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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.'"
I think the wings on every plane do that. If they wouldn't, they would break.
Yes, I'm left. You have a problem with that?
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
seems as unreasonable as saying tht we shudn't have cities, cos there are too many ppl in there. A large enough city could as well be a target for a terrorist and result in similar casuality figures (same case with disasters). it's just economical to deploy something like this monster airbus (read *mass* transport).
"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.
What you say is completely wrong.
1. The required time for evacuating an aircraft is 90 seconds. They made it in 78. This is definitely not barely.
2. The volunteers represented the typical passenger mix (except from people using wheel chairs). This is required by the FAA/EASA.
3. Minor or moderate injuries are acceptable when evacuating a burning aircraft, better a broken arm then beeing burned.
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
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.
Ofcourse they're designed to do that. Here's the way they test 'em:
777 Wing Flex Test
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.
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...
But what about imbalance ? You could end with one side moreheavier than the other (latterally or longitudinally).
Well... I guess they just have to make sure Americans are evenly distributed inside the plane.
This is complete and utter bullshit. I saw the demonstration. The people taking part were average people, not especially fit people like you make it out to be. The FAA has -strict- control over the tests and the people participating in the A380 tests were the same kind of people who'd participate in any other test of any other aircraft. You'd have to be seriously ignorant to think that the FAA would allow anything else.
78 seconds is a good time. It's better than the 90 seconds that the FAA in all their strictness mandates.
If a complete seal of approval from the FAA isn't good enough for you, then why are you using FAA testing parameters to justify your argument that the aircraft is a "death trap"?
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.
Computer control can work quite smoothly, and the human brain is very, very far from perfect, but when shit meets fan (or a flock of geese meets engines #1 & #2), there is no current computing substitute for 3 pounds of meat trying to figure out how to land the thing.
When the posters fear their moderators, there is tyranny; when the moderators fears the posters, there is liberty.
when filled with Americans!
Try the super-sized veal burgers. I'm here all week.
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:
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
Well, that sounds nice, and maybe even sounds intuitive. However, is there really any evidence that a human can land a plane without engines any better than a computer can?
Not the issue.
The issue is machines are only as perfect as the humans that design, build, and program them. Did you know that right now, the software that controls all of the computerized system on every airplane you fly is operating with a series of documented, unpatched bugs? All of them have workarounds and none have been judged dangerous or the airplane would have been grounded. But there have been cases where software bugs have caused incidents and even accidents. There have been many more cases where design or manufacturing flaws in some other non-computerized airplane system has caused an incident or accident. It's the pilots job in those cases to take over and save lives.
One of the examples I can give you is United flight 232, which was caused by a manufacturing defect that led to the loss of all three hydraulic systems - something the airplane's designers thought would be impossible. It also happened while in a turn, locking the plane's ailerons in a turn position and almost causing the plane to nose over within the first 30 seconds. In such a case, no computer would even be able to diagnose the problem, let alone come up with an undocumented solution to controlling the airplane as the pilots did. In the end, because of the pilots' actions in figuring out how to get to an airport (and almost making a clean landing), 174 out of 285 people survived what would surely have been a nosedive into the ground under computer control.
Computers can only be programmed to anticipate problems that the software designers themselves have anticipated, and to use an airplane's systems in the way the software designers tell it to in advance. The problem is, mechanical or software problems that lead to an accident can never be anticipated - if they could have been, the plane wouldn't be flying. There was no procedure for what to do in the case of full hydraulic loss in a DC-10; the pilots made one up as they went along. A pilot's advantage is being able to use reason in diagnosing problems and coming up with solutions to those problems. Decision-making is what a pilot is paid to do. Computers don't make decisions; they follow instructions, and that only works when those instructions can actually be applied to any given situation.
It's probably worth noting what the auto-pilot does when there's a problem with the plane: it shuts itself off. That's what it's programmed to do.
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=/
Nah. You just need to make sure there are no Poles in the right half of the plane (Engineering inside joke. Sorry.).
Have gnu, will travel.
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