No, it's the really fast ANGLO-FRENCH airliner that had no competition from the USA and therefore ran into lots of trumped up legislative issues.

Remember, for supersonic research NASA had to borrow a really fast Russian (Ukranian?) aeroplane because they had none of their own.

Now grow up, for God's sake!

Windsheer

Those "mechanics" built a nice space shuttle !

The 380 will be a huge success - eventually. Same as the 747 was in its time. However, Boeing were right to say it couldn't be developed for 8 billion$. They forecast it would cost $12bn and it's at that level already and a long way from ready for service. The real reason the B company didn't enter that market was cash. B has to answer to shareholders who demand a decent company profit whereas A do not - at least not yet.

Does anyone have any information on the topic of this thread?? Some of us out here would be interested to hear some rumors. So far a comment about Langing gear and box beam. Hopefully someone could add an answer along the lines of the thread topic, and hopefully not add to this p!ss!ng contest.

Can't help on that score, sadly. And Rainboe, I didn't deride the 747, merely pointed out that it is no longer the largest civil aircraft in the skies. Second biggest, not biggest, second.

Just to add my voice to this reasoned discussion...:rolleyes:

I think the A380 is butt ugly...sure its a magnificent engineering feet, I agree the engine wing combination is superb, and hopefully its gonna be a runaway commercial success...but is it just me...or does this aircraft remind you of a turtles head at the front.....and have a tail that seems to be out of all proportion


Just my thoughts.:O

I agree entirely; position of cockpit windows looks all wrong to me. Sorry Airbus but the 747 is far better looking imo.

Rumor from the grape vine from inside sources tell me that they are having trouble loading the aircraft, and the delay has problems that have to do with the flight envelope and things like that. The 6 month delay of the aircraft apparently is VERY optimistic, so that's what they were told at the conference.
Apparently they're having trouble finding the CG before they start the engine, or something along the lines like, they can't find it until the engines have been started. Which raises an interesting question, if you can't load plan the loading of an aircraft before the engine starts, can you legally load the aircraft? anyways, that's just what i heard......beleive it or not... we'll just have to wait and see ...

I'm afraid I have to agree. However, some time ago I recall reading on the Airbus website that the cockpit was designed specifically to overcome the main problem with the 747 cockpit: poor ground visibility. So perhaps Airbus traded off some elegance for practicality.

See:http://www.airbus.com/en/aircraftfam...ight_deck.html

Looking at it from a purely economical perspective the more 'stuff' (Pax/freight/ostrich eggs for some bizarre reason) one can shove inside an aircraft the more economical it is, therefore in the long if not short term the A380 will no doubt be successful.

The real issue here is how anal do you have to be to care?