the antonov 225 mriya has a wing span of 88m which is larger than the A380 wingspan of 80m, the antonov 225 can land and taxi in most large international airports. there shouldn't be a problem with the A380's foot print or wing span.

Whats really funny is we are debating just what has been all over the news in the past year. Very few airports are ready to handle the A380 with some spending 100s of millions to get ready. A lot of airports will not be able to do that for some time.

As far as the A380 diverting being a rare occurance, just look at how many times 747s and A340s divert in the past year. Eventually it will happen and when it does it will effect every aircraft that is using that airport as an ETOPs alternate. :)

I need to put a bit more clarity on why i started this thread.
The A380 freighter is not a problem Fedex are buying and will provide the ground infrastructure, which is probably there already.
My worries are that no American airline has bought the passenger version and is hardly likely to in the near future, therefore the Americans have no national urgency to provide the ground infrastructure required for the aircraft.
If most flights into the USA are on 747, 340,777,330, 767, 757 etc. which will land and dock at a gate so passengers are disembarked in less than 20 minutes why should the American airports provide similar facilities for the A380 when it will only be used by airlines who are in opposition to American interests. If the A380 has to land, taxi to a stand, and offload by steps and busses meaning some passengers may take more than an hour to disembark, unless the costs of flying to America on the A380 is much less than on the other aircraft, why bother?

This is the point I was trying to make....

If America continues to be so bloody paranoid about persons getting through homeland security ("I only want to see Mickey Mouse") There will be no requirement for Supersize gets to go there, a couple of old 70s era jets should cope with the demand !!!

Irishguy
 

The Ant is a Red Herring.

First there's only a couple of them
Second theyre pure freight so dont interact with terminal gates
Third Airports can stop the traffic and make special arrangements to get the thing from the runway to stand on the rare occasions it arrives

The point about the A380 is that it has o fit into normal ops and theres the rub.

Sir George Cayley

Americans allways find a way to make things harder for the outsiders; Before it was the noise of the Concorde, now its the size of the 3-eighty.

I agree with that. If they're smart they will not spend what they don't have. Thankfuly the rest of the world is very much interested on the new machine.

Americans could make a commercial double deck version of the C-5 Galaxy, couldn't they? just change the engines, and they'll be in the game.

I was engaged in the planning of the Terminal 2 in Frankfurt. Already back in 1993, airport architects were obliged to deal with the future dimensions of the A380, which definitely requires larger gates and more space at the docking positions.

Now Frankfurt, one of the largest European hubs, is going to built a new Terminal 3 with 75 aircraft stands as well as new maintenance facilities that are explicitely dedicated to the A380 ...

http://www.fraport.com/cms/capacity_...3_and_a380.htm

Well said 16 Blades. Methinks 747focal has more than just a passing interest. Could it be he lives near Seattle?

Airbus is currently beating the pants off Boeing because they are producing aircraft that the airlines want - not what Boeing think the airlines should have.

Of course Airbus have factored in all the information. Do you honestly think they would press on with production if (a) the runways couldn't take the weight, (b) the airports couldn't handle the extra pax, (c) there were insufficient MDA's available to take the aircraft if it got into trouble?

Come on. Boeing. You've had a good run at it. Stop bitching. Now there is real competition and you find yourselves well behind the curve. Fight back with a better aircraft - and that isn't going to be the Dreamliner.

Xeque,

Maybe you should ask the guys closer to home why they pushed off their orders for 2 years. I'll give you a hint. Air France and Virgin are both taking their A380 orders 2 years later than originally asked for because of the limited places you can fly them to.......oh and also because she is a fat lady right now and Airbus is fastly applying the ATKINS diet to her in hopes of sending her down the isle in a wedding dress that fits. :E

Nothing like a transatlantic feud!

Since when was the A380 to compete with the 747, the A340 is already handling that one quite nicely, as is the A320 vs 737.

Have to hand it to Airbus, that'll be 2 A/C they build with more than 2 engines, how many such beasts do Boeing manufacture?

Concorde's success, I believe, was due to it's limited numbers, had every Tom, Dick & Septic had them then it would have failed.

Of course, to operate such an A/C takes money, something which Panam didn't have!

Smart people don't use 4 engines when they build aircraft. The 777 and A330 are living proof of that.

A340 competing with the 747? Are you daft? :confused:

That comment is either ironic or stupid, I can't decide!!

Well I suppose I could have said it better, but I think most airline bean counters will agree. A 4 engine aircraft will never cost you less than the same opertion of a 2 engine aircraft.

Safetywise, I undertand the advantages of 4 vs 2, but realistically out of all the millions of flights how many have had multiple inflight failures? Percentage wise you would be more likely to win the lottery in six different countries on the same day and then repeat it again the next.. :p

Smart people don't use 4 engines when they build aircraft.

What would bean counters know about aviation and what excuse have Boeing got for the 747 never mind the B52!

No, not daft, realistic.

Quote:

The 15,740km (8500nm) ultra long range A340-500 and stretched 372 seat A340-600 are new variants of the Airbus A340 family, and are currently the world's longest range airliners.


Compared with the A340-300, the A340-600 features a 9.07m (35ft 1in) stretch (5.87m/19ft 3in ahead of the wing and 3.20m/10ft 6in behind), allowing it to seat 372 passengers in a typical three class arrangement. This gives Airbus a true early model 747 replacement and near direct competitor to the 747-400, with similar range, but, Airbus claims, better operating economics (per seat).

The 747 was designed when we had little to no history on jet engines in commercial service. Hence the designers designed them to the mathmatical probability of 10 to the -9th criteria and came up with 4 engines as having little to no chance of losing all 4 in the same trip. Now we have tons of data on engine reliability and have much improved reliability. Hence the 2 engine long range aircraft emerge.

the A340 family fails the test when it comes to productivity. Here are the test criteria:

TEST
PAYLOAD: How much can you carry?
RANGE: How far can you carry it?
BLOCK SPEED: How fast can you get it there?
OPERATIONAL FLEXIBILITY: What airports can you get it into and out of?
COST: What are the effects on direct and indirect operating costs?
STYLE: is it esthetically pleasing to the customer?

The A340 fails at its ultra long range capability by leaving a ton of PAX or cargo behind. Just ask Singapore about that one. I believe they still get a check from Talouse each month to cover the 80 plus PAX they have to leave behind each flight to get the 118 it can carry the full 15 hours.

At least 747 Classics can carry their design max weight the entire design flight endurance. And get it there a lot faster.

Better economics per passenger seat? they must mean the meal and drinks they don't have to feed the passengers they left behind..........:E

But which one was concieved as a cargo aircraft (but failed) and there for had the capability to carry large loads??? In my opinion Boeing have lost out to Airbus on this one.

(The 747 was designed when we had little to no history on jet engines in commercial service)

And ..... the B747-400, weren't B767 & A310 ER's in existence by then?

(Smart people don't use 4 engines when they build aircraft)

So what about the BAe146, the DHC7, many militaries etc. I guess only Douglas built good airliners, ones with less than 4 engines that is (post DC8 era), but then some tin-can manufacturer put them out of existence!

Just to add my tuppence's worth. If Boeing aircraft are so superior to Airbus (in general of course!), then why have Airbus now started out-performing Boeing in terms of airframe sales for the last x number of months? 747FOCAL mentioned bean counters etc. Surely the 'bean counters' wouldn't authorise buying the equipment if they thought they could make more money out of a different aeroplane?

"The 747 was designed when we had little to no history on jet engines in commercial service. Hence the designers designed them to the mathmatical probability of 10 to the -9th criteria and came up with 4 engines as having little to no chance of losing all 4 in the same trip. Now we have tons of data on engine reliability and have much improved reliability. Hence the 2 engine long range aircraft emerge."

Sorry, 747FOCAL, and far be it for me to challenge you on a subject so squarely in your back yard, but this statement just doesn't remotely correspond to my recollection of the B747 design evolution process.

Firstly, I think the guys who worked on JT4s or JT3s or Avons or Conways for years before the CX then B747 programme would take issue with the "little or no history" bit, not to mention the enormous significance of B47/B52 experience. Secondly, when Boeing wanted to build people a great big plane in the mid 60's to carry twice the B707 payload it HAD to be four engines, because Pratt's could barely exceed 40,000 lbs of thrust with the first JT9D. Don't you remember what an incredible achievement that thrust level was at the time? The payload/range goals and attainable thrust levels were the first-order determinants of the number of engines, not the reliability.

Now, now, stop upsetting our trans-atlantic friends.

Oh, by the way, who was it that presented them with the jet engine, and indeed the VSTOL aircraft, in the first place?