Airbus A380 First Flight
Wednesday, April 27th, 2005 - 9:34 am
The Airbus super-jumbo, A380 succesfully completed a four-hour maiden flight in Toulouse today. Designed to carry as many as 840 passengers, the plane is roughly the same length and wing-span as a Boeing 747 although much thicker in the fuselage. It’s scheduled to begin commercial service in a year, prompting planning conferences and worries about the readiness of airports to accommodate the huge plane.
Airbus has 154 A380 orders to date, including 10 each from Fedex and UPS. The range of the A380-800F is 10,410km, which allows the aircraft to fly non-stop from Europe to Asia or the US West Coast. The aircraft carries a 150t payload, comprising 71 large cargo pallets or containers on three decks, claimsed to be 30% larger than that of the nearest competitor aircraft. The aircraft flies at a cruise speed of 0.85 Mach and has a ceiling of 13,100m. The take-off field length is 3,010m. The engines produce less noise than most, and meet the UK’s Noise Quota Count 2 for departure.
Excitement over the test flight is tempered by reports of the project being $2billion over budget and by a very successful sales week for Boeing’s next-generation airliners. Boeing announced significant sales of their 777s and 787 Dreamliners to Air Canada, Air India, and Northwest Airlines. Air Canada, whose colours grace the front page of the Boeing web site, will buy up to 36 Boeing 777s and up to 60 Boeing 787 Dreamliners.
Following in the footsteps of Bombardier - Embraer, Boeing and Airbus are locked in a nasty commercial and trade battle. The US and EU are duking it out at the WTO, each claiming the competition is using unfair subsidies.
Links:
April 27th, 2005 at 11:15 am
If you’re intestested, there are some photos of its maiden flight here. You can use them on your site by rolling over the image and selecting ‘put media on your blog’. Here is the link:
http://www.nowpublic.com/taxonomy/term/2536
Mike.