A380 Hot and High

[ARINC]

http://www.flightinternational.com/Articles/2006/01/12/Navigation/179/204034/A380+arrives+in+Colombia+ahead+of+hot+and+high+tests.html
Interesting article about the forthcoming tests at La Paz.
A few questions to the TP's here
1. Will the tests will be carried out at reperesentative weights or do they simply interpolate the results to give these figures ?
It would seem a commonsense approach to put a couple of hundred tonnes on board to see whether or not it really will take off from 13,000ft AMSL.
2. If they do actually load the aircraft..what would they use..... Lama's ?
3. Will the tests have to be repeated for the GP 7270 engine variants ?
I'm currently working on the MSN002 at Hamburg, and we batted about the answers to some of these questions over a beer with no consensus. :confused:

[barit1]

Speaking from prior programs, a few decades ago:

Yes, they will actually run whatever worst-case (field pressure altitude, OAT, TOGW...) they can achieve, but they'll approach that case in conservative steps.

Loading is via water tanks distributed thru the cabin. They probably have dump valves.

They'll be comparing measured performance for each takeoff to their computer model. At some point they'll update the computer to reflect real data, and the AFM performance curves will flow from that.

And the GP7270 etc. points will be reflown - although not as many data points should be required 2nd time around.

As I said - this is the historical routine. There are probably some refinements today. :8