rct

Congratulations Airbus. What a phenomenal aircraft!

yakker

Fan-bloody-tastic.

WELL DONE to ALL involved in this brilliant aircraft.

A-FLOOR

Terrific! Congratulations to everyone involved!

Watched it while playing the Crimson Tide sountrack at full volume

catchup

@747focal

Take some Coors or Michelob

Regards

Chocks Away

... see you all in 4 hours I believe, when it's time to land...

Ultralights

its not over yet, it still has to land!

brockenspectre

Congratulations to all involved!!!PS any pics yet anyone? I can't get to a TV or see video on my work puter!

Transition Layer

Go you good thing!!!!!!!

Have a look how many people are currently browsing the R&N forums!!!! Whoa!

TL

aaaaa

Apparently it may land after an hour and not the four hours as has been mentioned.

Absolutely fantastic

AA

Night Watch

Hope the rest of the test phase goes well, so my company will pull there finger out and order the beast!

Well done Airbus!

slice

AFAIK the landing gear is generally not retracted on the first few test flights. I imagine the logic being that if the U/C is retracted and then has some sort of a problem and will not extend you then have a damaged (at best) aircraft that will throw your development schedule out by months. If you do as much of the flight testing as possible with gear out you get as much done before introducing the additional risk of undercarriage problems - risk management.

White Knight

Looked jolly good - come on yanks, get your runways ready

Mode7

AVeight don't talk c**p. it's 3:30 in the US now, as if Boeing are going to be up in a panic - get a life

A-FLOOR

Mode7: I would be surprised if they wouldn't be watching with us

Parapunter

Now I know. Well done Airbus, a little bit of history created today

seacue

Takeoff was 01:30 in Boeingland. 04:30 here on the US east coast.

Nice takeoff, but what else would one expect in these days of powerful simulation of every step along the way?

And a great deal of thanks to Rev Lovejoy who posted the link to the BBC live feed.

AVeight

Mode7

Firstly - Don't insult me. I don't take kindly to be talked to like that especially when I have been polite myself.

Secondly - If you think that Boeing Executives have not been watching it fly for the first time then you are the one talking cr@p!

cnsnz

aveight
well said

pumuckl

Some Pictures are here:

some pictures

p.

Irish Steve

According to the comments of one of the test pilots on Sky, ( great coverage) the plan is to fly for the first half hour at least with the gear and flaps down, and at that stage, they make a decision if it's go or no go for the remainder of the plan of the day. If it's go, then he suggested that's the point where things like flaps and gear will be retracted, but only when they are comfortable with the handling characteristics so far. Reason he gave is that if they have any sort of problem, the aircraft is already in landing configuration, so it's not such an issue to get it back on the ground again. Makes sense to me.

On a different subject, Sky active showed the take off a second time shortly after the real thing, and it was "interesting" to watch the wings start to fly before the gear left the ground, the amount of flex is amazing

Not quite the same as watching the test flights of the white dart, but still impressive non the less.

I wish it and everyone invovlved well