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Airbus A380 in livery
- Thread starter MuFu
- Start date
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
Legend
Yep - they are having to rebuild many airports to handle such a honkingly big plane. Funny how Airbus are taking Boeings previous "bigger is better" philosophy, just as Boeing is taking Airbuses previous "medium sized efficiency".
I clicked the arab emirates linky, and the screwy thing is, with it being so tall all the way along the fuselage it doesn't look all that big to me. Kind of short actually. 
I look at it, and see the door just behind the cockpit windows and know that's about the height of a guy, but it's still hard to put things in perspective.
I look at it, and see the door just behind the cockpit windows and know that's about the height of a guy, but it's still hard to put things in perspective.Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
Legend
Yeah, even when you have something in the picture to give it scale, it's still difficult to fully appreciate the size of something that massive until you stand next to the thing yourself.
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
Legend
MuFu said:
And it's well in the foreground. There's probably a lot of forshortening in the picture as both truck and plane are in focus, so I'd guess the plane is even bigger than it first looks compared to the truck.
Mintmaster
Veteran
Have any of you seen a video of this sucker landing? The landing speed is pretty much the same as other aircraft, but because it's so big, it looks like it's landing in slow motion. You really get a feel for its size when watching this.
Well, one of the benefits of this aircraft is supposed to be efficiency. With the large size, it is able to hold many passengers.Bouncing Zabaglione Bros. said:
Smaller aircraft are typically more expensive per flight, but more flexible for the carriers, and more convenient for the passengers, as there are more flights.
Singapore airline pic was crazy. Too bad all airlines have such boring paint jobs! is there a law that says planes have to be ipod white or something, for visibility perhaps?
Can't see the tail in the qantas pic, but of the other two, the emirates plane looks the most interesting. More color, and those cool arabic letters make for a more appealing look overall.
Too bad all airlines have such boring paint jobs! is there a law that says planes have to be ipod white or something, for visibility perhaps?Can't see the tail in the qantas pic, but of the other two, the emirates plane looks the most interesting. More color, and those cool arabic letters make for a more appealing look overall.
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
Legend
Chalnoth said:
It's not supposed to be full of passengers. It will in many configurations have bars, gyms, mega-space seating and beds for first class. There's also been questions raised that even if you do kit the plane out with a lot of seats, on many routes you won't fill all the seats. This is is why Boeing have not followed this "larger is better" philosphy - they think that the theory of filling one massive plane and thus making it "more effecient" will rarely happen in practice.
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
Legend
Guden Oden said:Singapore airline pic was crazy.
Can't see the tail in the qantas pic, but of the other two, the emirates plane looks the most interesting. More color, and those cool arabic letters make for a more appealing look overall.
For a couple of years BA has all kinds of crazy colours and designs over their tail planes. They eventually reverted back to standard livery because the pilots complained it made it difficult to identify BA planes (and thus where you were in relation to them if you were talking to traffic control).
Guden Oden said:I clicked the arab emirates linky, and the screwy thing is, with it being so tall all the way along the fuselage it doesn't look all that big to me. Kind of short actually.
A380 is not really very long. Boeing 777-300 is about as long (which is longer than a 747). However, the wingspan is much wider (about 20m longer) than a 777. By the way, the tail wing height is 24m, about the same as a 6-story building.
Of course, the largest airplaine in the world is the unique An-225. I remembered that a few years ago it came to Taiwan to ship a 6th generation LCD manufacturing equipment and all the media went to there to report about that plane
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
Legend
Simon F said:
I'm sure the controllers had the same problems and complaned too now you mention it.
Um, don't controllers and pilots alike rely on radar imaging/radio transponders, rather than eyeballing the other planes? I would think that would be sort of difficult to do actually during nighttime or bad/cloudy weather, no matter what the planes' paintscheme...
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
Legend
Guden Oden said:
Vision is still a primary cue for pilots - that's why they and the controllers complained. Sure, not so much at night (even though the tailplanes are all lit up on passenger planes), but certainly during the day.
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros. said:
These I predict will be rare. When the 747 was first rolled out, it was demoed with similar configurations: bars, large seats, beds, restaurants. The reality is, airlines are barely squeaking by, fuel costs are going up, these suckers are flying long haul hub-to-hub, so they are going to pack as many sardines into that can as they can.
Virgin Atlantic, British Airways, Cathay and Singapore, and a few other "luxury" airlines might run them in the expensive configurations, but the vast majority over time will turn out to be cattle cars.
Bouncing Zabaglione Bros.
Legend
Yes, and then as per the part of my post you didn't quote, the airlines will have problems filling a single flight with that many passengers - at least that's what Boeing reckons.DemoCoder said:
Edit: I suppose airlines will just reduce the numbers of flights and simply force everyone wanting to go to the same destination onto one of these cattle-trucks a few times a week.
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