Unless you've been living under a rock, you'll have noticed that over in Toulouse just recently they've officially introduced the Airbus A380, the largest airliner in the world.
The dazzling ceremony featured heads of state Jacques Chirac, Tony Blair, Gerhard Schroder, José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero, along with many chiefs of most of the worlds airlines who are purchasing the A380.
Among the more noteworthy comments were those from Emirates:
"People will go out of their way to fly on our aircraft because we will have so many gizmos and gadgets for them to try."
Emirates Chairman Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al-Maktoum said:
"We will try to do everything we can to maximise passenger comfort for all classes aboard the A380 - and that means showers and lounges."
Among the key benefits noted by many of the airlines were the abilities to increase passenger capacity on very busy routes, especially to major hub airports, and with difficulties in securing landing slots. Another key benefit is the ability to fit so many people on one plane, making it very economical.
French President Jacques Chirac said:
""Today is the culmination of a huge effort by all those involved in the programme."
"The A380 demonstrates the success of European industrial policy and embodies the vision of European integration. I hope this is the first in a long line of successes."
I hope so too. And I hope it will encourage Airbus to attempt even more ambitious projects.
The event also marked the unveiling of the new Airbus livery:
http://www.totalnfs.net/cpd/a380/ab_livery.jpg
As mentioned before, the interior of the plane marks a radical departure from traditional airliner conventions, featuring such things as walk in shops, and even showers! Here are some impressions of what flying aboard an A380 may look like:
Meanwhile, airports around the world are rushing to adapt their facilities to accomodate this enormous plane.
Smokey!
01-19-2005, 05:54 AM
So considering its been what..about 100 years since the first planes took of:
HAVE THEY CORRECTED THE FATAL MISTAKE OF THINKING THEY ARE INVINCIBLE AND FINALLY MADE A BACKUP PLAN SHOULD THE PLANE CRASH?
Like giving the passengers parachutes? If not I am not the sligest impressed by this plane. But I am horriefied of the disasters that awaits.
At least we have seatbelts and airbags.
chris
01-19-2005, 06:15 AM
I also noticed some scare campaigns floating about with regards to this thing. Someone said, we'll be plagued by greater airport noise..
I disagree with that completely. It'll probably be no noisier than any old 747 or so, and probably quieter than some 767's and DC10's.
So considering its been what..about 100 years since the first planes took of:
HAVE THEY CORRECTED THE FATAL MISTAKE OF THINKING THEY ARE INVINCIBLE AND FINALLY MADE A BACKUP PLAN SHOULD THE PLANE CRASH?
Like giving the passengers parachutes? If not I am not the sligest impressed by this plane. But I am horriefied of the disasters that awaits.
At least we have seatbelts and airbags.
You could walk out your front door tomorrow and get killed. What do you do, admit you are not invincible and spend your life hibernating inside your home? ;)
A plane can crash yes, but they can design them in such a way that the design of the plane itself won't contribute to crashes, unlike those with outward opening cargo-doors which opened in flight due to a short-circuit.
Rather curious how that particular series of aircraft were not removed completely from service, especially considering how serious that fault could be..
But back on topic, I think 139 orders for the A380 has got to be a very depressing nightmare for Boeing. Here is was predicting the medium plane was the greatest thing, and look what happens.. Whoops.
But America also benefits from the A380 as well. Airbus part sourcing policies mean that some 40% of Airbus' budget is spent in the US, and that it supports some 120,000 American jobs, according to US Commerce Department figures.
Sepecat
01-19-2005, 09:46 AM
I’ll wait for it to get off the ground first before commenting… Also would love to see what the real specs are of a it…. :rolleyes:
Chaul
01-19-2005, 10:08 AM
But back on topic, I think 139 orders for the A380 has got to be a very depressing nightmare for Boeing. Here is was predicting the medium plane was the greatest thing, and look what happens.. Whoops.
Interesting how Boeing started making smaller planes, but Airbus had the opposite strategy. Anyways, considering the high cost of designing this plane, it is suspected that they would need some 250 orders total to make profit.
chris
01-19-2005, 05:20 PM
I think they'll probably get 250 or more. The economics can not be faulted.
Getting more backsides on seats is the arguement opponents of Concorde used for decades. Rather funny to see some people backtracking on that arguement so soon after having pushed it for so many years. ;)
I also think it is a grave error of Boeing to abandon the large plane segment to Airbus. Some were saying the Sonic cruiser concept would have been a valid rival. But I doubt that.
It didn't propose to do anything greatly better than existing aircraft. Mach 0.98 is hardly any quicker than existing sub-sonic planes. The 747-400 will do 0.92 maximum, or cruise normally at M 0.85.
And a Concorde for comparison cruises subsonic at 0.93 or 0.95 depending on the altitude (FL270 or FL290). On a London to New York flight, it would be slightly faster than a 747, but much slower than Concorde.
I doubt passengers would pay a premium to go only a little bit faster, as some had suggested would happen. In order to get them to pay more, you've got to serve them something better, either the ultimate in luxury, or greatly faster speed.
VQ
01-19-2005, 05:51 PM
Interesting, and they went for Luxury then.
chris
01-19-2005, 06:30 PM
However, they only ever show the better class cabins, and not the economy class. But then hardly anyone does that.
But I know my preference. I'd happily sacrifice luxuries and do away with stuff like seen above for a much quicker journey time. Only real airplane fans could put up with being stuck on a crowded, slow airliner for 8 or more hours.
VQ
01-19-2005, 06:53 PM
But you like speed, yeah I think I would sacrifice it too as long as i didn't get off feeling too sick.
chris
01-19-2005, 09:33 PM
Hardly any different to any other plane to be honest.
Only the take-offs are more on the wild-side. 400km/hr down a runway is sort of extreme, not just because it is fast, but because the acceleration is pretty impressive as well. 380-400km/hr is achieved in about 30 seconds.
Any other time it's very smooth and comfortable with no turbulence. It's also nice because you get to the destination not feeling so utterly buggered.
VQ
01-20-2005, 12:02 AM
Having never travelled on a plane sorta just makes it weird that's all.
Smokey!
01-20-2005, 12:10 AM
You could walk out your front door tomorrow and get killed. What do you do, admit you are not invincible and spend your life hibernating inside your home? ;)
A plane can crash yes, but they can design them in such a way that the design of the plane itself won't contribute to crashes, unlike those with outward opening cargo-doors which opened in flight due to a short-circuit.
Rather curious how that particular series of aircraft were not removed completely from service, especially considering how serious that fault could be..
I meant when comparing it to driving a car. You could also design a car so it makes colision more safe for the passengers like the sandwich construction, but that dosnt help much If you dont use the seatbelts in the first place.
I wish someone would design a detachable passengercabin that could be released with a parachute in stead of just hoping that the plane will crash ""nice". The 380 while impressive, is just a bigger plane (technically). I just think its wierd that an 80+ years old invention that are beeing used in smaller planes to save lifes is overlooked in these huge versions, ultimately resulting in massive death cassualties. IF and only IF they crash yes, but having no safety at all dosnt appeal to me much. At least in a car, you have some.
Whatever, maybe im just beeing more pessimistic than usual today :wave: .
VQ
01-20-2005, 01:42 AM
In large boats they always have spare safety boats, why don't they have ultralites for everyone to use? or escape pods like the movies?
KyzrSoze
01-20-2005, 06:15 AM
The longest flight I have ever experienced was nonstop from Atlanta (Hartsfield airport) to Hawaii (Honolulu I think). That flight was about nine hours and was fairly miserable. The plane was either a 767 or an L1011. How long would it take for a concorde to make that journey?
Based on that experience I think that I would take the luxuries and comfort over speed, at least in a flight of that many miles. My dad was an airline employee and so I have been able to take quite a few flights in my life, with the majority of them in the 1.5 to 3 hour range. In those cases I would go for speed over luxury.
KyzrSoze
01-20-2005, 06:21 AM
@Frank
I wish someone would design a detachable passengercabin that could be released with a parachute in stead of just hoping that the plane will crash ""nice". The 380 while impressive, is just a bigger plane (technically). I just think its wierd that an 80+ years old invention that are beeing used in smaller planes to save lifes is overlooked in these huge versions, ultimately resulting in massive death cassualties. IF and only IF they crash yes, but having no safety at all dosnt appeal to me much. At least in a car, you have some.
Whatever, maybe im just beeing more pessimistic than usual today
The problem is that commercial airliners fly at higher altitudes. In an emergency, a detachable passenger cabin and/or parachute might only serve to make you a softly landing, oxygen starved popsicle. :)
chris
01-20-2005, 08:47 AM
The longest flight I have ever experienced was nonstop from Atlanta (Hartsfield airport) to Hawaii (Honolulu I think). That flight was about nine hours and was fairly miserable. The plane was either a 767 or an L1011. How long would it take for a concorde to make that journey?
Atlanta to Honolulu... Hmmm. That's a fair distance. Probably something similar to Heathrow-Nassau, or the absolute distance record of Washington to Nice. I'd guess around 3.5 to 4 hours.
Justin Martin
01-20-2005, 10:03 AM
I just think its wierd that an 80+ years old invention that are beeing used in smaller planes to save lifes is overlooked in these huge versions,
You're talking about the BRS parachutes used in planes like the Cirrus? http://www.cirrusdesign.com/aircraft/safety/CAPS/
For one, there's a massive difference between a Cirrus and even a small airliner. I've seen that question asked before, and the answer has generally been, they haven't (or can't) made one that big yet. Things like that tend to not scale well, I doubt it'd be a matter of making one that is 200x bigger.
Having said that, I too would like to see them developed for all airliners.
why don't they have ultralites for everyone to use? or escape pods like the movies?
As for the ultralight, several problems. One, each ultralight would take up as much space as ten or more people in an airliner. Two, most people can't fly a plane, so you'd need to have one pilot for every two passengers to fly the ultralight. Three, ultralights do not tolerate airliner speeds and altitudes. It'd rip apart the second you tried to launch it from the airliner.
Escape pods, again, space is an issue. A one person pod would likely take up two seats. You'd end up spending several times as much for a plane ticket.
An ejection seat is a better example and possibility. They work at airliner speeds and altitudes, but the user has to have oxygen and protective clothing. Without those two items, you'd end up an asphyxiated popsicle like Kyzer said. And again, cost and space is a major issue. Finally, ejecting several hundred ejection seats in a short period of time without them colliding in mid-air would be quite difficult.
All in all, a airliner crash is an extraordinarily rare event. You're far, far more likely to die from a lightning strike, a snake bite, etc, than in a airline crash.
Life is a series of odds. We make life and death decisions on a constant basis. I'm drinking a Coke right now, what are the odds of it being contaminated by a lethal poison or bacteria? I drove to school this morning in fairly dense fog. Did the benefit of going to school outweigh the increased odds of dieing in a wreck? To me, yes.
With the exception of a BRS parachute systems, the cost of adding these devices would be massive, and the decrease in the odds of dieing would be miniscule. Do you want to pay three or four times as much for a ticket? For that small of a reduction in the chance of dieing, I wouldn't.
chris
01-20-2005, 11:40 AM
Maybe we should all fly in F111's with those survival modules. Not possible, but still.. ;) The whole entire cabin ejects from those and floats down to earth aided by parachutes.
With airliners and parachute systems to prevent crashes, it won't work. They are simply too heavy, at 90 tonnes or more for even the smaller airliners.
However, if an airliner has engine failures, it can often glide quite a reasonable distance if the pilots know what they are doing and use exceptional care and precision, especially if it is at 35,000ft or higher. They don't lose all power, because they have little propellor that drops down to power a generator which gives power to important systems.
Sepecat
01-20-2005, 07:50 PM
Atlanta to Honolulu... Hmmm. That's a fair distance. Probably something similar to Heathrow-Nassau, or the absolute distance record of Washington to Nice. I'd guess around 3.5 to 4 hours.
If London to NY is 6hrs how is the Caribbean shorter?
Sepecat
01-20-2005, 07:54 PM
Hardly any different to any other plane to be honest.
Only the take-offs are more on the wild-side. 400km/hr down a runway is sort of extreme, not just because it is fast, but because the acceleration is pretty impressive as well. 380-400km/hr is achieved in about 30 seconds.
Any other time it's very smooth and comfortable with no turbulence. It's also nice because you get to the destination not feeling so utterly buggered.
I guess you haven’t been on an Airbus lately… Takeoffs are horrible on the A340…
chris
01-20-2005, 09:56 PM
I wasn't thinking of Airbus. An Airbus does not take off at 380-400km/hr.
Smokey!
01-21-2005, 01:58 AM
Chris:
"With airliners and parachute systems to prevent crashes, it won't work. They are simply too heavy, at 90 tonnes or more for even the smaller airliners."
Hmmm! Perhaps...perhaps not. Nobody believed the Jumbo Jet could fly in 66 either, because of its size (excluding the engineers). It might require lets say...imaginative..thinking. Maybe sometime in the future yes?
Escape pods he he. Now thats an idea :D IH8COPS.
"Smokey!: I wish someone would design a detachable passengercabin that could be released with a parachute in stead of just hoping that the plane will crash ""nice". The 380 while impressive, is just a bigger plane (technically). I just think its wierd that an 80+ years old invention that are beeing used in smaller planes to save lifes is overlooked in these huge versions, ultimately resulting in massive death cassualties. IF and only IF they crash yes, but having no safety at all dosnt appeal to me much. At least in a car, you have some.
Whatever, maybe im just beeing more pessimistic than usual today "
"KyzrSoze: The problem is that commercial airliners fly at higher altitudes. In an emergency, a detachable passenger cabin and/or parachute might only serve to make you a softly landing, oxygen starved popsicle."
Hmm I didnt think of that :wall: . He he I guess that could explain a few things. But if the plane was just loosing altitude they could wait with detaching until reaching lower altitudes. Proberly not gonna happend due to panic anyway, but in general if they had to detach at high altitude....this could pose a problem yeah...unless one could fit some compressed oxygen in there somewhere. Having compressed oxygen on a plane poses a new problem though. Hmm better let it rest &(
"Originally Posted by Smokey!
I just think its wierd that an 80+ years old invention that are beeing used in smaller planes to save lifes is overlooked in these huge versions,
IH8COPS: You're talking about the BRS parachutes used in planes like the Cirrus? http://www.cirrusdesign.com/aircraft/safety/CAPS/
For one, there's a massive difference between a Cirrus and even a small airliner. I've seen that question asked before, and the answer has generally been, they haven't (or can't) made one that big yet. Things like that tend to not scale well, I doubt it'd be a matter of making one that is 200x bigger.
Having said that, I too would like to see them developed for all airliners."
Actually I was thinking of parachutes in general. I didnt knew someone had already developed something like the BRS. Looks great.
blackice111288
01-21-2005, 11:20 PM
it looks like the Soul Plane on the inside, just a bit socially calmer:D
chris
01-22-2005, 02:04 AM
If London to NY is 6hrs how is the Caribbean shorter?
He asked about Concorde.. It did London - NY in under 3 hours.
A Flash presentation on the A380 courtesy of Agence France Press. Also shows who ordered what.
The big spenders are:
Emirates: 43
Lufthansa: 15
Qantas: 12
VQ
01-26-2005, 09:31 PM
Jeez thats a few planes considering Quanta's size.
chris
01-27-2005, 12:55 AM
Probably influenced by the type of flights Qantas usually does with its big planes.
It's nearly almost always very long intercontinental flights on busy routes.
chris
06-30-2005, 03:34 AM
Coming back to this thread, I notice Singapore Airlines didn't get access to the Sydney-Los Angeles flight route. It had been trying to get access to that big-money route, but it has been blocked.
That's got to be a disaster for them. Surely they would have loved to run that route with an A380 or two. So it looks like Qantas and United Airlines will keep their strangle-hold on that flight route.