A380 combi conversion underway
 

https://aeronewsglobal.com/lufthansa...go-conversion/

A potentially very interesting use for the A380 given the likely future flying environment, which will surely be focused on consolidating the few travelling pax to hub to hub routes. Keep upper deck for pax, main deck and lower decks for cargo. The whale may live to turn over a buck or two for its operators yet.

I seem to remember that LHT were at the forefront of the first VVIP A380 conversion. That went well.

This will undoubtedly go the same way.

Reportedly Airbus is designing similar mods for the 330 and 350. All change!

Very interesting indeed.

But why on earth would anyone invest in a dead horse?
I bet you could haul more pax and freight with two 330ies (pax + freighter) and the whole operation would even be cheaper.

Please let the whale die in convenient dignity with the excuse of Corona.

Knew you wouldn't stay quiet for long on this thread glofish:D

A380 combi conversion underway
 

The article - correctly - does not use the word "combi".

That could be said right now for the entire aerospace industry, especially the MAX..
The A380 might carry the same weight, but will be able to carry a lot more volume. Most package freighters are volume limited.

Unloading the top deck might be a bit of an issue.

I bet you some said the same about the DC10/MD11 at the time ..

Looks like it is just the same solution Airbus has devised for the 330/350 - i.e. PKCs secured to the cabin floor to save pilling boxes up on the seats (still requiring the hand loading of boxes)

Auxiliary freighters useful for the crisis (and retired soon after if I was a betting man)

A Combi is something else.

Hmmm, why did the shipping industry over the sea go to giant container ships? Could it be because it was cheaper to load/unload one ship instead of several at a time?

dock space is one reason.

Yes, a combi is something else. Very few have been operated in the U.S. as far as I know. There are a couple of civilian registered B-734 combis currently used to carry nukes and commandos for the Department of Energy. Alaska Airlines operated B-734 combis on its Milk Run route ANC-SEA until 2017.

FedEx and UPS each had 10 A380 freighters on order and millions were spent on airport facility upgrades at MEM and SDF before the orders were cancelled.

[QUOTE=Airbubba;10774551]Yes, a combi is something else. Very few have been operated in the U.S. as far as I know. There are a couple of civilian registered B-734 combis currently used to carry nukes and commandos for the Department of Energy. Alaska Airlines operated B-734 combis on its Milk Run route ANC-SEA until 2017.

Canadian North operates several 737 Combis according to their website. I think there are others as well but the airlines serving Northern Canada change a lot. Pretty common for Northern communities at one time.

There were some 727 combis made. Reeve Aleutian and Air Mike (Continental Micronesia) operated them I think.

And didn't Eastern and Braniff operate 727 QC's with interiors that could carry seats or pallets?

UPS operated five 727-100s with Rolls engines that had swappable cargo and pax interiors. The interiors were supposed to be usable on any of the five aircraft but, well, the holes didn't exactly line up. ;)

It would be very, very difficult to certify a combi to the current regulations - note that all the combi's reference above were certified decades ago. The current regulations for fire protection, passenger/freight segregation, etc. make a combi cert far harder than it used to be. Hard to meet for new production aircraft - probably close to impossible for retrofit of an existing aircraft.
The linked article is short on details, but it doesn't sound like they are talking major structural mods (side cargo door and strengthened floor) - rather it's simply provisioning for a package freighter with hand-loading of the cargo (as others have already been doing with other passenger aircraft). Something that could be readily undone when/if the passenger market comes back.
An A380 Package Freighter conversion will still be handicapped by the A380's low MZFW, capping the total payload at about 85 tons - considerably less than the 777F (~100 tons) with far higher operational costs. Further, I don't even want to think about what the turn time of a A380PF would be with the main deck cargo hand loaded :eek:. Probably a niche freighter aircraft at best.

UAL had either 20 or 25 of the 727-100QC (Quick Change) model. Pax seats on pallets or air freight tied down to pallets. The pallets with the passenger seats were stored in a big van like mobile unit.

PSU units folded up when cargo configured. Empty weight was somewhat higher than the standard -100s resulting in a slightly increased burn rate, but fuel was pretty cheap back in the lates 60's and early 70's. When you walked into the cabin you KNEW it was a QC as they were kind of beat-up. Standard freight cargo door on port side.

I remember one particular QC had to be significantly crossed trimmed to fly straight.

One of them crashed on takeoff from KORD (1968?) and was demolished. The 3 pilot crew was injured but all survived. Inadvertent selection of 2deg flaps vice 5deg for takeoff.

Eastern had 727QCs, but I'm not certain about Braniff.

KLM actually brough a 744 combi back from storage a few weeks ago.

Talking about the 380...is this really the end..??? :(

https://simpleflying.com/emirates-a380-is-over/

Sorry to say but the A380 may be on its way to meet Jesus. As TdRacer has said a few times why. That huge jet as cargo plane is untenable. Shame we seem to be losing all of the passenger four holers.

https://www.pprune.org/middle-east/6...tim-clark.html

Sir Tim probably now says the fool that ordered all those EK A380s should be shot! ;)

Quote:

---

Emirates Airline President Tim Clark: The A380 “defies gravity” in its success story

---

https://www.airbus.com/newsroom/news...ess-story.html

My best educated guess they are doing the same “conversion” which is already done for A320 and A330 family - removal of seats and using the floor space for cargo to be secured by cargo nets attached to the seat rails. There are many limitations coming with it like accessibility in flight for inspection and firefighting. Also the floor load limits remain the same as pax which is a far cry from real freighter. It can only work for medical masks transportation which are in a high demand right now ex China. Typical ratio we see is 10 cubic meters to 1 ton, no idea how much they will get cubic wise but MZFW hardly would be a problem. It is a reasonably cheap temporary solution which is only feasible during the current rush, however the STC is reasonably cheap and the only mod cost is seats removal. I must admit the upper deck loading of A380 might be a problem - it is all about manual labor and access.

Also think so !

Bear in mind that Cargo has two important details. One is weight. The other is volume.

The year was 2010, there was a oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, and here I go to Houston on completly packed 767 with floating barriers. You would not be able to fit anything else inside. The payload was some 30 tons. A light payload for a 76.

The ORD 727QC crash was United 9963 on March 21, 1968. It was the classic 'ignore the takeoff warning horn' mishap which sadly would be repeated several times in the years to follow.

See: https://www.tailstrike.com/210368.htm

Already been done by Malaysian - suspect all this talk about A380 freighters is only relevant to the current need for PPE.

MASKargo A380 in cargo-only flight ‘first’

A vessel with twice the capacity doesn't need twice the crew, or twice the fuel.

Pity that the operating cost on the A380 is 3 X that of the B777. USD 27 500 vs USD 9000.

Really ? I have difficulty believe in 3 times . You have a source ?

It’s not 3 times, at least if you believe this apparently detailed analysis. Just giving it a quick gander shows maybe 30% but this is all based on cost per pax/mile. Not sure how to extrapolate that to cargo, conversion costs, etc.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/scienc...00936119301244

What i read from this document is that using two smaller planes compared to one bigger one, the cost is about 40-50% higher.

For instance: Long haul, standard seat arrangement, 450 pax,
A380: roughly 13,5ct/n mile-pax
B767-300 (@225 pax): roughly 12ct/n mile-pax
So it's 13,5c compared to 24ct. <------ Edit: wrong!!!

Please correct me if i am wrong...

Edit: yes, i was wrong. shouldn't multiply by two as cost is 'per pax'.

It is per pax, so you should not multiply it by 2. So per pax km the 767-300 is cheaper. So two 767's would be ~10% more cost efficient.
What isn't in this equation is the availability of slots. So can you operate two flights?
Also and for freight, the A380 can probably offer a lot more volume. So for low density freight, per m3 km, the A380 might still be more efficient.

Is the 12c per km inclusive of nav charges, landing fees, parking, etc?

All of those are related to maximum take off weight (MTOW), so they generally scale with size. Landing fees often have a minimum MTOW threshold at large airports. Nav charges in Europe use the square root of the MTOW.

So basically, the A380 will generally only have a very small advantage in these costs.

Yes, of course, thank you. Sorry for this.

Which is why many of the EK 380s have an MTOW of 510 tonnes and not the higher 569 or 575 tonne limit...

Any one with pictures of the conversions?

Following is a goto to an article on possible freighter:

A380 Freighter Might Be More Trouble Than It’s Worth For COVID-19 Air Cargo

https://www.forbes.com/sites/willhor.../#4bc3722f75df