A380
 

Have just arrived back from a holiday down near Marseilles in France. We went for a drive one day and passed by a 'zone militaire' which we could see on the map also had an airfield. Something caught my eye and I looked up to see a huge aircraft flying quite low and thought it had to be a military aircraft. We realised though that it was in fact an A380 doing some low level manouevres. It is ENORMOUS - a veritable monster of an airplane. It flew over the road and quite a few people screeched to a halt to get out and have a look. I think that it goes into service with Singapore in October. Very impressive to look at.
:eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:

Singapore thought it would be in service with them by last September. ;) :D

Saw it in Sydney. It's a big plane. Sort of like a 747 but with a full second deck. In the end though it's just a plane. It will take me from a to b. I'm much more excited about the dreamliner as it will bring many comfort benefits and it's something that I will commonly fly.

Big is not always better. To me, I think the comfort features of the 787 will be better than the A380. I'll try to avoid the A380 because (1) I don't want to travel with that many people, (2) the extra time to board and deplane, (3) the extra people to process thru customs/passport control, and (4) the extra people and time needed to pick up baggage.

I believe the size/quantity of passengers is benefitial to the airline, but certainly not to the passengers.

Earlier this year (3/26/07) I arrived on a flight into IAD in the evening. As the "lunar rover" rounded a corner on its way to the main terminal I saw this giant tail fin and immediately thought 380 (plus it said A380 on it - duh). It was all lit up and cordoned off with security vehicles at each corner, and the cargo hold was open - simply huge. The rover was really packed, and most people didn't even seem to notice the plane, other than the travel professionals who were clearly all over it.

I have little interest in flying on this behemoth for regular travel, but if I'd been offered the chance that night, in spite of just winding up a long trip, I would have been headed out of town in a heartbeat.

I guess it all comes down to how many (or few) seats they put on it.

please report back after the debut of the SQ A380 F cabin.

1-4 will depend, as they do now, more on how the airline manages it and how the airport manages it than the plane itself.

I look forward to cheap flights, it's the only joy left in travelling

Originally due in mid 2006. Still waiting :(

I'm lucky to work in Blagnac, France right by the airport. I watch the A380 from my office window every day. Sometimes they just fly in circles and do little touchdowns with immediate re-take-offs. Once we saw 5 of them flying in formation and a colleague took some nice pictures! They are beautiful, but NOISY!

Sheila

All I can think of is that since that plane is so big, if one goes down, will break the record for the worst air disaster ever. Hopefully, that will never happen.

As for a transport that could carry even more people, I wonder how many people would fit in a C-5 if that had ever been made into an airliner? (Hint it takes 700 200 pound individuals to equal the weight of an M-1 Abrams tank).

In terms of the seating and cabin layout, even if they are nice at first, it will end up the same way as the 747 did. Before too long the airlines will just end up putting more seats in there. In terms of the 1-4 comment, you could say that for pretty much anything. That said, I'm pretty sure that SYD isn't going to renovate their airport because airbus made a huge plan. I've experienced the waits due to a 747. I can't imagine that they'd be like with a 380.

The Pan Am/KLM disaster on Tenerife in March 1977, resulted in 731 fatalities (335 +396). Can 1 A380 beat that?

Fully loaded in it's economy only configuration of it's 850+ passengers, yes.

BTW, the crash at Tenerife resulted in 583 fatalities. I don't know how it survived this long, but I still have the Time Magazine issue from that crash.

Worst single aircraft crash was JAL 123, a domestic-configured 747SR. 520 out of 524 died. A botched repair on the rear pressure bulkhead seven years previously gave way and the explosive decompression blew off the tail fin and severed hydraulic lines for all four systems.

Most passengers ever on a jet was 1,122 on an El Al flight as part of Operation Solomon in 1991. Edit: Clarification: most people ever carried on a jet and thus the biggest potential crash toll. However, it did not crash.

Sorry; you're right. I was reading the statistics on AirDisaster.com incorrectly (mixing up number of fatalities out of number of passengers on two planes).