What was a A380 doing today (Thursday)
 

One of the A380s was plodding round, South of TLS, at medium level this Am (Thursday) for some considerable time with vapour of some sort streaming from the vicinity of number 4 engine.

Anybody here "in the know" able to tell me what was going on?

Sounds typical for airstart tests - intentionally shutting one down, and then restarting it under a variety of airspeed/altitude conditions.

Don't know about the A380 but this is what EADs did today:

OUCH

Think I will buy more

barit1
 

Airstarts could be a candidate though we saw the aircraft twice about twenty minutes apart and on both occasions it was trailing this continuous stream of vapour .. my first thought was fuel dumping but it was definitely coming from one side only (or does the 'bus do that?).

The 747 nearly broke Boeing. They survived, then dominated the civil aviation market for 40 years.

There is still everything to play for.

For nearly 40 years, betting the company has been called "The Sporty Game" - and McD-D lost that bet, as almost did Lockheed.

In fact, a 1982 book by that title ("The Sporty Game", by John Newhouse, ISBN 0-394-51446-5) is still a good read for the student of the airline business.

Probably testing the Chemtrail dispenser :)