices and a falling demand for flying will kill any airline that rolled the dice by buying the A380.
Also, the A30 will require widening runways, terminal modification, and baggage claim infrastructure modifications. This all adds up to being around 1 billion dollars worth of modifications.
Airlines are better off buying the 7E7 which costs half has much as the A380, is not as sensitive to gas prices and flying demand, and does not require costly airport modifications.
The A380 is a dinosaur.
Is that tons or tonnes. The original story has metric the US units in brackets and yet it talks of tons which are US/Imperial and not tonnes which are the metric unit of weight. Is this a typo?
If I read this correctly, the direct route from NYC to Bombay would fly over Pakistan, over or close to Afghanistan, and over a bunch of other 'Stans before reaching Russia. I would not be surprised if one or more of these countries wasn't very happy with the idea of overflight, or if the airlines were simply wary about same. Avoiding them would add a great deal of distance to the flight.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
I can't believe somone modded that down
has a payload capacity alone of two and a half times the empty weight of a a380 and a 10,000 mile range over water at a altitude of 20 feet (airfoil boat effect), 6500 mile range over land at 20,000 feet (regular plane mode)
Though it's really meant to compete against container ships...
pictures
I'd like to see all these commercial planes using something other than kerosene. Sure, it's just as difficult as putting alternative fuels in cars, but no less important. If the United States and Europe ever really want to do something about "global warming", they'll start with planes.
---
I'd also like to remind people that the brilliance of Chernobyl was that it used non-refined uranium, and that the technicians had to over-ride every last single safety system in the plant, to get it to do what it did.
We could be making hydrogen a reality, right now, and not just toying-with-the-idea.
This may be the most ignorant post in the world, but whenever I've read about these super planes the first thing that I think of is how horrific an eventual crash will be. 800 people gone just like that. Assuming no flaws, I'm sure the math of it probably means fewer people dead every year since more people per plane means fewer planes means fewer flights means fewer take-offs/landings and since those are the most dangerous portions of flight, fewer deaths. But, still, I suppose some brain cells in me just won't let go of the fear that this plane won't be as safe to fly (because of its added size/weight), will be more attractive as a terrorist target, etc.
Don't vote for Eugene Papansanovich for Congress!
Voma didn't "write" this newsblurb. He stole it. Nearly ever word was plagerised from the Bloomberg article.
... The double-decker A380 has a wingspan 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 (14,820 kilometers) compared with 7,600 nautical miles for the Boeing 747-400."
What voma wrote: "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."
What Bloomberg wrote: "Airbus SAS, the world's largest plane maker, tomorrow will unveil its 555-seat A380, a 12 billion-euro ($16 billion) wager that airlines will order giant aircraft to ferry passengers between major airports over the next 20 years.
My lord, I would think that at a newsite for nerds, we'd at least get submitters intelligent enough to write their own submission. Pathetic!
Magellan is a GPS-receiver manufacturer. Gallileo is the European GPS equivalent.
Steven
look up "Spruce Goose," buddy. It is and remains to be the largest aircraft ever built (american, btw), and it was built in the 40s! wingspan is just shy of 100 metres, and most of the entire thing is built with _WOOD_. It's a true wonder that if actually FLEW. Hughes is a maniac and a genius.
p.s. the said aircraft takes off / lands on water, so there was the tiny detail of transporting it (in parts) from the hanger to the bay where it was final assembled. If you want to marvel at engineering miracles, at least marvel at ones worht marveling at.
My life in the land of the rising sun.
According to the same source, the only German airport that is ready for the A380 is Munich's. However, some "minimal modifications" will be made to the terminal building to make simultaneous boarding of both main and upper decks, via a number of bridges. Modifications are also underway at the Frankfurt-Main airport. These include 9 parking positions and enlarged waiting rooms. Fraport (the company that manages the airport) has already "set aside" about 50 million euros for the modifications. However, it is still "not clear" whether simultaneous boarding on both decks will be possible in Frankfurt.
Lufthansa has ordered 15 A380s (most likely all of them in the 500-passenger configuration, Rolls-Royce engine option) and will start flying them in the summer of 2007. The destinations have not yet been completely decided, but will be chosen by the end of 2006 among 19 "potential destinations." It looks like it will be mostly long-haul flights to the "emerging markets" in Asia.
Also related: :-)
Airbus Beluga "Super Transporter"
This is used to transport some of the "smaller" parts---I guess, if you want to build the largest commercial passenger plane, it helps if you have already built the world's largest freighter plane!
And a last tidbit: the diameter of the A380s jet engines is the same as the diameter of the A320 fuselage. What the...?
Finally, in other news, one other first for Lufthansa (BTW, no, I don't work for them, I'm not even German :-) is FlyNet, which uses Boeing's Connexion to offer live Internet via on-board WiFi (11Mbps) and a satelite link (1Mbps). Lufthansa is already offering it on many flights. Connexion was ditched by the US companies initially involved, citing "financial concerns" after 9/11 (and this, only a couple of weeks after 9/11... hmm :-). Of course, this is also a first for Boeing (which will be outfitting some Airbuses as well).
The A380 has one big strike against it. No track record. The same comment can be made for the 7E7 or any new airliner. One thing about the seven-four is it has flown a *LOT* of miles. It's a known quantity. So do you really want to be onboard an 800 person jet with no track record and an avionics system designed by the same people who managed to land^h^h^h^hcrash at the Paris air show?
This may seem unfair -- and it probably is, but one thing about Boeing is they have been building jets for a while and they have a *really* large sample of what the jets can hack -- both by operators who do maintenance and those who don't. I feel safe in a seven-three, because there are so damn many of them in service and the kinks are more likely to have been found and worked out.
P.S. Does anybody else wonder about the 7E7 and lightning? I know they have flown a few hours in B2's that are composite but nothing like the total in air-hours for an airliner.
--Tarp
Explaination here
Freedom Fries vs french fries: self-explaining
Right, why they are called French fries is still a mystery, because fries have trully a Belgian/Dutch ancistry.
Germany and France vs the US over Iraq : people often forget that it was Schroder who first opposed any war in Iraq. However Germany has never had much weight in international politics. France has much more clout, so the world hears them more.
Well here, might I just point out that France has a veto right at the UN, while Germany has not ? Germany has also grown-up since the last war, with a strong self-imposed rigour on keeping it's military and foreign policy under control. It's only in the past 5 years that Germany has been more open on the topic. Only in 2004 was Germany official invited at the D-Day commeration.
I believe France stood on for their opinion on the Iraq war (good or bad), and with their UN veto right, and their unflinching stance on the topic, the US just regarded them as the 'bad-guys'. The vote (the last resolution to 'official support' an invasion) never took place, as it was a deadlock situation. This veto-lock at the UN has been happening for a long time.
The current record for number of people killed in a single airline accident is 583 in the collision of two 747s at Tenerife airport in 1977.
... any others?).
(You could argue 9/11 killed more people, but they were deliberate acts rather than unintentional accidents)
When the first fully loaded A380-800 crashes it will most likely exceed that number by some distance.
Notice I say *when*, rather than if. The list of major airliner types that have perfect safety records was always very short and (correct me if I'm wrong) with the Concorde crash in Paris has become even shorter (Airbus A340, Boeing 777,
It may take twenty years to happen because technology has made airliners very, very safe. However you can't get past the fact that you have a 500 tonne object travelling at 1000 km/h while 8km from the ground. If things go wrong that is one big mother of an impact.
You mean the 416 passenger Boeing 747-400ER? That's been in service over 2 years.
Ahem... The 380 is designed to seat about 550 passengers.
Mmmmmm... Bold, yet refreshing!
Airtanic. You heard it here first.
Maybe they're suggesting that this aircraft would be ideal for the next hijacking.
I'd hate to have to FOD check that runway!
FOD:Foreign Object Damage, basically when an object on the runway damages the plane, usually by being sucked into the engines.
FOD check: Walking the area looking for anything loose than can cause damage. Rocks, tools, junk...
I don't read AC A human right
I dunno where michael got his '800 seats' headline from. Sure, you can fit eight hundred people in an A380, but (notwithstanding the superb Qantas effort with 500+ people on a B747 out of Darwin immediately before Cyclone Tracey hit), it's not gonna fly very far.
I find your ideas intriguing and I wish to subscribe to your newsletter.
Just thought I'd pipe in with a pointless math lesson.
If the poster is being consistent and using metric tons (equal to 1 megagram, or 1000 kilograms, in which case perhaps he should have said "569 metric tons"), then he should round up to 1.3 or else add another significant digit for 1.25 million (569 metric tons is roughly 1,254,400 pounds).
But if the measurement was used the American "short" ton (2000 pounds, 907.2 kilograms) instead of the metric ton, then the measure is roughly 569 * 2000 = 1,138,000 pounds.
In either case, 569 tons does not approximate well to 1.2 million pounds. And it's probably most appropriate to use three significant digits anyway (1.25 or 1.14, neither rounds to 1.2), but that's another discussion altogether.
Thanks,
The A380 has one big strike against it. No track record. The same comment can be made for the 7E7 or any new airliner. One thing about the seven-four is it has flown a *LOT* of miles. It's a known quantity.
So you're suggesting that no new aircraft should be developed anymore? And the comparison with the Comet is ridiculous - the Comet was the first jet airliner and thus there were many more unknowns involved. Such a comparison will be valid when we get mass space tourism spacecraft.
an avionics system designed by the same people who managed to land^h^h^h^hcrash at the Paris air show?
The cause was pilot error but in a different way than any crash prior to that - the fly-by-wire system didn't allow the pilot to rotate the aircraft more because that would've caused it to stall so instead it hit the trees (so the pilot was at fault but instead of stalling and crashing the plane hit trees and crashed).
That's not to say the A380 won't succeed. People said the same thing about the 747 before it rolled out - that the market was too small, that nobody would want to ride in a plane that big. And it's gone on to be one of Boeing's most successful planes. But the market for a 500+ capacity plane isn't something Airbus suddenly "discovered." Boeing has been probing it for decades.
How on earth are they going to ship those monsters to their destinations???!!! They must be heavy as shit!
We *have* to fly long distances to get anywhere. Anything to make the flight a little shorter or have a bit more room will be good.
I would have preferred the Boeing SST as it would have cut two to six hours off every major destination Australians travel to - LAX (2 hours) through London (six hours off a 24 hour flight).
Most legs out of Australia are over 12 hours long (Singapore is the shortest at 8 hours, SFO to MBL the longest at around 16 hours on a single leg).
But this will do... as long as we're allowed out of our seats. I find it hard to stay strapped in all the time on long haul, so they better have a method to make it comfortable for the longest flights, like good bed seats or similar.
Andrew van der Stock
The EU says that Microsoft is a monopoly and sue them. However, on the other had France, Germany, Britain and Spain (with a few others) get together and fund a company to go against a single US company. Perhaps brining in M$ to this is a mistake, may be GM and Honeywell merger is a better example.
... afterall, the wing span is specified in both metric and imperial units, the length is specified in metric units only, the weight is specified in 'tons', which is probably imperial but could be metric, and pounds, and the range is specified in nautical imperial units that probably don't mean much to the average person. Didn't they have this sort of problem with a mars probe?
Until they properly release the specifications in units everyone understands (rods and hogsheads), i'm going to stay away.
The other thing is that these planes are going to be the new "ultimate target" for any group with SA-7's and a grudge.
"The problem with socialism is eventually you run out of other people's money" - Thatcher.
I've seen the usual round of slashdot trolling in this thread, that happens every time some piece of new technology is invented or some scientific landmark is achieved outside the US. Likewise, there's a good number of anti-American trolls here who like to have a good laugh when something fucks up in the US.
Then there's the rest of us.
I see that quite a few Americans, when feeling nationally challenged because the biggest civil aircraft in the world is no longer American, like to point out how the Boeing 7E7 is more comfortable, takes less time to board and exit, and is more practical, in that it can fly between smaller airports, than the A380.
At the same time, the European pundits point out that the A380 can fly huge amounts of passengers over a longer distance, etc.
And a good number of pundits try to paint this as a clash of philosophies, in that the efficient small craft versus the huge megajumbo craft is what will happen in the future.
I think they miss out the point: These two craft are aimed at significantly different markets. No one will buy an A380 to fly from Paris to London (a few hundred kilometers) or buy a 7E7 to fly from Singapore to London. Sure, long haul routes with low passenger frequencies, such as from Buenos Aires to London will probably not see an A380 and some high frequency long haul non hub routes will not see an 7E7, but that is the general aim of the market. These aircraft do not really compete.
The real competition to the 7E7 is still to come, and has been announced, in the form of the A350, which is a modernised A330, with newer non bleed engines like those of the 7E7, new wings and more composites.
And this is where the real compeition between Airbus and Boeing is being fought: The family of planes.
One of the major reasons that Airbus has been so successful is that it has built almost all of its planes in modularised form in order to optimise components, which means that Pilots trained on an A318 can fly the whole small Airbus family - A318, A319, A320 and A321. It also means that technicians can service all of these planes if trained on one, and that spares etc are shared amongst all of them, lowering the cost to both airlines and manufacturers.
There is a similar thing in the A330 and A340, and even the A380 uses a similar cockpit layout to the A340. And the A350 will be usable by those who have used A330s in the past.
I think a large amount of Boeing's marketing criticism against Airbus is simply because Boeing missed the boat on the new large market. They were actually doing design and market studies togethr with Airbus in the mid 90's until they pulled out because British Airways, their supposed launch customer, wasn't interested. Boeing then went on with a number of utter rubbish campaigns, from the idea of stretched 747X which was then shelved when it failed to garner enough attention, to a ridiculous Sonic Cruiser concept, which was more of a marketing exercise to take attention away from the A380, until they finally realised that they had to come up with a new product and started the far more realistic and achievable 7E7.
Airbus's planes have been less spectacular than Boeing's, but they offered real advantages in cost (Training, maintenance, spares). Boeing's leadership is where the blame lies for spending so much time on hairbrained campaigns and FUD instead of doing some real product development.
In other words, if you go 10% faster, there will be no miracle : your gas consuption will roughly clim up by 21% (1.1^2 = 1.21).
I fail to see how the fact that your capital investment will rotate roughly 10% faster too can help much about these two figures : spending 21% more to make a 10% economy seems a queer idea when one thinks about it.
Of course, the argument was right when the idea was to switch from transatlantic cruises to transatlantic flights, but this time it was because the viscosity of water is quite higher than the viscosity of air, an element that is not to be considered here (and, in fact, was stated by Airbus when the A380 was still named A3XX, a long time ago).
Signature omitted in order to save space. Thanks for your understanding.
This whole Boeing FUD campaign of the 7E7 competeing against the A380 ignores the fact that they are not in competition for the same market.
Airbus is developing the A350, a newer version of the A330 with composite wings and the same highly efficient engines of the 7E7 to compete against the 7E7. The A350 will offer the same specs with other advantages that the 7E7 does not have: It shares a type rating with the A330, which means that airlines save money on pilot and crew traning, maintenance and parts.
This measn that all those airlines which now use the A330 can switch to the A350 with little retraining, which is a significant factor in purchasing decisions.
I think Boeing's managers are not sleeping well at the moment.
Wingspan the size of a football field.
Fuselage length the size of 2 blue whales.
Did anyone else notice that the tail fin is the length of 200 sticks of rhubarb placed end on end, and the landing gear struts are the thickness of 12 oranges !!
The passenger seats are padded to the thickness of 8 mice, and the luxurious carpet pile is the length of 12 ants.
And the range of the aircraft is as long as a really really long peice of string.
I love it !!
No. All Boeing whines about is the fact that Airbus gets financial aid from the European governments. As if they didn't their backs scratched by their own ruling bodies, be it on the municipal, state or federal level. The Made in America argument is only used by "market analysts" and people who don't like the fact that things can be manufactured for less money elsewhere.
I Wonder what Operating System the computers on the airbus use ? Is it an OS like linux or unix customised specifically for realtime use or is it windows ?
e cipes.blogspot.com
Just curious, because to navigate such a huge plane, you need the assistance of numerous computers.
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http://linuxhelp.blogspot.com
http://veg-r
Can't wait to see one of these bad boys sitting on the ramp.
Safety IS being considered, all the time. Airliners are stuffed with quadruple-redundant systems, and built from components that are checked and certified to standards so stringent that a single bolt can cost $ 10 (because every single one is X-rayed before use).
Airliners already are just about the safest mode of transport available.
A metric ton is 1000Kg. Just as there is a metric pound - which is 500g. So Pulp Fiction was wrong - we do know what a quartepounder is - but it would have to be 125g of meat in europe and not 113,5g as in the US.
So the real reason why there is no quaterpounder in europe is: It saves McD 11.5g of meat.
I had a very interesting class on sonic booms when I was at test pilot school in France too many years ago. The sonic boom comes down from the aircraft at an angle that depends on the Mach number. As it comes down from 50,000 - 60,000 ft where the Concorde cruised, the air temperature warms up, which increases the speed of sound. The gradual increase in the speed of sound causes the boom to refract, and its angle of descent slowly shallows out. Under "standard" atmospheric conditions, Concorde's sonic boom in cruise would supposedly shallow out to where it was going level with the earth's surface, then refract so it was going upwards. It would go way up into the upper atmosphere, where the air temperature profile goes all wonky - the air temperature increases with altitude at high altitude. The boom would refract so that it was coming down hill again, but steeper this time. This secondary boom would hit the ground, but it had travelled so far that it was very weak.
A few years after test pilot school I was home visiting my folks in southern Nova Scotia. I was outside working with my Dad, when I noticed that he kept checking his watch. I asked him why he was worried about the time, and he said he was waiting for Concorde. He said that every day at about the same time he would hear a faint noise that he believed had something to do with Concorde. Sure enough, there was a very faint "boom". I wouldn't have noticed it if he hadn't mentioned it. I checked the BA and AF schedules, and the time that he always heard the boom was compatible with one of the flights.
So, if the atmosphere was always nice enough to follow the profile of the International Standard Atmosphere, and no one live on higher ground where the first sonic boom could hit, the Concorde could have flown over land with no problems. But, the atmosphere's temperature profile is often fairly non-standard, and some people live on the sides of mountains. Oh well.
Kevin Horton
hop in! "but sir.." "i said 'hop in'..."
I know that Denver International Airport (the largest airport in terms of area (can hold atlanta AND DFW) and most runways; 6) was built to handle an aircraft 50% bigger than the A380. My understanding is that all new runways at other US airports are now built to these standards (but hopefully without Webb as financial guy).
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.