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Flying the Airbus A380
FloatsomNJetsom writes "So the largest passenger airplane in the world actually is pretty large inside — Popular Mechanics has a great article and video from their test flight on the brand new double-decker Airbus A380. This includes footage of takeoff, interviews with the pilot and test engineer, a rundown on the bar, the two staircases, and an attempt to walk down a crowded aisle from one end of the plane to the other without having to say 'excuse me.'"
Just wait until the first air disaster, with numbers like "six hundred dead...".
I seem to recall there is also another jet in the works that will take either 900 or 1,200 passenegers. Just wait until one of those crashes on take off and you've got over a thousand dead in one swoop. Not to mention, a terrorists wet dream! Why bother shooting it into a building when you can take just the airplane itself out and wipe out enough numbers to make the average pansy cry and the average cable news programmer wet himself in excitement.
The only snag with using these huge Airbuses, is that they are too large for many of the gates.
Either you have to build more spread-out gates, or you park the plane in the middle of the tarmac and drive a bus to it.
Either way you have to spend ages and go miles to actually get to the plane.
At Heathrow it's bad enough with small planes, you spend 45 minutes getting to the gate...
When your gate is an extra-wide one...
I can just imagine: Your flight at Gate Q587, leaves in 1 hour, you've checked in and you're at the departure lounge. Start running.
There is no psychiatrist in the world like a puppy licking your face - Ben Williams
Did anyone else see the wings flex at landing, in the beginning of the video? I've never seen anything like that. Seems reasonable that you'd have to let them flex, though.
Apparently, many airports are planning to use 3 jetway bridges for simultaneous boarding on both decks of the A380
v an_harkirat.pdf
This paper discusses A380 boarding efficiency:
http://www.math.washington.edu/~morrow/mcm/alex_e
"It took a mere 16 seconds for the largest airplane in the world to lift off runway 4L at JFK International Airport."
Well, no duh. 62% of available seating empty, less-than-average hand luggage, next-to-no checked luggage, no freight, and only enough fuel for a two hour flight plus margins.
Of course, it makes it sound great in the press, but it's hardly an indicator of the performance of the aircraft out here in the real world.
I was expecting it to fly itself!
As it was on the first 747... The spacing on these showroom models is setup to show them off. Once the airlines start buying the real models, the spacing will be set back to the "stack em in like cordwood" norm to make as much money as possible off each airframe.
Democracy is a sheep and two wolves deciding what to have for lunch. Freedom is a well armed sheep contesting the issue
With the aviation industry the way it is are planes like this even necessary? Wouldn't speed be the most important factor when designing airplanes?
What percent of the time could plane companies actually fill an entire plane this big?
Wouldn't the fact that its a bigger plane mean that there are more things that can go wrong with it?
What kinda damage would this make if you crash it into a building?
It seems to me that building planes like this would be like buying new hardware to make your applications run better when it's the code that needs optimization. The only place I see in the market for big planes is the moving of highly profitable, degradeable goods. But I'm no part of the industry so I'm just talking out of my ass.
From an article in The Economist:
I haven't taken a plane for 3 or 4 years now, mainly because I'm something of a self-righteous treehugger. Then again I just can't help being awed and fascinated and inspired by this one.
For a country that prides itself on making everything bigger, there sure is a lot of not-invented-here antipathy and patriotic vitriol against the first major upsizing of passenger airplanes in a long time.
Did he say his name is Ben Shirt-off?
I thought the article was about 'flying 380', and not about being a passenger. In fact, this article (video) does not even deal with being a passenger.
My first thought when I saw the headline was: "Oh, I wonder if this is going to be a thread full of 'patriots' all bashing the Airbus".
And guess what...?
No sig today...
The total weight will naturally not go above the total capacity of the plane. So there will be as much row and aisle as they can pack them in, and still set off.
But what about imbalance ? You could end with one side moreheavier than the other (latterally or longitudinally).
This is where most good check in programs are linked to a little application called "Weight and balance". The seat repartition does not follow random rule. If the system see that this would put the plane out of balance it force the seating on other part of the plane, and in certain case refuse additional seat assignement on imbalanced position.
In other word total engine power (constructor specs) give the maximum weight acceptable, then W&B will make the repartition. Airline would not be authorized to fly if they did go outside those parameter, and even if they somehow did it secretly, at the first accident (minor or not) would probably lose their licence to land in many country (EU,North America for example).
C. Sagan : A demon haunted world:
http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0345409469/
visit randi.org
Ummm...get a window seat in *any* 'plane and you'll see the wings flexing when it trundles along the runway, when it takes off, when you hit turbulance, etc.
PS: Yes - even the ones made by Boeing!
No sig today...
See what Europe can do while cooperating!
You mean, like, oh, I dunno, pass a constitution? Or maybe choose a city for the parliament to sit?
>So the largest passenger airplane in the world actually is pretty large inside
Who'd of thunk it?
Where is the "patriotic vitriol" here? So far, the comments I've seen rightly point out the logistical difficulties with this aircraft, not any vitriol because it is an European airplane.
Unless you magically figured out the commenters' nationalities, I think you are way too uptight and sensitive about this. You are seeing something that isn't there.
How can /. post about a video not playable by a Free software?
Or is there some Free player for such content?He was talking about Economy and science, not politics.
873 people in 79 seconds through 50% of available emergency exits.
And in near total darkness, just the emergency lighting.
Thats not a bad feat at all.
They did the test for the projected maximum seating arrangement
that may be ordered by some asian airlines.
With the european voluteers this was a tight fit
and you would never have been able to stuff
obese americans into that seating arrangement.
G!
MACC
- e
when filled with Americans!
Try the super-sized veal burgers. I'm here all week.
Fuck up royally by doing something as stupid as not standardizing software on their great big engineering project, thereby getting the great majority of their business orders for the new 380 cancelled? Oh yeah, real smart.
The A380 is probably going to be a financial disaster. The number of planes that Airbus needs to sell to break even just keeps going up and up--I believe it is now around 420. When UPS cancelled their order of the freighter model, the total number of orders for the A380 freight dropped to zero, meaning that more passenger models must be sold to recoup the loss... but that isn't going to happen for at least another year, meanwhile the passenger airlines need to increase their capacity now and so they making up the gap with other aircraft...
The Adam Smith institute said it best:
Anyone else think Slashdot needs an aeronautics or aerospace news category for all these A380, UAV, F-22 articles?
Bug report #213571.
Description : Airbus 380 went inverted and then went into a tailspin when flying at 32,768 feet. Airbus crashed.
Comments ---
Code looks correct. Please attempt to recreate and describe precisely the process by which the issue was recreated.
If the problem does not happen repeatedly this is an incident and not a bug.
Bug log closed.
Glonoinha the MebiByte Slayer
people are willing to sit more cramped in order to save a few bucks.
Stop the brainwash
You are correct about the whole project being a financial disaster, and those who will profit are airline companies which ordered A380 planes (they are going to get huge penalty payments). Yes, A380 couldn't be done in time. They even managed to make a good (albeit ugly) design and do R&D very well, except for one "minor" detail: the wiring. Yes, this is why the plane is 2 years late.
Well at least they can be satisfied that they took some market share from Boeing's big models.
This happens when politicians and non-expert officials decide to build a plane and even try to set a time limit. The process of doing something of this magnitude always ends up being much slowr than anticipated because of unnecessary overhead of (mis)decisions, inefficency of synchronisation and coordination of various R&D teams/collaborations and overdesign (but also neglecting) of many components. It just happens when you throw in a large number of people to work on same thing. Somehow Americans have a much better sense how to make this, cold war era was a great lesson on how to improve efficiency in large projects.
...why your argument is so foolish.
Blar.
My uncle just retired as a commercial pilot. I asked him about the bending wings once, and he told me that one of the standard certification tests done by the FAA on new aircraft is to basically twist the wings until they break. He told me that sometimes the wings bend to a full 90 degrees before that happens.
An unjust law is no law at all. - St. Augustine
It's the itinerary. The worst thing about travel are complex itineraries with delays and missed connections. A six or eight hour transoceanic flight is nothing if you don't have a immense fat guy next to you and you have a couple of books to read. It's the transcontinental itineraries that can get brutally long, if you are going to or from a second or third tier city and are flying cheap.
The longest itinerary I ever had was from Boston to a small town in northen Chile. The last leg of that itinerary was on a fish spotting plane that landed in a remote desert airstrip. Overall it was just over 24 hours, not counting the 70km drive over rutted dirt roads bouncing around in the bed of a pickup truck with my luggage. It wasn't a bad trip at all. On the other hand I once had my boss book me on an itinerary where I had to drive 100 miles to board at Manchester NH, then change in Newark and St Pault to arrive at Sacramento. The air travel part was over nineteen hourse but it was really, really cheap (I tendered my resignation after that). That was immeasurably worse than taking 24 hours to go half way arond the world.
The greatest problem of the business traveller is not cramped planes. It's connections. What we should worry about is the impact of a plane like this on the availability of absurdly crappy but absurdly cheap itineraries. In an era of intense price competition and financially shaky airlines, it might open up new possibilities for cutting costs.
You don't build a complete mesh of point to point flights between cities with a plane like this. You carry people on major backbone routes between hub cities, and shuffle them onto smaller planes at either end. So maybe if you are flying from Boston to San Francisco, it becomes much cheaper to fly to NYC take the super plane to Denver or Salt Lake, and then take a third plane to San Francisco. The class of second tier cities becomes a lot broader, and if you are flying from a smallish city to a smallish city, you may get sucked into flying between a pair of hubs nowhere near your home or destination.
If you are making connections off of a flight on one of these you are going to be dumped into an immensely crowded terminal with almost a thousand other passengers. True, they can have to get people off of these within a certain time to meet FAA regulations. But then you are on your own. Better use the toilet before you land.
No, I'm not excited about massive planes like this. I am much more excited about the Boeing 787 which promises to be comfortable, quiet and efficent. Heck, a plane that is a bit more mechanically reliable would be a godsend all around.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.
In some flight deck photos, there appears to be what looks like a normal PC running (gah!) Microsoft Windows built into the flight deck, complete with a full AT-style keyboard that can be pulled out. It's to the left of the captain, and the first officer has one also, to his right.
:-) (The proper flight simulator, the thing they train the crew in).
Now I wonder if anyone has run MS Flight Simulator yet on the flight deck PC of the A380? Or in an attempt at recursion, I wonder if anyone has run MS Flight Simulator on the flight deck PC of the Airbus A380 flight simulator
Oolite: Elite-like game. For Mac, Linux and Windows
You talk as if the economy and politics have nothing to do with each other, but that is not true. We are mired in economic sclerosis because no European company is free from the greedy, interfering tendrils of the organs (can I say organs on this web site?) of the European Union. Imagine a picture of prehistoric creatures trapped in a tar pit, slowly but inexorably sinking until they suffocate, only the creatures are businesses and the tar is miles and miles and miles of red tape.
European Union as greedy interfering tendril of the organs? I think that you really don't understand what European Union does and what it has achieved. Currently we have an common European economic area that runs with common rules and standards that are same from country to country. We have Euro as a currency in most of the European Union countries making internal and international trade more balanced and safe. We have European Union Commission that negotiates as an unified front with countries such as USA, China, Japan, Russia and etc.. making sure Europe and European companies are treated fairly and rules of international trade are fair for Europe. What European Union does is to enable common European marketplace where individuals and companies are in the same playing field regardless on their country of origin.
Also to make a note, in Europe, industry and companies have been the driving force of European unification. National, European wide and International companies have for a long seen the need to have for unified Europe. If you go in any European Union member country and look for people who want more unified Europe and who see Euro as an currency beneficial to them you will notice that these people are more likely entrepreneurs and managers of companies engaged to European and international business. If you wonder what is the rational for this, the rational is very easy explain: with European Union there are only one set of rules and standards instead of 27 making it easier for business to concentrate on their core functions and spend less on dealing with bureaucracy.
All in all, European Union does the same job as US Federal Government, or Chinese, Russian, and Indian central governments. In this today's world where political and economic power is more and more concentrated to big or super blocks, small individual countries don't have the resources and power to match this power blocks. Only by uniting together European nations can succeed and make sure that the future still includes prosperous and well-being Europe.
Survey research tool for commercial and scientific use
If you read the forums on airliners.net, you find a *lot* of anti-airbus sentiment and blind pro-boeing supporters. There are a lot of legitimate grievances against the A380 and airbus. But I still think the A380 is a marvelous airplane. There's nothing wrong with a group of countries deciding they want to build a new airplane and deciding it is worth tax dollars. Even Boeing benefits from the US government's support.
One of the most common complaints about the Airbus seems be that it's an ugly bird. Everyone has their own sense of beauty. The A380 has grace and style of its own. Besides, although passengers might say to themselves as they board, "that's ungly bird," they are still going to get on and fly. I'm looking forward to flying the A380 because of the increased interior comfort (I hope -- we'll see) in cattle class, the increased cabin pressure, and the much reduced interior noise. Boeing's next planes will also follow suit. It's all good.
One other note on KLM.. I found their in flight service to be excellent on all legs of my trip. Their cityhopper transfer in Amsterdam is a pain in the butt though. Anytime you have to ride a bus to get to your plane just sucks.
waiting for ad.doubleclick.net
Did anyone else notice the CNN video that showed the US LAX arrival earlier this week. The mains touched down and the plane aircraft slewed to the right requiring immediate (and large) correction - watch the rudder deflection. Looked like a problem with uneven braking. Both mains touched down twice, the second touch was followed by the slew. On final touchdown the left main touched fractionally first followed by the right main followed by the nosewheel. The correction was needed between the right-main touch and the nosewheel. It did not seem to be crosswind related, though that's a little difficult to tell (have to use wheel smoke etc. which is tough to gauge).
v ideo/business/2007/03/19/vo.ca.airbus.landing.cnn
Don't know if the automated systems or the pilot made the correction but with that large an aircraft there's very little room for error.
http://www.cnn.com/video/player/player.html?url=/
When UPS cancelled their order of the freighter model, the total number of orders for the A380 freight dropped to zero, meaning that more passenger models must be sold to recoup the loss...
This also means that Airbus can suspend any additional development concerning freighter models, which will be in itself an economy measure on the program. Instead, it can concentrate on delivering its current clients for the passenger version.
Since the problem for now with the A380 is producing them as fast as possible, to fill up the current orders, it is not really time to worry about future sales. When you have sold all your production for the next 5 years, and you have a hard time meeting the deadlines, you can understand that your clients don't really wish to commit to buy new models until the situation has settled down.
European Union as greedy interfering tendril of the organs? I think that you really don't understand what European Union does and what it has achieved.
i think you actually missed the parent's point! You go on to describe exactly what parent meant! All governments act the same way, and as time goes on they grow, the areas where they interfere grow, and you have greedy interfering tendrils all over the place! I would describe the US government in the exact same way.
I'm not an EUian, so I won't claim firsthand knowledge of the impressions you relay, but from what I've read online--on BBC and other sites, EU-satisfaction is not horribly high, and Euro satisfaction even less so.
I read a very humorous BBC article the other day on this very topic (specifically how many Brits feel the EU is, well, greedy and interfering)--I can't find the link now, but I'll try to dig it up, it was amusing at the very least.
Are you out of your fucking mind? The EU has nowhere near the cohesion of the other federal governments you've cited. At best it's a loose confederation of states.
That paper about boarding efficiency suggests the WilMA (Windows/Inside, Middle, Aisle) order of boarding as the most efficient.
While it may be the most theoretically efficient, I doubt that families/small groups (who theoretically will sit in the same row) will want to split up and board separately for the benefit of the theoretical ideal.
- RG>
Hey pal, this isn't a pleasantforest, so don't waste my time with pleasantries!
Holy crap, MOD PARENT UP! The plane was on the verge of spinning out.
We waited on the taxiway in Paris (CDG) while be burned off enough fuel to take off. We were over weight. The even went to far as to "count the kids". Children are plugged into the weight calculations at a lesser value than adults. And it did take a long roll to get airborn. Paris to Sfran , 11 hours.
Combine them! crash the plane into a city! Oh, wait a second.....
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
What you and the parent have completely missed is that government interference has been decreased by the actions of European Union and the development of common European market. Let me educate you from the past: in past individual European governments saw companies and industries as national strategic assets and tools for government control both in inside the country and also in international scene. What this meant was that some industries where completely protected by formation of national monopoly to an individual company or government agency, or in other cases foreign ownership was totally denied or sanctioned to a very small percentage, or in some cases tolls and import taxes were put on place to protect countries companies, or countries standards and laws were written so that it would be near impossible for companies from other countries to fulfill them, or it straightly denied to buy some foreign companies. So the difference with today's situation were we have one European market with one set of rules compared to past when we had 27 different markets with different rules, is very drastic.
Lets make in example of this. I'm from Finland and Finland is nation of five million inhabitants. I have a software company, for my company the Finnish market is very small and for my company to grow I need bigger markets. In past it would have been very difficult to set up foreign operations, but because European Union has established common European market, I can sell my software products and services in whole European Union area with almost 500 million inhabitants with out the need to set up subsidiaries in other countries, with out need to pay import taxes or tolls, with out need to customize my product to country specific standards. Also because Finland uses Euro as a currency, I can sell my products and services to other Euro countries with out currency risks. Also because European Union has mandated that all public projects in all member countries are open to public bidding by all companies regardless of their country of origin, so if in example German government organization would have public bidding race for a specific product or service, my company would be in an even playing field with other companies.
And lets make a better example in more smaller level. Because European Union, people are free to locate themselves freely in European Union area. I can travel freely in European Union area in countries belonging to Schengen treaty I don't even need passport when traveling. If traveling in Europe I happen to fell in love with some place, I can just start living there, I can buy a house, I can get a job i.e. There is nobody telling me that because I'm from Finland I can not stay in their country. What this has meant that if in some cause there isn't enough jobs in Finland, I can freely locate in example in Ireland, or if I marry somebody from other European Union country, she can come freely to Finland or I can move to her country. In past moving between European countries and especially moving from country to country was more harder and one needed to deal with bureaucracy, or in some cases it was not allowed. So because we have a thing called European Union, I'm more free to do and archive things in Europe.
To make a note is that when we talk about European Union, in many countries like in Britain and France, politicians like to blame European Union for all the problems they have in their countries. Also in Britain there are some powerful business men that have straightly dictated that their media companies are anti European Union. Of course problem with the European Union also is that it's very difficult for European Union citizens to understand what European Union does and how valuable the things are that it has achieved: i.e. no war in Europe, common markets, common currency, more and more power to negotiate with US, Russians, etc..
Survey research tool for commercial and scientific use
You don't know much about this stuff, do you? This is what a problem landing looks like:
2 3249,223248,223247,223246
http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.search?id=2
why no picture of the bathroom?
calling all destroyers
I don't think that had anything to do with breaks, I'm not a pilot, but my father is and usually you don't apply the breaks until ALL wheels are on the ground to help prevent just this sort of problem, and to prevent the front wheels from coming down too hard. This clearly happened well before the front wheels touched down. Having one set of tires touching down before the other set can cause enough drag to twist the plane some too, so that is a possibility. Not only that but on large planes the breaks are next to useless at high speeds, they use reverse thrust instead, which takes some time to engage.
While this is no where close to a "smooth landing", it was FAR from being out of the ordinary. Take a look at this video to see what the planes are really capable of. Search google for: "boeing crosswinds flight test" to find more of the same, those pilots are insane.
Open Source Time and Attendance, Job Costing a
These are the same comments that were made about the 747, and my father told me that they were also made about the 707. Yes, there will be some spectacular crashes with loads of deaths. But that will always happen. For instance, I knew the pilot of the American Airlines DC-10 plowing into Chicago. But it did not matter if he was on a crash with 283 or 2.82. He is just as dead.
If you want to be concerned, then be concerned about the increasing use of Windows in the Airbus Cockpit. Fortunately, the American FAA will not allow it for critical systems (not do-178B and even vista will not be). But airbus and probably the EU FAA (can not remember their acronym) would as well.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I don't think this deserves to be modded down to -1 Flamebait. It's interesting enough to be at least a +2 if not higher. And it's certainly at least as coherent as the reply that got modded up to +5. 90, 78, what?
One simple rule for its versus it's
Certainly not a "problem landing" and while the brakes are not usually applied until the nosewheel is grounded (else the nose comes down with a bang), the right-main wheels certainly looked like they were offering significant resistance. The nosewheel smoke does not indicate a significant crosswind or gust. I believe a gust would have had to be from starboard to port (camera side to far side) to make the aircraft slew to its right as such a gust would have pushed on the tail and pivoted the aircraft on its mains bringing the nose towards us. Does the profile of the aircraft make it more susceptible to gusts - I would have thought its mass would make it less so. The fact that we see anything at all, given the size of the aircraft, makes the event significant.
:-) )
If it was not a gust and not a braking issue it might indicate a landing geometry problem which would be significant.
While not a "problem landing" it would be nice to find out what the landing analysis was. What were the stresses on the gear during landing? Is there a problem with the automated landing system or was the pilot a little right-toe early? (Perhaps they *were* running the Microsoft Flight Simulator in "direct control mode"
Looked like a sudden gust of wind. Big deal.
I've seen lot of A380 footage - hell, one landed here in Vancouver last year, en route from Sydney back to Toulouse - and it looks and flys like any other airliner. Just a really really big one. They also did cold-weather testing in Iqaluit. Flew in, parked the plane overnight, went out in the morning to see if it would still start (it did). Brrr...
Airbus have guts. I hope they can pull it off.
...laura
But if I was I know that my air-penis envy would be enormous because the Euros would have such a big one, and I would be forced to make all sorts of ridiculous claims that my 787 air-penis's size was not important, and that I didn't feel emasculated because of it.
Giggle.
I couldn't give a fuck if you were chinese, mate. Your comments border on the absurd. Boeing fucked around for years with the sonic liner and other lunacy before finally coming up with the 787 as a stopgap, becuase they had no real vision for more than a fucking decade. Finally, they kicked out the bosses who were fucking around screwing the secretaries and the shareholders and got their act together. LO and behold, dumbass, the same thing has happened to Airbus, who have sacked the managers and are retrenching a whole bunch of people in order to get their act together. What is more, dumbfuck, Airbus restarted the whole A350 fiasco in order to be more competitive with the 787, very much like Boeing scrapped the whole sonic liner bullshit when no one was interested.
So, to recap, you fucking clown, it's not a case of my country versus your country nut company versus that company, each goimg through the normal cycle of business operation in that segment of industry.
Jeesus, people like you make me weep.
Overflow. If it's a signed short then 32768 + 1 = -1 :P
~= scwizard =~
Airports that are wanting to welcome the A380 are doing renovations to handle the aeroplane. The USA is generally lagging behind in its readiness, but accommodating the A380 is in many airports interests. Currently the A380 is flying to various destinations, so airports can check that are capable of handling the aeroplane, as well a general marketing tour. Just last week the A380 made visit to JFK. A few links on airport readiness:
t ion/read.main/1493607/e 653/n t/article.html?articleID=1187s _2002_March_6/ai_83557785
- http://www.airliners.net/discussions/general_avia
- http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/05333/614282.stm
- http://www.airport-technology.com/features/featur
- http://www.atwonline.com/channels/aircraftEquipme
- http://www.findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m0CWU/i
The extra problem that the aeroplane poses, on top of the plane itself, is dealing with the number of people arriving in the airport at any one time. Think gate waiting lounges and customs clearance.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
No matter. You can send family groups on together without seriously affecting the speed of boarding time. See "Robustness of Efficient Passenger Boarding in Airplanes" - http://www.vsp.tu-berlin.de/publications/airplane_ boarding/15nov04.pdf
Also note that seat by seat boarding strategies are the most effecient strategies by far - they are just impossible to implement.
The Airbus A380 is an impressive plane, and should be recognised as such, yet at the same time if you want a plane that just makes your jaws drop, you need to check out the Antonov 225, a truly impressive plane built by the Russians, capable of handling a payload of 250,000 kg (551,000 lb):
5
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antonov_An-225
On the Wikipedia page there is also a diagram comparing the size of the 747, A380 and AN-225 and the Spruce Bruce.
YouTube has some videos of the plane:
http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=an-22
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
"Software used to manage the design and manufacture of the 555-seat A380 at Airbus's Hamburg engineering center isn't fully compatible with that used at company headquarters in Toulouse, France, say current and former Airbus executives, including Charles Champion, who headed the A380 program until September. That's why hundreds of small changes to electrical wiring in the A380 snowballed into at least a year's delay in delivering the world's biggest passenger aircraft and $2.5 billion in lost profit."
Interesting point - but how do you explain that the other Airbus planes were quite successful?
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
Put some men on the moon and we'll let you sit at the big-boy table.
It's a good thing flying doesn't have a minimum intelligence requirement, or they probably wouldn't *let* you on the plane.
With the increased awareness of global warming, people like you are falling all over themselves trying to be extra-conscious of their CO2 emissions... but this is ridiculous.
There's no good reason to burn coal for power generation, there's no good reason to drive ten times the car you really need, there are large efficiency gains to be had in personal transport, and we should indeed address all of these issues.
But we're talking about airplanes here. Fuel efficiency matters inasmuch as airlines want to pay as little as possible per passenger, but CO2 isn't, and shouldn't be, a consideration at all. What percentage of the global carbon-based fuel usage goes to the aerospace industry? 1%? 3%? Is this where we should be focusing our efforts? There is no substitute for airplanes in long-distance travel, and there is no substitute for kerosene in airplanes. No other fuel has the required energy density, nuclear excepted of course. Even when oil costs $200/barrel, we'll still be using kerosene to move airplanes around because it's the *only* option.
Fossil fuel use is not an all-or-nothing deal: there is, and always will be, room for airplanes. If you don't want to fly because you really think that air travel is a luxury we can do without for the sake of the precious environment, just do us all a favor and try not to impose your craziness on the rest of us.
The person who wrote the above is CLEARLY a shill for Airbus!
Sorry, there was no crosswind.
Yes, it probably is a big deal - the rudder was travelling to the left stop and back very rapidly. This is probably close to the same action that brought down the American Airlines Airbus in NYC after 9/11...
Now Boeing needs to take a lesson from AMD and cut prices on the 747. All the development costs should have been paid off well before now, and they can squeeze AirBus in the jumbo passenger jet market.
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Shut up, Whiney Boeing Shill.
Lars T.
To the guy who modded me down from perfect to terrible Karma - Apple haters still suck
and the sheer scale of the thing pushes it further up the charts ...
REPORT ALL OBSCENE MESSAGES TO YOUR POTSMASTER
Actually the A380 rudder is revolutionary - it's very difficult to design rudders for large aircraft that are responsive and durable at the same time but the design of the A380 rudder is unique. If you look closely, you can see that it actually splits in the middle and the lower part is moving much faster than the upper. It has been discussed thoroughly and plenty of interesting articles have been posted on airdisaster.com (the server is down as I write this so I can't give you a direct link).
The AA Airbus that crashed was due to pilot error caused by improper training - I read airdisaster.com a lot and that accident was fairly unique in the sense that usually the most convenient cause for both airlines and manufacturers is "it was just one incompetent pilot" but in that case AA defended his actions much more than any airline usually does since they wanted to cover their training programme but as the investigation did reveal, they did indeed train their crews contrary to Airbus procedures. At first, the investigators were shifting between whether to blame Airbus or AA but then Airbus produced what was an internal memo from AA that one of AA's training captains had at first submitted to management but been ignored and then let Airbus have it too but unfortunately they didn't pay much attention to it either until it due to the accident became convenient. A quote I remember (almost verbatimely but you can find it on airdisaster.com) is what he had written to management "our simulators are training devices, not engineering devices" because he was very concerned about how they trained pilots to handle aircraft in unusual situations in the simulator even though they when doing so used it outside the flight envelope that it according to the specifications could simulate.
"The 747-8 is far lighter and far more efficient than the A380"
Bollocks. The A380 has an entirely new wing design, new composite material design, not to mention the newest engine tech going - making it proportionally way more lighter and efficient than the 747-800 - which, as the name heavily suggests, is just a modified version of a 1969 plane design.
As I've said before, the A380's biggest selling point is and will be that it can ship more people for less cash. That is why, when Airbus finally get their act together, they will be as common-place now as the 747 is now.
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Boeing did get involved with the American SST effort back in the late 1960's, although it was mostly under the U.S. Government-funded project to build a competitor to the Concorde. Serious efforts to break into this market have all but failed, and the expense for building these kinds of aircraft are so high that serious objections can be raised to if it is even something most companies should even bother with. Obviously Boeing is not spending any serious research money into the concept.
Added to this is the U.S. environmental lobbying groups that were also partially successful in killing the American SST program, including putting on so many restrictions on the location and flight profile of the Concorde and other SST planes that you could count on one hand how many U.S. airports even allowed the plane to land at all. Without the USA as a customer, it effectively killed the SST as a customer. The Concorde also has the problem that the New York-London route was essentially the limit to its flight distance. Going from London to Bombay (or other cities around the world) is essentially out of the picture as they are too far away for serious consideration, and would require a further design change to achieve such a flight range, at the cost of making the plane even more expensive to operate.
And if the enviromental groups were successful in the late 1960's to change opinion and perspective of this concept, these key issues they objected to haven't really be resolved. In addition, the environmental groups are also much better organized today than they were in the 1960's as well.... something to consider if you really wanted to make such a plane.
And to ultimately top off all of these problems with a new edition of the SST, there is going to be some serious competition against companies who are going to be doing sub-orbital flights that would simply blow away any advantages of SST options. Basically, a flight from London to Sydney might take nearly a full day on conventional air transportation (19 hours non-stop), an SST could cut that in half or slightly better to say about 8 hours, and a sub-orbital flight might be 3 hours. I'm not saying that the problems of sub-orbital flight are completely solved, but groups like Virgin Galactic and Scaled Composites certainly are making some significant progress in that area (not to mention other former X-Prize companies) that it is hardly an open field in trying to move in that direction. Basically, why would you spend billions of dollars in a SST system that will take nearly a decade to develop when Richard Branson will be able to fly you to the same destination much faster and for nearly the same price per passenger (as is projected by Virgin Galactic and others in the alt.space community)? Besides, the "cool" factor of being a passenger in an SST is very old fashioned compared to actually going up and into space.
Essentially, I see the window of oppotunity for a company building a cost-effective SST to essentially be closed, if it ever was economical to do in the first place. Certainly even the Concorde only broke-even on costs under a very imaginative and optimistic viewpoint.