They sandwiched the news on page 14, with 3/4 the width and the whole length taken up by an ad for Currys, and a full-page nissan ad on page 15.

But they then go and use a stock image of a Beluga silouetted against the sun with the caption "TAKE- OFF: Airbus A380 yesterday" I'm disappointed. :ugh: :ugh:

As for the Irish Independent, that has to be the best I've seen so far. spectators in foreground, hands and baseball hats in air, then the Airbus with the chaseplane alongside. Fantastic.

It's true. The new runway is 2 miles long and is "potentially" the only airport outside London which could take the A380 just now.

panda-k-bear - wonder how interesting it would be to have a mystery flight on a A380. Could you imagine having probably the whole population of a small village on a plane just turn up to the airport get on the plane and set course for an equally out of the way place. Maybe the A380 can become part of the new upwardly mobile trailer park crowd. Obviously Airbus haven't thought about that new possible market boom.

maybe so but...........
 

the runway may be long enough, but (and i dont wish to deride the new robin hood enterprise) does it have the infrastructure to deal with the aircraft once it has left the runway and approaches the terminal - yes i know its 18 months away yet but im just adding a bit of food for thought.


TFC

I don't think that was the point they were making. I doubt highly that the A380 will land anywhere else except Heathrow, Gatwick and possibly Manchester in the next 10 years.

Don't believe everything you see or hear on the BBC.....

Prestwick as well, surely, as it can handle the Antonov 225 which is significantly bigger than the 380

Prestwick couldn't handle that volume of passengers.

Especially as BBC Radio reported last night that "The Boeing A380 flew for the first time today blah blah"......

On the first A380's there will "only" 555 pax I believe?

Once I landed NRT together with 4 other 747's, immigration was hell (1,5 hour).

The undercarriage retraction is on last nights Toulouse TV news at http://www.m6.fr/html/info/player/frame_soir.htm

Its only 2 secs long!!

Well done to all involved in the A380 development and test flight yesterday - a magnificent achievement. You are welcome to make a low approach at London City/Biggin Hill anytime!

It seems, PPRuNe Pop, ironic that you have started another A380 thread yourself - whoops!!!!:{ :ok:

EDIT:Ho Ho Ho, Tinpot. I've given you the benefit of the doubt on your reading skills and put your witty retort here.

To Tinpot and anyone else who cannot read - I'm in a 'Dalek' mood (UK TV theme) and ANY other new threads on the first flight will be RUTHLESSLY EXTERMINATED so all your wit and repartee will go to waste! :{

Where will it land?

Elaborating on McAero's posting, when the A380 enters commercial service with Singapore Airlines the most travelled route will be the SIN-KUL Shuttle, about 240 nm's and 50 minutes, at 30 pounds sterling return this is going to be one very popular route. Singapore used the Shuttle to get their crews up to speed on the A345.

My first flight in the Boeing 747 was Geneva to Zurich, December 1970, and a bargain at SFR100 return.

The sooner this 'plane gets commercial the better, last weekend I was waitlisted in Biz for KUL-LHR, both directions, and I never got above 7 on the list, and I had booked 2 weeks earlier. Mind you Malaysian know how to look after you back in economy.

Is it possible that it may have similar runway performance to the 747, despite the obvious size and weight factors?

I seem to remember reading that Airbus were claiming similar takeoff performance on a 'typically' loaded aircraft, but I'm damned if I can remember where this was written. It could of course have been marketing exuberance.

If that is the case that's one half of the hypothetical question answered. That being said I'm sure there's alot of infrastructure associated with an aircraft this size and that will probably be the biggest obstacle.

I'm curious to see how well it stops. There must be some fearsome energy being transferred to those brakes, even with the spoilers and 2 reversers working.

Retracting Gear
 

Here is a vid of the 380 retracting its gear yesterday while in-flight.

Its quite spectacular to watch.

http://www.airbus.com/A380/seeing/indexminisite.aspx

Go to enter
Then on the left for Videos
and look to the second from the left called A380 in flight under the title A380 Maiden Flight

Enjoy

Jay

Lovely video Swedish Steve
 

Bu99er the A380, Miss France in Playboy shocker at 9:35 on your video - cheers for that!!!

back to the thread

The comment about Robin Hood being able to take this plane is surely relevant to overall air safety. This plane with so many passengers is going to have to land on occasion for medical emergencies. In the immediate future there are not going to be many opportunities for that runway length. The fact the airport cannot efficiently cope with regular visits does not detract from the usefulness of “any port in a storm”. The Far East routes will presumably have to investigate where they can put down in a hurry.

Main_Tenant

the main issue with 380 is not runway length but taxiway width and wing overhang. Obviously Robin Hood were able to design in A380 from the start where older airports have to adapt.

As for diversions: remember one engine out of four is a lot easier to choose diversion than one engine out of two, and makes losing an engine on takeoff easier to manage! A short ferry flight to origin/mx base or to destination will reduce TOW well below the usual requirements. 777s have been popping into tight fields too - people manage to sort them!

(edited for clarity)

Yes, very impressive -although I can't say the same for the BBC coverage of the flight which gave about the same airtime allocated for the flight to some sweater wearer from Friends of the Earth spouting dubious statistics about greenhouse gasses.

Sky News had a dual feed right up until the A380 turned onto the runway, which had one pane showing Michael Howard sitting in an aircraft window seat, and the other pane showing the Airbus taxiing, which led to a few confused looks at work from passers by.