A380 First Flight News

Originally posted by skippytjc

Originally posted by Element
Yeah, she did it!!! Hope it's the first of a long serie of flights!

Congratulations to the Airbus, EADS, BAE crew who did so well to make here flight...

Dont forget GE for the engines.

Rolls Royce actually - GE will be supplying engines for the production run, but the maiden flight was done under RR Trent 900 engines.

news.bbc.co.uk...
www.bloomberg.com...
news.yahoo.com...
www.prnewswire.co.uk...

The GE engines havent even been approved for use on the A380 yet, they will be tested and given as an option for commercial purchasers later on the second test A380 later in the year.

It can actually get off the ground!!! just kiddin.

Its nice to see everything went smoothly though.



[edit on 28-4-2005 by Murcielago]

The crew wasn't totally confident in the engineers though, because they wore parachutes.

Originally posted by Broadsword20068
The crew wasn't totally confident in the engineers though, because they wore parachutes.

I hope you are being 'funny' - *ALL* first flights require the crew to have parachutes, the 777 crew had them, right back to the 707 and A300.

That's right RP, up till this first flight, the Airworthyness of this aircraft was only "theoretical", now it's proven to at least be able to get up in the air. And land again.

[edit on 29-4-2005 by sardion2000]

Truely amazing, god I hope all goes well with this.

Shattered OUT...

This airplane is very technologically advanced and truly a marvel but will it make the companies any money?
I have a feeling this will be another Concorde, maybe I'm wrong but well have to wait and see.

Originally posted by WestPoint23
This airplane is very technologically advanced and truly a marvel

- Glad to agree with you there Westy.

but will it make the companies any money?
I have a feeling this will be another Concorde, maybe I'm wrong but well have to wait and see.

- They have sold 149 so far so it's apparantly approx half way to 'break even' before it left the ground on it's first flight.

There are no unique environmental objections.

So, it's nothing like the situation with Concorde.

If you say so sminkey, I still have some doubts.



West Point, Out.

Great to see that the A380 in the air for the first time. Anyone know when it will be making its first commercial flight, im not sure but I think I read somewhere that it was around 2007.

[edit on 30-4-2005 by beyondSciFi]

Originally posted by RichardPrice

Originally posted by Broadsword20068
The crew wasn't totally confident in the engineers though, because they wore parachutes.

I hope you are being 'funny' - *ALL* first flights require the crew to have parachutes, the 777 crew had them, right back to the 707 and A300.

Yeah, actually I was, though I didn't post it clearly. I wasn't trying to say anything bad about the A380.

Actually, only orders were placed on this aircraft. None of them were truely sold. If Airbus cannot complete the planes in time, then the real trouble will follow.

My personal opinion is that somehow that critical 250 planes will be sold. But it is a real question whether it will be a popular craft or not. We have seen the plane fly, but we haven't seen it fully equipped and the parameters approached to meet the airlines' requirements.

I heard that a lot of changes are already needed (taking up a lot of money) for reconstructions and extensions.

We are yet to see that plane on the market, and the competitor Boeing 747A must not be a winner in this battle.

Originally posted by Vertu
Actually, only orders were placed on this aircraft. None of them were truely sold.

Relax vertu, orders being placed is how all airliners are sold. When an order is placed it is a firm sale, where it is not firm is when it is an 'option', thats why you see airliners sales quoted as being 'XX orders plus XX options'. The first figure is the number definitely sold and both figures together total the complete buy by that airline if all goes well.

That is clear.

But the airlines have their requirements on the planes (eg speed, range, economy, the amounts of pax, fuel consumption, loading weight, and maintanance time/costs).

All these requirements must match those in the contracts with the airlines. You see, they didn't just place the order on A380s, they bought specific planes with specific parameters.

Of course, the prototype will be altered through this testing year to match everything, but it will be a real hard time for Airbus, since as their manager said: the entire company is at risk. But as I noticed, they are more concerned of the marketing than the plane itself.

I really don't think there's anything to worry about on that score, the days of the Spruce Goose and Bristol Brabazon are well in the past thanks to modern design and materials. Of course changes will be made to the aircraft during developemt, the plane hasn't yet been built where the production model is unchanged from the prototype.

The A380 is 20 percent overweight right now. It's going to take alot of
redesign to get that weight out. This is one expensive program. Good
thing they are getting so much funding, or the whole company could have
gone down the tubes with this program. Now they want funding to do
the A350 to compete with the 787. I wonder if they will get it?

Originally posted by digorius
The A380 is 20 percent overweight right now.

20% over their estimate of where it would be or 20% over where they want it to be?

20% over where they contractually promised it to be. It happens all the
time on development aircraft. You design what you can get quickly
(at a price) and then comes cost and weight reduction. They'll
get all the weight out, hopefully in time. Or some of the initial aircraft
will get price reductions for not meating the target.