A380 First Flight
 

The A380 has just got airborne on it's maiden flight. You can watch it's progress live on this link.
http://www.airbus.com/A380/Seeing/live/video/live.asx

Cheers Sid

I like the sight of any aircraft taking off and the A380 did look good on the news tonight although somewhat just like a larger 747.
But it is too big and too slow for mine. Not a bar on the superb Concorde. (R.I.P.)

Two pilots on the flight deck I presume but does anyone know how many cabin crew it will require especially with 800 pax!

hadagutful

Beancounters will say 800 divide by 36 = 22.22222 hosties !!
:p

21 is the number being bandied around QF at the moment.

Configured for all up, 550.

Jettlager

Range
 

How long will this puppy stay in the air and what will be its airspeed?

Strewth mate! Only an airbus could be THAT ugly!;)

Now that girl was meant to fly. It looks unwieldy on the ground, but great in the air - and what a grease on landing!!

Now Airbus has the most purposeful looking heavy lift aeroplane with the A380, Boeing has the most aesthetically pleasing with the 757 and Airbus still has the ugliest with the A319.

Thanks for the heads up Sid - I really enjoyed that immensely.

EWL

No Reverse though!
 

Notice from the vids ex airbus.com that the
A380 didn't use REV on the landing roll - suppose with all those wheels and brakes!

Interestingly A380 only has REV on No 2+3 not on outboard apparently due ingestion concerns due wingspan.

.....to the untrained eye, the six-man crew that stepped aboard the world's largest commercial passenger plane for the test flight did not exactly inspire confidence - they all wore parachutes.

A handrail had also been installed in the cockpit to help lead them to an escape door that could be blown open in case of an emergency.

More here news.com.au

I have to admit to being very biased towards Boeing, always have been and always will be.

That A380 looked fat and ugly to say the least.

Eastwest: any mug in any aircraft can achieve a smooth landing if you land as long down the runway as they seem to have done. They passed the touchdown zone ( 1000' to 2000' ) and were still airborne!! They were obviously making sure of a smooth arrival.

I for one hope the ugly duckling flops.

ACMS
I am intrigued to know why you hope it flops.

because it's an AIRBUS.

I have flown on them hundreds of times, from the A320 to the A346 and they are all a cheap piece of crap. Full stop.
If you want, comfort, reliability, good looks, and a solid performer in all respects buy BOEING.
The Airbus a/c in my large airline are terrible, the engineers hate them, the Pilots put up with all of their little problems and the pax hate them.
I have never been in a half decent landing in one either.

AIRBUS: built by a dummy, flown by a genius

BOEING: built by a genius, flown by a dummy

If that makes me a dummy, then so be it. :p

If it aint Boeing................

Well, I am not an Airbus lover either, but it sure did seem to want to fly. It could very well fly along the same priciples as a helicopter - it is so UGLY that the Earth repells it. :ok:

As I said in my post on this subject, it looks like a jet-powered Breguet 763 Deux-Ponts! Tres FUGLY!

Never looked it up - what is the base unit cost on these whales? Would it be cheaper for an airline to buy 2 B777's in lieu of one A380?

If it ain't Beoing, I ain't going, at least happily anyway!

When TAA and Airbus coined the phrase years ago for the A300, "Vive la differance", I wonder how profoundly prophetic they thought it may be?

Trogladite cretins, all of you!!! :ugh:

S'pose you still like manual throttle on take off too!!

Cretin from the cretaceous period sounds about right for yours truly.

I have to say that the A330 is the best looking airliner in the skies at the moment. It also looks great on the ground. I am still amazed at it's curvy lines when it taxis past me.

Airbus push the limits on technology and are continuously inovating. Boeing just push out the same thing even with the 777. I know alot of collegues who have flown both and say that they would never go back on the Boeing after they've had a spell in the Airbus.

Saying that, I am going on the 737 in the next few months but at least it's better than the noisy Fokker :ok:

what about from a PAX perspective? sure it flies well, (according to the paid test pilot) but imagine arriving at LAX on one of those, about 20 mins after 4 others have disembarked? imagine the chaos as 600 + pax jostle to find room in the overhead lockers?

Mon Kapitano...... the parachutes are definitely for pansies, which as we all know, all French are.

Wearing a parachute, as in WWI, may well reduce morale amongst the team and lead to premature "surrender" followed by costly abandonment of the aircraft. Better to make them ride it down like real men.

On the other hand, it may have something to do with the 1994 crash of an A330 aircraft during testing (engine-out go-arounds) which killed 7, including the Airbus chief test pilot. Parachutes would not have helped them but if they weren't in use beforehand, crashing a testbed would certainly be a good incentive to up the standards of safety a little further.

There is a saying in the industry........."if it looks great it'll fly great". Or something like that anyway:ok:

You must be kidding about the A330 looking nicer than a 777?????? Have you actually seen them side by side????????:p

All Airbuses look boxy, the cockpit windows are not curvy like the 777 and don't flow. The wing has too many horribly large flap tracks sticking down and a winglet to improve the performance (which the 777 doesn't need) The leading edge devices "moan" on retraction and look "stuck on" as an after thought.
The landing gear are rough and on the 340 it actually has 4 touchdowns per landing!! While taxing in an Airbus the whole thing shakes and squeeks along, the overhead bins look as if they are about to fall off.

Just today one A330 had an APU fail just as he was about to push back!! and another had a double FM failure at 12 miles just before the ILS! capture! yuk

The ground engineers like to start the APU on the bus 30 mins before push back just in case it wont work, so as to give them time to get ground air ready. Apparently it is very unreliable. This is strange as we have the same APU on the 777 and it is VERY RELIABLE. Must be that the APU doesn't like Airbus either :8

The Airbus is built on the cheap, they use thinner aluminium than Boeing and this causes more maintenance, they cannot simply sand back any corrosion and must replace the skin.

The A346 had to have some of the main spar removed to save weight so as to make "spec" incredible

The more my Airbus mates tell me what goes on the more I don't want to fly one.

The only thing they got right was the sidestick and table. A small win I guess.

Roll on the 787, now that will be a great machine.

I know 3 or 4 Captains that have flown both and whilst they think the Bus is fine they would love to be back on the Boeing for it's reliability and simplicity of operation. Life for them was much quieter before!!

ACMS, tough luck W:mad: R, it flew and looked beautiful and your bigoted attitude is not going to stop it!