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Flying the Airbus A380

Posted by Zonk on from the everything-should-come-with-a-bar dept.

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.'"

2 of 281 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Is this even practical? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 3, Interesting

    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? No. See the demise of Concorde, modern aircraft as a general rule all travel as close to the sound barrier as is feasible with a safety margin (typically 0.8 - 0.9 of the speed of sound), faster is just vastly more inefficient.

    Wouldn't the fact that its a bigger plane mean that there are more things that can go wrong with it? Not really, the two (onboard) critical failure paths are still there and not significantly more complex - most likely cause of failure pilot error and secondly failure of the engine / engine assembly.

    Though it would be interesting to see if they have managed to solve the problem that the 747 and other quad engine aircraft typically suffer from. Namely that catastrophic in-board engine failure on takeoff will dump shrapnel into the out-board engine, at which point you have an aircraft that has insufficient thrust to stay in the air and cannot dump fuel fast enough to lower the weight to a safe landing weight.

  2. Did anyone see the "Landing Anomoly" on CNN (LAX)? by alien-alien · · Score: 4, Interesting

    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).

    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=/v ideo/business/2007/03/19/vo.ca.airbus.landing.cnn