Airbus A380 Completes Maiden Test Flight 890
crazy blade writes "The much anticipated maiden test flight of the Airbus A380 jumbo jet is underway. The aircraft left Blagnac International Airport in Toulouse, France at 10.29 hours local time (08.29 UTC) from runway 32L. Here are some photos if you're interested."
It has alreay landed ... (Score:5, Informative)
http://www1.ndr.de/ndr_pages_std/0,2570,OID122143
CC.
Ebay (Score:5, Funny)
apparently it's possible to get one on Ebay
Ads by Goooooogle
Airbus A380
Airbus A380 for sale. aff Check out the deals now!
www.eBay.com
Heh (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Ebay (Score:3, Funny)
Re:It has alreay landed ... (Score:5, Informative)
Re: Link already /.ed :) (Score:4, Funny)
When will India/China/Brazil/Russia enter the race (Score:5, Informative)
Re:When will India/China/Brazil/Russia enter the r (Score:5, Informative)
Re:When will India/China/Brazil/Russia enter the r (Score:5, Informative)
Roughly 100m long, weighing 540 metric tons fully loaded, and flying at 2m above the water at 400km/h. Its tail section was 5 stories high.
It's a ground-effect vechile, where the stubby wings trap a pocket of air that allow the vechile to "hover" of sorts. They built a few of them before the collapse, mostly intended as fast, below radar troop transports and as naval destroyers.
Here's a video of it in action (in German): http://www.ingopagehome.de/franz/MOV_Ekrano_Lun.mp g [ingopagehome.de]
Interesting note: the man helping push the throttles is the lead designer, Rostislav Alexeev.
Nyet! (Score:3, Interesting)
Russia has -always- been at or near the forefront of aviation technology, dating back to World War I. I would not be so smug as to overestimate the F-22 or underestimate Russian aircraft. Yes, we have had much success agai
Re:When will India/China/Brazil/Russia enter the r (Score:3, Interesting)
SU 30 MKI http://vayu-sena.tripod.com/comparison-f16-f18-su
Article
http://www.afa.org/magazine/Oct2004/1004train.asp [afa.org]
Article doesn't support your claim (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Article doesn't support your claim (Score:3, Interesting)
Well, Russian fighters have been more manuverable than ours since Vietnam, that's why they use A-4s and F-5s as aggressor planes in excersizes. Those old light fighters can often spank our F-15/14/4s in close combat, too. I'm guessing that these excercises, like some of the ones we run in the states, involved disallowing long-range kills and focused on pur
Re:decimation unlikely (Score:3, Interesting)
A loyal legion would be used to pull 1 in 10 soldiers out of a disloyal (or cowardly) legion, and beat them to death. The remaining 9 in 10, presumably, would think twice before disobeying orders to attack.
Re:When will India/China/Brazil/Russia enter the r (Score:3, Funny)
And it's such a shiny new flag!
Re:When will India/China/Brazil/Russia enter the r (Score:5, Insightful)
China flies copies of old Russian designs and is attempting to buy in French fighters (but can't because of the EU's arms sale ban). The only domestic design of note is a tanker. Hardly the stuff background required to compete in the commerical aircraft market.
India and Brazil have airforces entirely composed of foriegn imports - mainly Russian and French. Their combined aircraft industries are behind that of Sweden. I don't expect to be flying on an Indian or Brazilian designed airliner to be in service during my life-time.
It took the combined efforts of some of the world's richest and most industrialised nations to produce compete with Boeing. Russia has the engineers but not the money. The others you mentioned aren't even on the radar.
Re:When will India/China/Brazil/Russia enter the r (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:When will India/China/Brazil/Russia enter the r (Score:5, Insightful)
Huh, a country that launched into the space on its own the first satelite, the first man, and the first space station (MIR, which at its height was bigger than ISS currently is) and which has built the largest cargo planes in the world couldn't have designed a supersonic passenger jet on its own? Please.
Excuse me? (Score:3, Informative)
Excuse me?
MIR was launched February 20, 1986 [russianspaceweb.com].
Skylab was launched 28 July 1973 [astronautix.com].
I am all for giving the Russians their due for their many firsts, but "first space station" is NOT among them.
Re:Excuse me? (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Excuse me? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:When will India/China/Brazil/Russia enter the r (Score:4, Informative)
Re:When will India/China/Brazil/Russia enter the r (Score:4, Informative)
Re:When will India/China/Brazil/Russia enter the r (Score:5, Insightful)
How typical, so easy to badmouth the planes, but, if it's cheaper, you'll go ahead and get on them anyways.
My guess would be that this sort of personal hysteria is the reason that we don't see much of a market for planes from these countries.
Actually, it's more like ignorance of what they are riding on, because americans are climbing onto non-American and non-European airplanes every day by the thousands, altho i'm sure very few of them realize it. Between Embraer and Bombardier, a lot more airframes are being delivered to US airlines than Boeing and Airbus are providing.
God bless capitalism.
The reason there are no american manufacturers left in the sub 100 passenger jet category is because of the product liability lawsuits in the usa. Heck, even Boeing has special status, they only sell airplanes to the us government directly, all the rest of what they make is sold thru carribean shell corps to avoid the taxes and liabilities of being a manufacturer in the usa, and even that is changing now. Look very carefully at where components are going to be built for the newest models they are bringing out. Hint, you will have to travel to China to see the production facilities.
Large aircraft have 10 year lead times from initial design concept, to first deliveries. The Q400 (Dash 8) has been king of the commuters for the last 10 years (canadian airplane). The CRJ and EMB have emerged as the mainline of the small passenger jets (sub 100 passengers, canadian and brazillian airplanes) over the last 5 years. Now Airbus is emerging as king of the big iron. During this same period, even Boeing has been slowly starting to shift to offshore production, a process thats going to accellerate if they want to survive in the industry. When you factor in lead times, it's pretty obvious, with the exception of Boeing and all it's associated government contracts, the aerospace industry abandoned the usa in droves all at the same time, during the early 90's. this trend can be traced directly back to the product liability lawsuit which halted production at the cessna plants, it was a HUGE wakeup call for the industry, and started the wheels moving in earnest for aircraft manufacturing to get out of the usa.
Your beloved capitalism, and all it's associated lawsuits decimated the aircraft manufacturing business in the usa during the 80's. The assembly lines of Cessna, Piper, McDonnel Douglas and Lockheed all fell victim to the process. The USA was once the king of aircraft production, the world over, that's no longer the case. they compete head on with airbus in the 100+ categories, and there are no serious offerings out of america in the sub 100 passenger ranges.
I've been in this business for 28 years. I've watched the industry press as various designs and concepts go from 'early hype' to either 'abandoned' or 'flying' stages. It's pretty obvious that Boeing bent to political pressure, and the next batch from them will still have final assembly in the usa, but the components will be coming from all over, specfically a lot of the hardware from china, and the software from india. To anybody that's been watching the industry for a lot of years, it's pretty obvious, the groundwork has been laid. The next batch of Boeing products after the dreamliner, are going to have final assembly done in China.
The lead times and investment capital required in this industry are HUGE. Even if the usa fixed the legal system today, it would take at least 20 years for the industry to regain it's world dominance, but that wont happen because of the sheer cost of american labor. I watched the 380 take off, and listened to the commentary about a 'new age in aviation'. It was truely just that, the start of a new age in aviation.
There was a time when you had no choice, t
Re:When will India/China/Brazil/Russia enter the r (Score:3, Informative)
It truely was the end of an industry.
Re:When will India/China/Brazil/Russia enter the r (Score:3, Insightful)
Why would one refuse to ride in a plane that uses vacuum tubes and wood? Planes have been built with wood for a very long time, so I believe it can be said that wood, while not the best material, has certainly proven that it is worthy of use in aircraft. As for vacuum tubes, the same reasoning applies. Vacuum tubes were good enough in the 50s, but using them now (or 20 years ago) means that th
Re:When will India/China/Brazil/Russia enter the r (Score:4, Funny)
It could be that they have done some research on the subject (while travelling by boat, or by cart maybe), or possibly they made up their mind after looking at Fox News while waiting for their plane between DC and New York.
I find myself in 747s all the time but then I go to countries that don't really exist.
Wow. That's a BIG plane. (Score:5, Funny)
Bigger than Howard Hughes' dream (Score:3, Interesting)
The only issue is whether the capacity will be taken advantage of effectively. While most flights now are booked solid, will the number of passengers be high enough to make the construction of these behemoths profitable?
Re:Bigger than Howard Hughes' dream (Score:4, Interesting)
That's exactly the question on which Airbus bet the farm.
Personally I think it will take off, due to anticipated demand by India and especially China to haul as many passengers as possible with one plane between cities. Airports can host a finite amount of flights only. So the more people you can squeeze into a plane the more you can transport in any given timeframe from one airport to another.
Yeah... but (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Bigger than Howard Hughes' dream (Score:5, Informative)
These routes right now could use the A380-800:
London-Hong Kong
London-Singapore
London-Tokyo
London-Sing
London-Bangkok-Sydney
London-Johann
London-Cape Town
Paris-Montreal
Paris-Tokyo
Frankfurt-Toky
Frankfurt-New York
Frankfurt-Los Angeles
Frankfurt-San Francisco
Singapore-London
Singapore-Tokyo
Sin
Singapore-Taipei-Los Angeles
Singapore-Hong Kong-San Francisco
Seoul-Los Angeles
Sydney-London via Singapore/Bangkok
Sydney-Los Angeles
Small wonder why among the first A380-800 flights to the USA are flown by QANTAS on the Sydney-Los Angeles route and Singapore Airlines on the Singapore-Hong Kong-San Francisco route.
Quiz Time (Score:3, Insightful)
These routes right now could use the A380-800:
Frankfurt-New York
Frankfurt-Los Angeles
Frankfurt-San Francisco
Singapore-Taipei-Los Angeles
Singapore-Hong Kong-San Francisco
Sydney-Los Angeles
Just curious:
1) Which of the following airports have runways long enough to allow the A380 to land [or to take off]?
2) Which of the following airports have terminal fac
Re:Bigger than Howard Hughes' dream (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Bigger than Howard Hughes' dream (Score:4, Interesting)
It should be noted that the technology existed to build a plane out of aluminum when the Spruce Goose was created. The reason that it was made out of wood was so as not to deplete the metals that were used to make weapons in World War II due to shortages of supplies. Later Hughes' stubbornly refused to change to aluminum when the metal shortage was lessoned. Check out this site for the story [straightdope.com].
There can be only ONE!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Seems to me that there's room for, and a mission for BOTH the A380 and the 787. BOTH planes have a mission, and make a lot of sense in their respective missions. Trying to force an economic model that excludes one or the other is STUPID! (IMHO)
As far as I can remember, I've only once seen a 747 at the Burlington, Vt airport, which is the biggest in a 3+ hour radius. (Except for Montreal Dorval, across an international borde
Re:Bigger than Howard Hughes' dream (Score:5, Informative)
Here's some stats for both aircraft:
A380-800
Hughes Flying Boat H-4 (HK-1) Hercules ("Spruce Goose")
First A380 Post (Score:5, Informative)
A day I will never forget
Quiet (Score:4, Funny)
That's because of the four Rolls-Royce engines. Everybody knows a Rolls is more quiet than a Corvette.
* ducks *
It's the economy model, stupid (Score:5, Insightful)
The thing also has huge (for an aircraft) cargo capability.
Boeing still seems to be pinning its hopes on midsize wide bodied aircraft that fly between smaller airports. All I can say is, for Boeing to be right an awful lot of people need to be very wrong about the way the world is going.
Re:It's the economy model, stupid (Score:4, Informative)
Re:It's the economy model, stupid (Score:3, Interesting)
UPS and FEDEX have already ordered A380's. I'm assuming that DHL, a subsidiary of the German national postal service, has as well. Big hub is perfect for freight distribution. Once it's out the door, I dont think scarebus cares what you use their planes for.
Re:It's the economy model, stupid - err .. (Score:5, Interesting)
Well, of course you need less big planes as small ones.
As the 787 carries 217, 257 or 289 passengers and the A380 typically 555, the numbers become : over 66470 (230*289) seats ordered for the Boeing 787 and 83250 for the A380. Seen this way, Airbus has the edge ;)
Personally, I think that it isnt yet decided which company did the right bet. Probably both the 787 and the A380 will both be popular. However, IMHO, the 747 is dead.
Re:It's the economy model, stupid (Score:3, Insightful)
A380 is a gamble (Score:3, Interesting)
Boeing's presales [boeing.com]of the 787 have been quite strong. I think it is Airbus that has made the big bet. The vast majority of the world's airports are not compatable with the A380 either at the gates, or with the required strength of runways. Airbus has made the real gamble. As with the Concorde, Airbus's (Europe's) desire to trump Boeing (US) may be clouding their business judgement.
Better photos... (Score:5, Informative)
Check out the photo credits (Score:4, Funny)
or click directly here: http://www.airliners.net/open.file?id=812064&size
and scroll down to the lower left of the picture.
It says:
Here's more of their work: http://www.planepictures.net/netsearch4.cgi?stypeTalk about a good marketing name ...
Obligatory Monty Python reference (Score:5, Funny)
(hint: you can't waffle on this since there is only one type!)
Hub & Spoke vs. Point-to-Point (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm sure there is room for both models, but once a hub saturates it becomes necessary to increase point-to-point operations from smaller airports (e.g., the Southwest Airlines model).
Re:Hub & Spoke vs. Point-to-Point (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Hub & Spoke vs. Point-to-Point (Score:3, Informative)
Airbus has a market share of almost 50% of all commercial planes sold these days and that *excludes* the preorders for the A380. In every segment of commercial transportation Airbus directly competes with Boeing it does so quite well, just take a look at the A320 or A340.
However, there is one segment, where Boeing does *not* compete with Airbus industries and that is the segment for the A380, serving
Videos (Score:4, Interesting)
Take off [airbus.com]
In flight [airbus.com]
Mandatory "your mom" joke (Score:5, Funny)
Not very luxurious. (Score:3, Insightful)
The response was that people don't want luxury, just price.
Suppose there is some truth to that since flying is never comfortable but for a handful of people who can afford more space.
Besides, its luxury you're going to at the end of the ride.
Makes me wonder though, why not offer a sleeping seat choice at ticket time?
Pack them in like train cars where you can sit cross leg or stretch out flat.
Offer a family box etc.
Let the engineers figure out the safety part of restraint for landings and takeoffs.
P-Ditty (Score:3, Funny)
Re:Finally (Score:5, Interesting)
The 777 is a much smaller plane than the A380. With such a large plane it makes sense to have 4 engines.
Passenger planes have to be designed such that they can fly on with single engine failure. With 2 engines each engine has to be strong enough to drive the plane on its own. With 4 engine failure scenario require the plane to fly on 3 engines hence each engine has to be only 1/3rd total load.
The wastage in excess power is much less 1/3-1/4 1-1/2
Re:Finally (Score:5, Informative)
The primary reason why they're building the A380-800 is because in Europe and much of Asia they have landing-slot restrictions as a noise-abatement measure. As a result, in order to increase passenger capacity the only way to go is to fly bigger planes. Here in the USA, landing-slot restrictions are not that big an issue, so there is far less need to buy bigger planes.
However, expect the A380-800 to start flying to the USA starting in late 2006. QANTAS wants to fly the plane on the Sydney-Los Angeles route, and Singapore Airlines will fly the plane on the Singapore-Hong Kong-San Francisco route. In 2007, I expect Lufthansa to fly the A380-800 to the USA, probably on the Frankfurt-New York, Frankfurt-Los Angeles and Frankfurt-San Francisco routes.
Re:Finally (Score:5, Funny)
I really hope the in-flight movie doesn't consist of the 1st season of Lost. That just wouldn't fare well at all.
Re:Finally (Score:3, Informative)
You try getting a ticket now on a QANTAS flight between Los Angeles and Sydney and the Singapore Airlines flight between Singapore and San Francisco, especially the segment between San Francisco and Hong Kong--good luck! Small wonder why the flights I mentioned will be among the first A380 flights to the USA.
Re:Finally (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Finally (Score:5, Insightful)
Boeing has missed the bus. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Finally (Score:4, Informative)
You're missing the point. Assuming you meant "500 people", as the A380 doesn't carry 800: what happens the next day, when only 250 people want to go from A to B? You can fly just one of those 777's, or a half-empty A380. The real issue is whether they can consistently fill those 500-odd seats on the A380. "Dollars per seat-mile" assumes that there is a paying butt planted in each of those seats.
Re:Airbus (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Airbus (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Boeing (Score:3, Informative)
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/busines
When you ride on a Beoing jet, enjoy it as your tax dollars also helped pay for it.
Re:Airbus (Score:5, Informative)
Some governments subsidise local production plants, but this is exactly the same as Boeing getting a $20billion tax break from Washington State to move its 777 production plant to that state.
Pick your team, they are exactly the same.
Re:Airbus (Score:5, Funny)
Re:I'm so confused.... (Score:5, Funny)
This is, of course, barring any recent technological advancement which allows jets to complete flights before getting them underway. If it were so, that'd be real news for nerds. Of course, then, the article would be posted on Slashdot before it was written.
So to answer your question, the answer is yes.
Indeed it is (Score:5, Insightful)
In fact I believe that in passenger miles per gallon terms large passenger aircraft do better than most cars, before allowing for the fact that most cars have only one passenger a lot of the time. The only real advantage of trains over planes is that you can power an HST using a nuclear power plant while aircraft need oil. If people and perishable goods are going to continue to move large distances for the next thirty years or so, the A380 is a good bet.
Re:Indeed it is (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Indeed it is (Score:3, Interesting)
Concorde in many respects was way ahead of its time, having fly-by-wire controls and various other features that only made it to the mainstream airliners a decade later.
Unfortunately
Re:Indeed it is (Score:3, Interesting)
Welcome to the real world, where decisions about billion dollar capital investments are made on grounds other than sexiness.
Re:Indeed it is (Score:4, Insightful)
horrible Concorde
I can't say I recall sipping Krug champange whilst travelling at Mach 2 and 60,000 feet horrible.
Ok, so Concorde wasn't the most environmentally friendly aircraft ever built. However, I do remember watching an interview with one of the design engineers. He was of the opinion that Concorde was always envisaged as the FIRST in a long line of supersonic transport aircraft. Considering the engineering brilliance that Concorde represented, I wonder where it could have led ?
Re:Is any work being done to make engines efficien (Score:3, Informative)
Here's an article I dug up using Google. [howstuffworks.com]
Re:But (Score:3, Informative)
On the other hand flying without having to make connections is so much better and I would rea
Re:But (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Everyone must wear parachutes (Score:3, Insightful)
Flight testing is risky; part of the point is to discover and correct design flaws that might be considered a safety problem. Airbus is not the only one to have had fatalities during initial testing; Bombardier had a fatal crash in the 90s during a test flight. You should be glad the engineers are willing to risk their
Re:Everyone must wear parachutes (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Cool (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Cool (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Cool (Score:3, Informative)
For the A380 program Airbus received one third of the development costs as credits from the governments of the involved countries. They are repayable including market interest rates, but I guess depending on the success of the program.
Airbus, on the other hand, is owned by its member governments,
80% of Airbus is owned by EADS [eads.com], the rest by BAE Systems [baesystems.com]. EADS is partly owned by the French government (below
Re:Cool (Score:3, Insightful)
That is an interesting definition of what happened. According to Webster.com, this is the definition of a subsidy [webster.com]. In other words, the governments of Chicago, Dallas and Saint Louis were all willing to give millions of dollar in tax breaks for
Re:Thanks, but no thanks... (Score:3, Insightful)
Fly By Wire defined (Score:5, Informative)
Hmm... Let's clear up a few things;
A typical small aircraft has mechanical linkages between flight controls and flight surfaces. So, when I push forward on the stick, the stick pulls on a linkage, which pulls on a long metal rod (or possibly a cable), which pulls on another linkage, which moves the elevator (the flight surface which controls pitch).
Your typical old-school big-jet (like a 737 for example) uses a hydraulic system. When I push on the yoke, the yoke pulls a linkage, which pulls a rod or a cable, which moves another linkage, which move valves which control hydraulic pumps, which in turn move the flight surfaces. Hydraulics are used in big planes, because the forces required to move the flight surfaces would exceed what a human is capable of.
"Fly By Wire" is where I move a stick or a yoke, and it activates a switch or rotates a potentiometer, which sends a signal off into a computer, which then moves the appropriate flight surface.
There are no mechanical linkages between the flght controls and the flight surfaces in, say, an Airbus A320. So in the strictest sense, there is no "manual backup". There is a "manual control", wherein you cut the computer out of the decision making process, so the plane does exactly what you tell it to, rather than what it thinks you want to do based on your input (the closest analogy I can think of would be disabling traction control in your car, but that's a pretty poor analogy. See my other post in this thread for more information on the A320's flight computers).
From a pure "flight control" perspective, cutting the computers and autopilot and whatnot out of the loop, fly-by-wire is likely the most reliable of all methods, since you cut out a lot of mechanical linkages and pullies and other physical stuff (which will eventually fail, no matter what, it's all a question of mean-time-between failures), and replace them mostly with solid-state electronics, which have extremely low failure rates, and extremely long MTBFs.
Fly-by-wire also makes it much easier for you to build a computer which controls the plane, since all your flight surfaces are already "digitally controlled".
Re:Thanks, but no thanks... (Score:3, Interesting)
So I guess you're also driving a pre-1976 non-electronic-ignition vehicle, or you've got your horse all set to go to the market?
Maybe you also have an older model, rusted-out horse up on blocks on your front lawn, too ...
BTW - How are you posting if you don't trust computers not to hang so often?
(in a related note, I've just noticed this morning that all the hds we've RMA'd wer
Re:Thanks, but no thanks... (Score:3, Insightful)
And when wa
You're much safer on the Airbus (Score:5, Informative)
A child of four could fly that plane.
Essentially, a good way to think about it is; the plane is always on autopilot, and if you take "manual control" you're feeding requests into the autopilot, which it may or may not honor.
For example; pull back on the stick and set the throttle to minimum. The plane will start to pitch up, and your airspeed drops off. Once you get close to stall speed, the plane will start increasing throttle to maintain speed. Once it runs out of throttle, it will start decreasing the angle of attack. Even if you give it hard over rudder, the plane simply will not stall.
I did a "flame-out" landing, with no fuel, Gimli-Glider style, and aside from the fact that I blew out some tires (no ABS when the engines are out on an A-320), I landed the plane no problem.
My cousin, who used to fly for Air Canada, said that by Air Canada rules, they had to fly under pilot control on takeoff until they were at 500 feet. After that, they could let the computer fly the plane to their destination AND LAND without further human intervention.
As far as concerns over "computer faults" go; the Airbus computer consists of (IIRC) 7 processors, which all vote to determine what to do. If a given processor disagrees or starts acting wonky, it gets rebooted. Each of these 7 processors is running different code, based on different designs, by different teams of software engineers. The only thing they have in common is that they were developed from the same requirements.
fly by wire (Score:3, Informative)
"Fly by wire" has three m
Safer if the programmers are omniscient.... (Score:3, Insightful)
Not always a good bet.
Anyone else seen that video of an airbus flying into the trees after a low pass for an airshow? Apparently, the pilot wanted to pull up 30ft to clear the trees, but the computer decided it was better to increase thrust before pulling up.
Boeing planes have all those autopilot toys too, but if something
Re:You're much safer on the Airbus (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Wite Star Airlines (Score:3, Interesting)
When was last time you heard of a Jumbo jet successfully landing on water? Yeah, that is right: never!
Every time we step on a plane, we get to see a demonstration about the flotation devices under our seat and how to evacuate the plane if it has to crash land on water. The truth is, however, that if a jumbo actually tried landing on water, the result would be a wingtip submerging, instantly
Re:Wite Star Airlines (Score:3, Interesting)
Too bloody right, and it annoys me that we continue to put useless balloons under airplane seats but won't mandate for smoke hoods [landings.com]. An invention that costs no more than a life jacket but would actually save lives.
Re:Wite Star Airlines (Score:4, Informative)
Since they aren't designed for successful water landings (when they do that, it's not exactly plan 'A'), you won't ever see one either. However, that's not the point. I was prodding at the arrogance of those that decided to put only enough lifeboats on the Titanic to satisfy the asthetic requirements because, after all, the ship was too big to sink.
FYI: There has been at least one jet (707 cargo) ending up in water still intact that I can think of off the top of my head: http://www.cargolaw.com/2000nightmare_africa_air.
I'm sure you can find more if you look, but since it's bad form to post pics of airliner crashes, you might have a hard time finding photos.
you forgot (Score:3, Insightful)
The A-380 is a ramp agent's worst nightmare. Ever worked at an airport? Being stuck in a cargo pit with bags rolling up a belt loader at you is like being stuck in a crazy real life Tetris game.
Although with widebody aircraft, bags usually get put into containers and loaded that way, but there's still a whole lot of freely loaded bulk stuff that goes on..
Re:If it ain't a Boeing... (Score:3, Informative)
Older siblings, surely? The A340 that lost its tail was around 20 years old.
Losing tails is not unique to Airbus - your beloved Boeing 747 shed a tail over Japan when it was considerably newer than the plane that lost one over New York with the loss of around 500 lives (Japanese airlines ordered high capacity versions of the B747 for internal routes - I'm sure they'll be ordering
Re:Why I Won't Fly On An Airbus (Score:5, Insightful)
http://www.airdisaster.com/statistics/
Re:Why I Won't Fly On An Airbus (Score:4, Informative)
Because these problems will only occur over time - they won't start showing up until the airframes reach a certain number of flight hours and a certain number of compression/decompression cycles.
The risks of delamination is very real. That was very likely to have been a contributory cause of the crash of Flight 587.
Let's review the data, shall we:
If I'm spouting such "uninformed nonsense" then please explain to me why the French government issued an Emergency Airworthiness Directive on A300 series rudder assemblies [avweb.com].
Any competent safety official would not ignore these trends. Visual inspection is not enough to determine if stress has caused voids in a carbon fiber component. Only ultrasound inspections can reveal those voids. Airbus currently does not mandate ultrasound inspections. The current inspection procedures are not adaquate to deal with the dangers of severe structural damage - damage that has already produced one fatal accident and damn near another.
This is a serious problem, and God help us if this kind of reaction is the way the FAA approaches the issue of safety or Flight 587 won't be the only incident of this kind. Such a lax attitude for safety is simply appalling.