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 You're old and outdated!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...

[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.

[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.

[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/