Congratulations Airbus. What a phenomenal aircraft!
:ok:

Fan-bloody-tastic.

WELL DONE to ALL involved in this brilliant aircraft.

Terrific! Congratulations to everyone involved! :ok:

Watched it while playing the Crimson Tide sountrack at full volume :}

@747focal

Take some Coors or Michelob;) ;) ;)

Regards

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

its not over yet, it still has to land!

Go you good thing!!!!!!!

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

TL

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

Absolutely fantastic

AA

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

Well done Airbus! :ok:

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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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!

aveight
well said

Some Pictures are here:

some pictures

p. :D

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:D

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

Just seen it go (from the end of the runway in TLS). Impressive.

Well done Airbus, well done Rolls.

What time is it due down???

Great coverage on a dedicated Sky News Active channel. They showed non-stop views of the aircraft, nice shots from a chopper and NO commentary, with only a few localised mikes picking up chit chat from watching workers.
Be great if they do the same for the flypast and landing later.

Superb .... look forward to first flight on it or even seeing it

Awesome! It looked like an effortless take-off and I love the geometry of those wings.

Well done Airbus. Can't wait to see it land.

Start1

Rumour control predicting landing at 14.00 local.

Just looked at the comparison to the 747 on the CNN site.

It makes the 'jumbo's' wingspan look like a sparrow.

Well done airbus!! Those test pilots must have been wearing huge nappies!:D

A French TV channel has apparently given out the following information. (Times are local)



Flight time is 4h to 5h depending on success (could be much shorter if
problems). Hence following timings subject to change but

- 14h00 low pass over runway with go-around (if weather and aircraft
condition permits)

- 14h15 landing then taxi up and down the runway and taxiways on the
Airbus side of the airfield

- 14h45 press ceremony

- 16h15 aircraft towed back to the Abreuvoir .

First photo already up on Airliners.net

Available at :

http://www.airliners.net/open.file/825948/M
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/825948/M

Jordan

Tim Clark President of Emirates looks elated at the first flight of the A380 said they will be getting aircraft in November 2006 and passengers wont have to pay a premium to fly on it being so fuel efficient it will probably lower air fares on long haul routes.

Two more pics:

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,464234,00.jpg

http://www.spiegel.de/img/0,1020,464177,00.jpg


http://www.spiegel.de/wirtschaft/0,1...353643,00.html

(Sorry, text in german only)

Congratulations to all involved!


:ok:



(Edited by Heliport)

Gear's now up according to local media.

You can watch the first flight live on this web link
http://www.airbus.com/A380/Seeing/live/video/live.asx

Yup, gear's up. Telemetry/chase aircraft report no snags so far.
Landing 12:30-14:30 local (GMT+2)

In keeping with the philosophy of sports commentators, if it flies it's British, if it doesn't it's French.

A German friend of mine once told me that it was the French who made Concorde look beautiful, but it was the British that made it fly...

I knew we wouldn't have wait long.

A380 first flight photo

A380 first flight photo

Nice photos

JT

Well if the gear is up I was talking a load of crap then!!!:\

Well done to all involved.:ok: Shame the BBC could only credit the UK for making the wings.Maybe someone should have told them it had Rolls Royce engines on it.:ok:

All being well, fly-by 14.00 followed by landing at 14.15.