Great white bird!!!

[zrath]

Today, I did something I haven't done in a long, long, long time.
I bought a newspaper.
Apparently, an A380 landed at LAX yesterday.
AND NOBODY TOLD ME!!
Ah well...

Behold the world's largest commercial airliner.
Ain't he a beaut?
This one is loaded with test gear and water tanks.
Another A380 landed at JFK in New York, that one staffed and operated by Lufthansa personnel.
Onboard were Airbus employees, Lufthansa frequent flyers and other VIPs.
Word is LAX sucks at handling the A380 and needs to get its shit together if it wants to see regular service.
And Qantas wants LAX to get its shit together because they're getting the A380 and using LAX as a hub.
Virgin Atlantic too. You hear me LAX? Get it together! You're old and outdated! Evolve or die!

Comments

[araquan.livejournal.com]

*grin* Well, where else would you land one if you didn't like LAX?

John Wayne/Orange County?

Ontario?

Burbank?

I think not...

[zrath.livejournal.com]

It's not a question of not liking LAX.
It's a question of LAX being an outdated airport currently operating at near-bursting capacity.
LAX needs major remodeling and modernization.
And yes, LAX is the only place in SoCal than can even think of handling the A380.

[araquan.livejournal.com]

Yeah, well, I've flown through LAX enough times to have developed a dislike for it. Though I can say this in its defense- at least it's not Detroit.

Impossible to get around in easily- hardly anything's in a straight line, and almost all passageways are just too damn narrow for the number of people. Then again, Norgewest built a big new terminal at DTW so I imagine that's pretty nice. The rest of the airport probably still sucks royal rocks though.

MSP, at least, got a major rebuild... And is rather nicer than it used to be, by quite a bit.

[amarafox.livejournal.com]

That plane freaks me out. Seriously.

I would rather puddle hop in a Saab turbo prop.

For some reason I get plane induced claustrophobia, not to the point where I can't go on planes, but to the point where the larger the plane, the more people around me, the less likely I want to fly.

D:

it's still a feat of engineering to behold, though :)

[tal-greywolf.livejournal.com]

Ok... I'll state it up front.

"If it ain't Boeing, I'm NOT going!"

I work for Boeing. Which is busy beating Airbus' butt off because Airbus decided that building a giant whale was better than smaller, faster and more efficient airplanes. (Caused the loss of a few of their senior management, too.) Mind you, no US company has agreed to take that behemoth and the freight companies canceled their contracts instead of being caught short-handed for aircraft.

LAX and Kennedy are likely going to be the only two places you'll see that plane in, as no other airport wants to spend a few tens of millions having to build the infrastructure to host one of those planes. New gates, reinforced concrete runways and taxiways... put that thing down at Denver International and the landing gear will shear off from getting stuck two feet down in the asphalt.

It may be an engineering feat, but I don't see it making the sales it wants to make, or passengers wanting to ride in a plane that's got more in common with an ocean liner than a sleek aircraft.

[zrath.livejournal.com]

Re: Boeing busy beating Airbus' butt off.
This comes from Flug Review, a German aircraft magazine (March 2007 issue):

"Meanwhile in 2006 Airbus delivered 430 complete aircraft, which generated sales revenue of €26 billion. The second-best orders year in Airbus's history ended with new orders for 824 aircraft with a list price of $75.1 billion. But Boeing did even better: the Americans managed to find takers for a total of 1,044 aircraft, 42 up on 2005, which itself had been a record year. 729 of these were Boeing 737NG's. For the first time since 2000, Boeing has slipped back past Airbus with a 56 percent market share expressed in terms of unit sales."

Congrats on finally beating Airbus after 6 years of trailing behind. :)

"But in the competitive struggle, the high number of sales of lucrative wide-body jets weigh even more heavily. Last year Boeing pocketed orders for 157 Boeing 787's, 76 Boeing 777's, ten 767's and an impressive 72 Boeing 747's in both old and new versions, passenger and cargo, especially the latter.
By contrast, Airbus sold “only” 151 wide-body aircraft, including 17 A380's, which at least more than made up for the cancellation of FedEx's ten A380F's. Airbus Chief Commercial Officer John Leahy, who moreover was heard to mention the name “Lufthansa” when listing the airlines which had placed additional orders for the A380, stressed that his A330/A340 had beaten the Boeing 777 with 119 sales. Apparently he is currently negotiating on conversion of the old A350 letters of intent to provisional agreements for the updated A350 XWB. By the end of 2007 he expects to have 200 firm orders for the A350 XWB."

Here's the really interesting bit:

"Through their programme to convert used passenger Boeing 747-400's to Boeing 747-400 Special Freighters or 747-400 Boeing Converted Freighters the Americans have made good use of the four-digit stock of jumbo jets around the world for an assault on the Airbus giant and they are flooding the market with their big, inexpensive converted freighters. They are also offering two attractive new-build types, the large-volume 777F which, despite coming with a high price tag, is very economic in operation, and the 747-8F, which has only emerged as a new-build freighter with nose door and long fuselage after many years' hesitation. This aircraft can seamlessly use the 747F infrastructure such as containers and loading ramps already available at many airlines."

Whew, thank goodness for those leftover 747s, hey? :)
So Airbus is gonna concentrate on the passenger version of the A380 and will finish the freight version later.
The fun is only just starting!

[doodlesthegreat.livejournal.com]

Yes, especially since 787 orders have only begin to come in. The plane is smaller, quieter, more fuel efficient, and perfect for the hubless systems of air traffic that are starting to replace the older hub-and-spoke operations.

At this point, I'd bet on the big B.

[kvogel.livejournal.com]

I suspect it may go the way of the Concord, dramatic, but too much of a pain to keep going. And/or the first time one of these crashes while in a dense-pack configuration (800+).
There are only a few circumstances where you'd REALLY need something that huge and there may not be enough buisness/number of units to ever recoup any of the developement costs.

[zrath.livejournal.com]

This is nothing like the Concorde, really.
It's a quiet (half the noise of a 747) wideboy double-decker jumbo.
It doesn't have any of the problems of the Concorde (small cabin, afterburning military engines, insane fuel consumption, monstrous noise levels).
The Pacific Rim airlines have been clamoring for something like this for years because they move truly astounding, ever-increasing numbers of passengers.
I was subscribed to Aviation Week for 3 years, and I swear that every other issue had an article about the record number of passengers flown by Pacific Rim airlines.
And said airlines clamoring for larger planes. Companies like Cathay Pacific, Singapore Airlines, Malaysia Airlines, Thai Airways, and even Qantas!
They were all first in line to place orders for the A380.
Lufthansa, Virgin, Air France (natch) and several Middle Eastern airlines are also getting them.
Emirates is getting 43, which is pretty mindboggling.
Total orders right now stand at 166 planes.
These are passenger versions only. Nobody's ordering the freight version because of production delays. UPS and FedEx dropped their orders.
I bet you that they will eventually get some of those suckers!

This isn't the Hughes "Spruce Goose" Hercules here!
It's not a plane that makes sense for the US, but the rest of the world seems to want it.

[doodlesthegreat.livejournal.com]

I'll lay you odds FedEx and UPS will stick to Bowing. The 747 designs are much more accomodating than the A380 simply because so few airports can handle the things.

I've ridden Boeing, McDonald Douglas, Lockheed and Airbus passenger planes. Only the Airbus felt like a hinky-shit Cessna with delusious of grandeur. I'd rather fly flippin' Aeroflot before doing another Airbusted.

[araquan.livejournal.com]

Well, Asia is the place where we saw the 747 fitted out as a short-haul, almost commuter plane- remember the 747SR and 747-400D. That's also about the only place that was buying the 777-300, really.

The A380 makes the most sense for either insanely dense routes or insanely long ones... Which is why the Asian and Australian carriers are going gaga over 'em. I expect Airbus will eventually make money on the things, but I would expect Boeing will sell more of its 747-8s in the end.

Hmm. I see that Boeing has stopped making the MD-95... er... 717.

[m-estrugo.livejournal.com]

Hey, this A380 that came to LAX had a fully equipped cabin, not water tanks inside. Even some lucky people took a ride on it. There's some video some reporters did somewhere, but I can't find it.

Check this sequence of the approach to JFK the A380 did before being on KLAX: http://www.airliners.net/discussions/general_aviation/read.main/3315248/

[m-estrugo.livejournal.com]

Found the video!

http://www.flicklife.com/3196f05ac29810b924ac/Inside_The_Airbus_A380.html