A380 flies into Heathrow today

The Airbus A380 is due to make its first landing at Heathrow Airport today, it is due at around 1pm. This visit is in order to test out Heathrows modifications, principally its double ramps which allow both decks to disembark at the same time. A senior bod from the Airport was on the news this morning (can't remember his name 'cos I'd just got up, lol) explainingt how they are looking forward to the aircraft coming into service as it will allow for 10 million extra passengers per year without increasing the actual flight numbers.

This last point begs the question I suppose that in Boeings 'point to point' vision where are all the extra planes supposed to go? The skies are already extremely crowded plus, if I'm right, all the 787 sales so far are direct replacements for older types rather than in anticipation of new routes aren't they? Something for me to look into I suppose.

Back on topic, the A380 is also due to fly over the two Airbus UK factories so the workforce can see what it is they are making, having seen the Beluga flying overhead en route to the northernmost of these factories I wonder if I will get to see the 380 as well? I can see I'm going to have to lay on my back in the garden looking skywards with a beer all morning, purely in the interests of research of course

Hopefully everything goes well... And nobody gets hurt...

Why would they

From jaws dropping on their owners feet as they marvel at the magesty of the aircraft

Yes Waynos... my stupid humour...

Just watched her land, shes a fatty alright.

Airbus A380 jet lands at Heathrow

That was a craptacular landing. Good crosswind correction, but then the nose gear hit hard before the other main did. Nice job, looked like a rookie doing the flying.

Keep in mind that as this is a brand new airframe, nearly everyone who takes the controls of it is a rookie. I believe the pilot is a British test pilot by the name of Ed Strongman. Though I don't doubt his abilities, I suspect that his hours logged in the plane are still in the 10's and not even in the 100's yet.

Big freakin deal, to me this translates as going to same slow speed as planes have been going for the last 40 plus years and at the same time increasing the amount of time that will be required to board and unboard.

Even if it has 8 times more entrances and exits as existing planes there will still be more people to load and unload hence increasing wait time. Also, the bigger a plane, the bigger it is as a target. Thanks but no thanks Airbus.

- OK, but we are where we are; thanks to Concorde being killed off that's our lot as far as speed is concerned for some time no matter which airline or manufacturer.



- Yeah well there's the standard Luddite view.
Anyhoo that remains to be seen, as the 747 proved these fears can be overcome.

No doubt you'r prefer Boeing didn't bother with a larger 747 and that 'we' all just left it to them, huh?



- Indeed it does have many more exits as well as a state of the art luggage system.

The 707, 747 etc (in fact just about the whole history of civil aviation) show that any teething problems can and will be dealt with.
It remains to be seen just how long the delays and waits are (unless you have a future-viewer handy?) and how long overcoming them takes.



- Oh right, that's your problem eh?!

How many civillian large jets have ever been brought down or destroyed just because of their size?



- I think I can see your real problem with this, thankfully approaching 200 customers disagree (and it hasn't even entered service yet!)/

Waynos I don’t think this is true, unless you live very near an airport, look up at the sky and count the number of planes you see, 2 perhaps 3? The skies are nowhere near crowded.

- I think you'll find the 'air corridors' in many places are.

We have also yet to see the impact of increasing environmental concerns, avaition fuel is currently untaxed and a major pollutant, this situation may not last.

IMO the ever-increasing passanger traffic is probably only feasible in the long run with bigger, cleaner and more efficient planes.
The A380 is very much a part of improving the situation and the 'solution'.

[edit on 18-5-2006 by sminkeypinkey]

U might also see the RAAF'S new tanker A330-200 MRTT

My immediate impression was the same. "Man, this guy sucks as landing." But then I thought about the gajillion times i've ever flown into Philly Itnl' and never experienced a soft landing.

I would think a big momma airframe like that was a little smoother with the inputs though.

Westy, the skies over the major airports are EXTREMELY crowded and ATC is akin to spinning plates on sticks . A benefit of the A380 for these Airports is that passenger traffic can be increased without increasing air traffic (just think if all those car drivers on the freeway had gone on the bus).

Perhaps, but I don't think we’re at breaking point just yet, on 9/11 US ATC’s were able to land every commercial plane flying over the CONUS without a single major incident, that's got to say something about our curt ability to coordinate and control air traffic.


[edit on 18-5-2006 by WestPoint23]

Have you ever seen the pics from the FAA command post that show all the planes over the US? They put little green airplanes on the screen to show them all, and over MOST of the US all you can see is green. You can't even see the map under them.

Zap, those radar maps are not to scale, if you calculate the density of the planes per mile then you will get a more accurate representation of how crowded the skies are. At any given time the number of planes over the US is in the low thousands, compare that to the volume of space available for commercial planes over the CONUS.

- Yeah but then the planes themselves are not just the issue in terms of the traffic corridors, the 3 dimensional mandatory separation spaces are a large factor when the traffic is leaving or converging on the main population centres.

I'm happy to agree that not everywhere suffers chronic crowding but I have read many times that it is an increasing problem in several areas the world over, particularly the western and eastern seaboard of the US, Europe, India, China and Japan to name a few.



[edit on 18-5-2006 by sminkeypinkey]

Yeah, your right, I forget what the mandatory bubble around each civilian plane is. Anyway, the US eastern seaboard has a lot of air traffic, not to the point where it couldn’t handle any more, but more so than any other area in the US.