Maiden flight tomorrow

I'd love to see this aircraft up close and personal, I bet it's an awesome sight!

Hi Pippy
Only seen pictures and video myself, but some workmates have seen it and say it is a-m-a-z-i-n-g !!

Ady

I've been watching the live streaming from Airbus' website all morning. What an awesome machine that it. I loved the live update from the flight deck "we are currently at 10,000ft over the Pyranese posing for photo's and videos"! Can't wait to get aboard her.

Lots of photo's of this historic event here:

http://www.airliners.net/search/photo.search?front=yes&keywords=a380

Darren

Well here's hoping when the airlines start using it we will get more room to sit and move about in. But am I right in thinking its a bit slower than a 747 so the flights might be longer.

Its too early to say at the moment, but there isn't much in it. The 747-400 has a cruising speed of 0.855 mach (about 560mph) and the A380-800 is predicted to have a Max cruising speed 0.88 mach, Long range cruising speed 0.85 mach so they are about the same.

Darren

So my personal best of 695mph in a 747 must have had a heck of a tail wind behind it So I wonder where this leaves Boeing with the 747. I know they are pushing the idea of the dreamliner (787?), but what of the good old jumbo - has it reached the end of its years.

I'd think the 747 is safe for a while yet. The A380 is very limited at the moment on the routes it can be used on as there are only a handfull of airports that are being devloped to accommodate it. Some major airports have said they won't invest in facilities to accommodate the A380. The 747 will still be around for a while yet based on that.

The A380 is scheduled to make its first landing in TLS at 1400 local (1300 our time) for those interested.

Darren

True..I was looking at plans for the new Bangkok Airport and they had included special provison for the A380. I presume Heathrow will be ready for it - I heard on the news that Singapore airlines the lead customer might operate to London as one of the first routes.

Heathrow to Singapore is the first route it'll be used on by Singapore Airlines in the second part of 2006. Can't wait! Just watched the flyby and landing, looked fantastic. BAA are spending £450 million at Heathrow to accommodate it including new 2-story airbridges.

Darren

Oh well I suppose flying on the A380 will give me an excuse to look up the old homesteads. I wonder if it will bring down the cost of going to the Far East.

Watched the live streaming of the A380 taking off and landing today and it was pretty impressive. Great as it is, it still doesn't compare to Concorde for me. I work on the Airbus site in Filton so I saw the last-ever flight and landing of our BA Concorde here in 2003. I still see it every time I look up from my desk as it's parked up on display 200 yards from where I work and it's still a stunner as the coachloads of people prepared to pay the £11 it now costs to look round still prove. Noisy, fuel inefficient and only carried 100 passengers so it never made commercial sense but oh what a plane.

On the negative side just imagine going through immigration at one of the american airports all 800 passengers in line, what a nightmare.

Not just immigration - think of how long the baggage will take to come out!!

Dave

I doubt the airfair will come down much, not for a while yet anyway! I don't think the boarding and baggage reclaim etc will much much worse than a fully loaded 747 is at the moment. Most of the A380's are going to be in a 3 class configoration with 550-600 seats rather than the 800+ it is capable of carrying with an all economy configoration. Its going to be busy, but I wouldn't think it'll be that much worse than what it currently is, especially because the airports where it will be used are being invested in to cope with the extra demands. We'll have to wait and see.

I agree with Robbo, I was at Manchester when alpha-charlie flew in for its last ever flight for retirement at the aviation viewing park. Concorde was in impressive aircraft and way ahead of its time. The A380 is very impressive and special, but for very different reasons.

This is G-BOAC's last ever landing at Manchester:

http://www.flightlevel350.com/public_viewer.php?cat=75&pic=899

Darren

bit scary that all the crew were wearing parachutes where would the plane have ended up

They're having to do some rebuilding at Gatwick too as it will be the diversion airport should virgin's "big bus" not be able to get into LHR for any reason.
Extra lounge capacity IS needed to board the passengers - but it's airbridges etc that are the real issue.

Anyone know if Manchester will be able to handle it (or anywhere else in the UK for that matter???)

I was reading that some US airports are not rushing to do the necessary work to handle the A380. Wonder if this might affect sales of the beast.

They only wore parachutes as a prcaution, they do it on all test flights. The chances of there being a major problem where they would be required to bale out was very remote. They wouldn't have performed the maiden flight if everying wasn't in the green. Imagine what it would do to Airbus' reputation if it cashed infront of the world media on its maiden flight! Testing was done over remote areas of France, mainly to the south-west of Tolouse towards the pyranese to minimise impact should anything go wrong.

Manchester isn't A380 complient at the moment and there are currently no airlines planning on using the A380 in to MAN. I remember seeing that MAN should be able to accept the A380 from 2008/09 providing airlines indicate they would be using the A380.

Darren