Lufthansa flying Airbus A380 superjumbo on 1st flight to America

[question everything]

Lufthansa flying Airbus A380 superjumbo on 1st flight to America

By Matt Moore
ASSOCIATED PRESS

FRANKFURT, Germany – It may trail the historic impact of Charles Lindbergh's 1927 solo flight across the Atlantic, but the Spirit of St. Louis also did not have a wingspan wider than a football field or space for more than 500 passengers. For plane builder Airbus and German airline Lufthansa AG, the A380's first flight to North America on Monday is a chance to show off the superjumbo to potential U.S. buyers and to the airports they hope will be flight bases for the double-decker jet.

(snip)

For Airbus, which has been beset by management and financial crises – including a two-year delay to the A380 that wiped more than $6.61 billion off profit forecasts – the flight is a chance to prove that the plane will be ready when the first deliveries are made in October to Singapore Airlines. Lufthansa Chief Pilot Juergen Raps, who has flown the A380 before, said that despite the superjumbo's size, it is nimble and responsive. “If I were to compare it to driving, you would think this would be like driving a truck or a bus,” he said inside the plane's cockpit. “It's like driving a Ferrari.”

(snip)

The Frankfurt-New York flight is one of two A380 flights to the United States on Monday. The other is an A380 operated by Australian airline Qantas that is flying to Los Angeles International Airport but devoid of passengers and crew, save for those in the cockpit.

(snip)


Find this article at:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20070318-1131-europe-a380toamerica.html

[givemebackmycountry]

1. And just how much fuel is this BEAST going to consume?

And how much is it going to pollute the already polluted skies as it flies from Germany to LAX or JFK?
And how long will it take Boeing to build something equally as obnoxious, or even more so?

[silverweb]

3. According to the article...

...which I just scanned, "1 gallon per passenger every 80 miles." I haven't broken out the calculator, though, for total MPG figure.

[Javaman]

25. on a 3000 mile trip...

for 500 passengers at 1 gallon for 80 miles = 18750 gallons.

divided 3000 by 80 multiplied by 500.

Since jet fuel is mostly kerosine (right?), I'm not sure what the CO2 out put is.

For 1 gallon of regular gas it's 20 pounds of CO2.

[Canuckistanian]

5. Economy of scale

These aircraft, while consuming huge amounts of fuel, actually lower the consumption of fuel per passenger.

That will translate into fewer planes in the sky.

[ContraBass Black]

6. Significantly less than two or three smaller planes carrying the same number of people.

[Canuckistanian]

7. Right

From the Airbus website:

A380 Spotlight on...

...fuel-burn: Despite its ability to carry 35 per cent more passengers than its competitor, the A380 burns 12 per cent less fuel per seat – reducing operating costs and minimising its effects on the environment at the same time through fewer emissions. The A380 burns fuel per passenger at a rate comparable to that of an economical family car

[Celefin]

22. Jup

Thanks for pointing that out.
Fuel efficiency and reducing time for takeoff and landing
were the main reasons for its design:
it takes a lot less time and fuel to start or land 1 plane as opposed to 3.

But then it's an Airbus and that's normally not a good thing
to be labelled with on this board ;)

[Canuckistanian]

37. Thanks

And welcome to DU!

:toast:
:hi:

[physioex]

10. So what is the alternative?

Shall we go back to traveling in sailing ships for trans-oceanic voyages or perhaps large cargo ships? Read what the other posters are saying. Although the A380 is a technological debacle in it's implementation, it does have economies of scale. It does transport people and cargo very efficiently.

[regnaD kciN]

11. Boeing...

And how long will it take Boeing to build something equally as obnoxious, or even more so?

They're not going to. Boeing has decided that an aircraft that big doesn't make enough economic sense to develop. Instead, they're working on a slightly-expanded version of the 747 (that will seat more passengers than current models, but still less than the A380), and are concentrating on the upcoming 787, which will fall in size between the 747 and 777. Boeing believes that this is the size airlines are going to be seeking for long-distance craft -- and, so far, they've got the advance orders in hand to suggest they're right.

[Crayson]

44. Boeing's strategy...

... is simple and consists of "more smaller planes" for more small airports that hop here and there. (but probably not over the ocean). More and more individual car traffic (and in countries which have railroads) very economical railroad traffic will be substituted by airplanes.

This translates in much more air traffic.
And THIS will cause pollution as opposed to reduced number of huge transatlantic fuel efficent planes.

[youngdem]

16. This "beast" consumes less gas per mile per person than a Prius hybrid while going 500 mph

(assuming an average of 2 people per car)

[matt819]

2. And think about this

Do you want to be on an airplane with 800 people? 800 people! Think about how long boarding and deplaning will take, to say nothing of baggage claim. This is a case of creating a problem by finding a solution to something that wasn't a problem in the first place.

[Sen. Walter Sobchak]

9. the problem is there alright,

Until the forces of NIMBY'ism and reactionary environmentalism are slayed, airport expansion is more or less impossible, Southern California is going to have a full blown crisis in the comming decade as few airports can take on additional flights, building new airports is impossible and NIMBY types like the assholes in Newport Beach will goto court to keep additional planes (that they can't even hear) from flying into airports that have the potential capacity.

[question everything]

33. SoCal air is already saturated

which means that if this Airbus can replace, say, 4 747s you are ahead.

No, it is not the NIMBY - not that I am going to defend the Newpies. No, the way to handle travel is to build fast trains to Ontario and to Palmdale that are begging for more travelers. And a fast train between LA and Sacramento. And a network of fast trains criss crossing the country, certainly connecting airports that are 500 miles apart, to replace short haul flying.

[krispos42]

43. The Airbus takes up two landing slots at an airport, though

So, yeah, it can carry twice as many people as most large airliners, but the wing vortices are so severe that the FAA says you need twice the following distance for safety. In other words, the number of passengers per hour arriving and departing will not be changed.

However, the fuel savings might be nice. It's suppose to be really quiet on the inside, too.

But God help us the first time ones crashes.

The heavier the plane, the bigger the wake vortexes—invisible tornadoes that spiral back from the wingtips, and then spread and linger behind the plane. In extreme cases, wake turbulence can flip a smaller plane.

In June, the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a safety agency, recommended that all aircraft be held 1 additional minute before departing behind an A380, allowing more time for turbulence to dissipate. Spacing between an A380 and a following plane should be 10 nautical miles on final approach, the committee said, double that of other widebodies. ICAO recommended a 15-nautical-mile separation for all other phases of flight—nearly triple the distance required behind a 747.

Airbus countered with its own three-year study, conducted with the Federal Aviation Administration and Joint Aviation Authorities (Europe's version of the FAA). Its recommendations included a separation of 6 nautical miles for heavy aircraft landing behind an A380, 8 nautical miles for medium-weight planes and 10 nautical miles for light planes.

ICAO does not have enforcement powers, but its recommendations usually are implemented by regulators and air traffic control organizations. If the agency doesn't reverse itself, airports will have to allow more time between takeoffs and landings. At busy hubs that will mean assigning the A380 the equivalent of two landing slots. It would all but erase the chief benefit of the plane; the ability to carry more people into congested airfields.

http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/air_space/4201627.html?page=2

[depakid]

38. Economics will solve that problem

particularly if you're talking about the coming decade(s). The era of cheap air travel will wane with the end of the era of cheap oil....

Southern California is going to have a full blown crisis alright- though air travel will be the least of its worries.

[question everything]

32. On the other hand, aircraft have to be able to evacuate

all passengers in 90 seconds, in case of fire... and I do know that Airbus did have these tests.

It used to be, when the 747 first came aboard, that there were several doors through which passengers embarked and disembarked. I don't know how it is now, what with extra security etc.

And... I wonder how many lavatories there are per number of passengers.

[Crayson]

45. it's a double decker...

... so I guess it's got doors on top too.

Question is, can the airport's finger docks handle that or do they have to build special ones?

[Lautremont]

4. This sounds like the beginning of a new "Airport" movie.

I've long wished they'd start making those again.

[Tesha]

19. "Surely you can't be serious!"

> I've long wished they'd start making those {"Airport" movies} again.

"Surely you can't be serious!"

Tesha

[Lautremont]

20. I'm deadly serious.

I have the "Airport Terminal Pack" - all four movies in one DVD set. Why, the star power alone is unimaginable!





























And don't call me Shirley!

[Paulie]

24. "Don't call him Shirley... "

:) :) :)

Though I think Airport is the better of the two, Airplane is infinitely more quotable. :D

[Tesha]

26. The one *I* want is *Zero Hour"; still *NOT* available on DVD :-( !

The one I want is Zero Hour (aka Flight into Danger):

* http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0051221/

But it's *STILL NOT AVAILABLE* on DVD! :cry:

Dr. Baird: "Our survival hinges on one thing - finding someone
who not only can fly this plane, but didn't have fish for dinner."

Tesha

[freethought]

8. This thing is huge!!

Where are they going to land this thing?
I'm originally from Massachusetts, and there we had a small Air Force base called Westover A.F.B. Although small it was used because the landing strip was suitable for landing the C-5 Galaxy. As I understood it not every air base could accomodate one of those behemoths. This Airbus plane is pretty much the same size.

It just baffles me that a plane of this size will be able to land and not cause some sort of damage.

[physioex]

12. Although....

The A380 is a failure in it's implementation, I am certain the designers analyzed this in the design. The runways are made of very thich concrete, and the landing gear can be designed with more tires with more surface area and still be within the tolerances of weight per surface area of the current infrastructure.

[wakeme2008]

17. it's is not the size or weight of a plane that is the problem but the footprint

the plane with the most problems with that was the old DC-9. The nose wheel was small and put the most lbs per sq inch. :shrug:

[meldroc]

31. The B-36 was also notorious for this.

This was the successor to the B-29 that started out with six pusher propellers, and later augmented with four jet engines with the wingtips ("Six turning and four burning" or on a bad day "Two turning, two burning, two joking and two smoking...")

Anyways, the B-36 was a large aircraft with single-wheel landing gears, with the largest tires ever manufactured in that day. Only a few air bases could accommodate the B-36, because the ground pressure was so high that it tore up conventional tarmacs and runways.

[A HERETIC I AM]

28. It can land on every runway that can accomodate a 747

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A380

One of the biggest problems airports will have is dealing with 500 - 600 passengers arriving on one aircraft and all heading for Customs at the same time.

[proud2BlibKansan]

40. I heard on the news that they had to put in new runways for this plane?

And they had spent tens of millions of dollars on the runways in LA and NY to accomodate this huge plane.

[Crayson]

46. New runway at the FACTORY

All i heard was that they needed a new runway at the Toulouse factory to get it off the ground.
Not at any major airport it's going to land on.

Think about it.
Such a huge plane won't land on outback airports, only in major cities that connect intercontinental flights.

[A HERETIC I AM]

49. There was a bit i heard last night that LAX was repositioning a runway - moving the centerline over

50 feet or so. It would be my guess that they are doing this to merely provide a greater margin of error. LAX has often 2 747's taking off or landing on parallel runways. Spreading them out a little more gives that much more wingtip-to-wingtip clearance.

[Eurobabe]

13. There's a test flight of this puppy (A380) in Munich on 3/28

If at all humanly possible, I might trek up to the airport (on wonderful public transportation) to try to take some photos.

[Earth_First]

14. Airbus A380

[sakabatou]

50. That thing looks really unpleasant

[no_hypocrisy]

15. Sounds like the Titanic with wings . . . n/t

[roamer65]

18. "Looks like a big Tylenol with wings..."

...and I picked a bad day to stop sniffing glue.

[fudge stripe cookays]

21. I just hope to God...

that they test the pressurization on the cargo doors.

Remember when they first invented jumbo jets and the cargo doors kept blowing off? Look up the Turkish flight that went down in Ermenonville Wood in 1974.

While I worry about environmental problems as much as the next person, my main worry is "What happens when it crashes?" Think about the Pacific Southwest flight in San Diego being brought down by one of those little doctor killers. Directly OVER the city

:scared:

[A HERETIC I AM]

27. It has been flying since 2005. It has been through every test you could possibly imagine.

They don't just build them and start loading people on them.

General info on the A380 from Wiki;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A380


The following website has video of many different types of aircraft. Type "A380" into the search and you can find a number of videos of test flights including some pretty impressive crosswind landings.
http://www.flightlevel350.com/

An example of one of the tests most passenger aircraft go through is called a "Cold Sink" test. The plane is flown to an airport in the arctic, often northern Canada or Alaska, and is allowed to sit there overnight, completely shut down so that everything, down to the last rivet is at the ambient air temperature. Many times this can be as low as -30F. Then they come out in the morning and start it up. They run an entire series of such tests. Here is a link to a shot of the 380 at such a location;
http://www.airliners.net/open.file/1167602/M/

[Crayson]

47. what happens? --> Statistics

What happens when it crashes? 800 instead 400 die.
But it's gonna crash only half as many times as smaller planes because smaller planes need to fly twice as much for the same load.

--> It evens out... but it's going to be more spectacular.

Still.
Driving car, smoking, cancer, household accidents, small guns have a way bigger chance to get you !!

People, think in NUMBERS, not in headlines!

[Red1]

23. A380

I worked on the wing design. It is truly a magnificent aircraft, but so was the Beechcraft Starship, the Edsel etc.

For a quarter of a billion dollars, it will be hard for the airlines to quantify the expense, as others have stated the market niche is small. As a freighter, it may have more success, but that program is on hold.

Hopefully, as a company they level out the production problems and stay viable as an aircraft manufacturer. There are many jobs in this country tied to their success.

[question everything]

34. Must be wonderful to see your work realized in real life

Several airlines - international ones - were the first to place orders and then canceled as delivery date was being pushed off again and again.

And, of course, not every airport can accommodate it. LAX had to make special arrangements and to plea with them to come today.

And... welcome to DU.

:toast: :bounce:

[hogwyld]

39. I saw a series on the A380 on the National Geographic channel

And I really think that Airbus will get it together. I hope that they don't forget their social responsibilities to it's workers. European companies are so much more enlightened in it's treatment of their workers than US companies are.

[devilgrrl]

29. Was the pilot a Jew hating fascist?

:sarcasm:

Sorry, Charles Lindbergh was an asshole. And his fucked up sister killed his son, not Bruno Hauptmann.

BTW, I hope I never have to fly on one of those Big Ass planes.

[Crayson]

48. grow up...

It's not 1945 anymore...

[meldroc]

30. I wouldn't call this plane a total failure but...

Airbus needs to get its act together very quickly on the A380.

The A380 has the promise to be a very good aircraft. The problems are with the technical difficulties causing the manufacturing delays - if they're not fixed quickly, more airlines will jump ship and buy Boeings instead, leaving Airbus bankrupt.

Assuming they can get the A380 working, the problems left are building aircraft terminals and concourses big enough to handle the beast. Runways aren't a big problem - the A380 has landing gears with extra wheels on them to spread out the load so it won't cause more stress on runways and tarmacs than a 747. Despite its size, it was engineered with a wingspan and footprint not much bigger than a 747 to minimize the infrastructure improvements required. Nevertheless, airports will need terminals with berths with multiple jetways, so 550 passengers can embark and disembark quickly, and the airport will need to handle that much more fuel, food, toiletries, etc for an aircraft that big.

It has the promise to be a very decent aircraft - it's relatively efficient - you'll burn less fuel and produce less greenhouse gas putting a full load of passengers in one A380 than putting the same passengers in multiple smaller aircraft. Its primary niche will be in China, East Asia and other places with a high population density and a need for air transport of large numbers of people using an airport with limited real estate, limited numbers of runways and limited takeoff/landing slots.

But that's assuming Airbus can get its act together and get this plane into production soon.

[Bacchus39]

35. no-one is driving to Europe or Asia though

n/t

[Parche]

36. LAX

Yes a friend of mine is there now, and 50 feet away, I should be there too, but had
too much to do here................
He got thru security by a friend of his who takes photos of planes and is a well known photographer..

[bumblebee1]

41. I saw the ABC News video about this flight.

One of the men was describing this as being like a Hummer. This plane is for ego and hubris. To which I commemted, "Great!!! All you need now is a pilot with a small penis."

[ends_dont_justify]

42. Scary thing to have around while * looks for new terrorism attacks to get us to Iran N/T