Airbus A380

[flightsimer]

I would disagree with both of the two posts above. You can't just make a big, two deck, four engined A320 and expect it to work.

Do you really think they would have had it over ten years in development if they were just making it a little bit bigger? Seriously, wake up and smell the sausages, Boeing fan-boys. 

Ok Airbus Fan-boy...

Guess what, the 777, the worlds largest twin engined aircraft, took longer to design than the A380 did. The 777 can be traced back all the way to the 70's while it didnt really start taking its current form until 1988 when boeing restarted with a new design. However, the current 777 still used parts from the previous design of the early-mid 80's.

The studies for the VLA category of aircraft were started in the early 90's with both Boeing and Airbus working together. Boeing broke off and abandoned it, while airbus toyed around with it some more. It wasnt until 1999-2000 that they started to seriously design anything close to what today has become the A380.

So from initial designs (close to production design) to first flight, it took each the following.
777- 1988-1994= 6 years, with it being offered for orders starting in 1989.
A380- 2000-2005= 5 years, with it being offered for orders starting in Dec. 2000.

If you want to include the entire design phase, then the 777 creams the A380
777-1978-1994= 16 years
A380- 1992-2005= 13years

So tell me, if the A380 was so hard to make, then why did a twin engine 777 take almost two years longer to develope (yes two, they started in early 88 and it flew in Jun 94)

what do you think is so special about making the a380 compared to any other aircraft other than the pure size? If you can name me five special things that doesnt directly relate to the size of it, then i will retract my statement.

[d2031k]

Hey all,
I've got to do a project on what makes the Airbus A380 unique, I know the obvious (i.e double decker etc) but can someone help me make my presentation slightly more unique

Thanks in advance

chrisadams

Chris,

As usual the thread seems to have escalated into a discussion about something else completely.

Anyway, if you've not already seen the programme itself, here are is an episode of Richard Hammond's engineering connections which was pretty interesting I thought when it was on BBC.  He takes things at a slightly different angle, so it might provide some inspiration.

Part 1 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy5S9pa_nVk&NR=1
Part 2 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MYsxXXYrh4I&feature=related
Part 3 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=znFsQgYBqsM&feature=fvwrel
Part 4 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-SbnPu89ChU&feature=related
Part 5 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iXgV_nsJKPM&feature=related

Here's also a link to Megastructures A380 - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W425f1sZmbQ

This is also in 5 parts and provides some useful information too.

Cheers,

Dave

[flightsimer]

Out of interest does anyone know where I could find some concepts of the A3XX when it was officially announced. Does it look pretty much the same as the final A380 did?

Airbus really had no clue what the plane was when they first ever mentioned the A3xx. They just "knew" what it was going to do, be more economical than a 747.

[flightsimer]

Here is how i would show the developement of aircraft

Comet-First Jet, many, many faults. (built using the piston era technologies)
707- First Jet to be designed properly.
747- First large passenger aircraft, also the first jet to use turbofans (i believe)
Concorde- First passenger plane designed to fly at mach 2+. (it was not the first passenger plane to break the sound barrier, that would be a DC-8)
L-1011- while not being a commercial success, this plane was really ahead of its time. The systems on this thing were amazing from what i have read and what people who worked on them said. it and the DC-10 paved the way for the 200-300 seat markets
A300- first plane to use a two member flight crew
A320- first FBW passenger plane
777- first to use a large portion of composites in its design and first large twin.
787- First all electronic plane, first to use composites as its main structural material, first in many cabin features.

[thedr2]

Some nice figures you've got there, though completely irrelevant if I'm honest with you. The 777 and A380 are incomparible in almost every way.

The point you seem to have somehow completely missed is that the size is what makes it unique. Being considerably larger than any of its predecesors, technologies and systems had to be designed from scratch to fit the very unique requirements of the aircraft.

Say what you like, I'm not an Airbus fanboy, I much prefer the aircraft Boeing make, including the 777 and 787. But you're making arguments with fingers in your ears.

[GEnx]

Surely I agree with flightsimer. After all, Boeing has had showers in its aircraft for ages.. oh wait.

In all seriousness, though, there's no denying that the A380 truly is an absolutely marvelous piece of modern engineering, if only by its sheer size as pointed out before.

[swiftus27]

Surely I agree with flightsimer. After all, Boeing has had showers in its aircraft for ages.. oh wait.

In all seriousness, though, there's no denying that the A380 truly is an absolutely marvelous piece of modern engineering, if only by its sheer size as pointed out before.

Let's not get into this war yet again.  The A380 in all its superbness is solely for airports that are overcrowded with planes but still have additional demand.  It is a flying cattle car.  It is a potentially large revenue maker if you have it on the right line (JFK to SYD, for instance).   It is NOT more efficient than other planes of the era in Kg.hr/pax but it serves an important purpose.  It was designed in EUROPE for what EUROPEAN airlines were facing... that's the lack of slots.   Airlines in the US are not opting for this beast because there are still many slots available at key international airports.  So, they opt for the more efficient 777 and look forward to when they can service even more airports using 787s when they finally get finished. 

There is a lot to this discussion and really should be relegated to its own thread.

[Curse]

Surely I agree with flightsimer. After all, Boeing has had showers in its aircraft for ages.. oh wait.

At the latest the VIP aircraft for the US president on 707 base should have had showers etc. in the aircraft.

[flightsimer]

Some nice figures you've got there, though completely irrelevant if I'm honest with you. The 777 and A380 are incomparable in almost every way.

The point you seem to have somehow completely missed is that the size is what makes it unique. Being considerably larger than any of its predecessors, technologies and systems had to be designed from scratch to fit the very unique requirements of the aircraft.

Say what you like, I'm not an Airbus fan boy, I much prefer the aircraft Boeing make, including the 777 and 787. But you're making arguments with fingers in your ears.

 It’s not irrelevant at all. In your previous post, you said "Do you really think they would have had it over ten years in development if they were just making it a little bit bigger?". You were trying to say that it took them ten years to build a new plane and that length of time wasn’t because of its size but because of its technologies.

All they did with the A380 is upscale everything they previously knew into a bigger plane. The 777 was a new design except for the nose section, which was directly taken from the 767. Technology wise, the 777 had many new things in it as well and new construction methods and materials. It took Boeing longer to design it than it did the A380 which my point was that if everything on the A380 was new, then it would have taken even longer than the 777, but it didn’t. Not even to mention the fact that it only took half the time you said.

Answer the underlined portion in your post like i asked in post I first addressed to you. What technologies and systems did they design from scratch? Nothing, if you can prove me wrong, like i said, i will retract my statement. Everything they used was 2000-2004 (at the latest) technology. Making something bigger, doesn’t mean it’s designed from scratch. That’s like saying a CFM-56 engine that powered an A340-200/300 was designed from scratch. No it wasn’t, it was just made bigger from the same engine that first flew on the 737 classics. Now I’m by no means saying they are exactly the same or that it’s literally just "blown up" in size because nothing is like that in aviation. But they all share the same basic principles in design and its just minor tweaking from there.  

i have been saying this whole time that other than size there is nothing special about it.

If you compare the A380 to the 787, the A380 doesn’t even come close to any sort of amount of a technology leap like the 787 does. Everything about the 787 is new, all the systems, interior features, everything. That’s why it’s been delayed for almost three years now, because everything was knew and Boeing had to learn how redo everything.

Quinoky, sure the A380 has showers in it with ONE specific airline, ONE airline, but no Boeing has ever been delayed over two years because interiors couldn’t be installed right. Any plane could have showers installed if the airline wanted them, but it only makes sense for 2 maybe 3 airlines in the entire world to have them installed in the first place, no matter what aircraft. Those two airlines would be Emirates and Singapore and the third possible would be Qatar.

Oh btw way, how many A380 are on order as business jets? Oh righttttt.... 1... How many for the 747-8I.... 8 currently with probably another 3 to come for the next AF1 and a few others for countries that will be getting new presidential aircraft in the coming years. All of those aircraft have showers in them plus an elevator that goes all the way to ground level!


Im also not bashing the A380. Its a great achievement and gets the job done, even though its the ugliest plane ever made, but lets not pretend it is some god of a plane.

[Sigma]

Man, someone should have told the engineers at Airbus that the only thing one needs to make a bigger plane, is to take all the plans for the existing plane you've got, throw them on the Xerox machine and hit the "200%" button.

Ta-da!  Upscaled plane!

If only.

You might as well say the 777 is just a stretched out 737 with huge engines on it.

Aerospace engineers used to think like that.  That's how you get thing like the single, but 5-feet tall, tires on the Convair B-36 with wings so huge you could walk in them -- they just took a plane that worked and made everything bigger.  Except they quickly found out, as building engineers learned a long time ago, that didn't work so well.  Because the forces at work against your design don't scale at the same rate as the thing you're enlarging.    Take a bridge that works with a 500' span and make it work with a 1000' span and it doesn't work.

"Nothing special but it's size?"  Is the Burj Khalifa nothing more than your average building upscaled a few times?  Was the Voyager spacecraft hurtling away from us somewhere in the heliosphere nothing more than a slightly extended jaunt around the block?  Was a Saturn Rocket just a glorified bottle rocket?  Is the Great Wall of China nothing but an overgrown fence?  Sure, technically, those are all true.  But the achievement of making some bigger is just a teeny, tiny, little bit more complex than just multiplying the plans times X.

And the time it takes to make something is entirely irrelevant to the complexity of the end result.  Human beings went from never having gone into space to walking on the moon in about as much time as it takes to bring a new model of car to market today.  "Time" is a meaningless number.  How many people were involved?  How many man-hours were ultimately spent?  How much money?  What kind of technological aids (i.e. efficiency multipliers) were available?  The most complex undertaking in the universe can take weeks if you throw enough money and people at it, and the simplest thing to do can take years if you don't throw as much effort its way.  Samsung will bring a new TV to  market in less time than it takes me to actually clean-out my garage -- which one's the more complex task?  It's completely impossible to compare 2 projects to one another on any singular basis alone, so to say that because something "took longer" that it was somehow, in any way, more complex or even a more impressive undertaking is ludicrous.

And whether something was designed "from scratch" is completely moot.  First and foremost, if you want to talk 'complexity' as you seem so intent to do, 'complexity' is not remarkable.  Anyone can do 'complex'.  It is refinement that is hard.  It's all that 'tweaking' to get something to work and be smaller, lighter, or otherwise better, and work 99.9999% of the time that's difficult.  And, frankly, there's little 'from scratch' in the aeronautical world of any significance since Bernoulli and the Wright Brothers.  It's mostly been "tweaking" from there.  2-engine, 4-engine, fly-by-wire, 5000lb-hydraulics, IMAs, CFRP, double-deck, winglets, 2-member crew, etc, etc, etc, they're all "tweaks" to the paradigm.  The 787 or 777 or whatever are no more, no less, of a paradigm shift in commercial aviation than the A380.  There's probably only been 3 paradigm shifts in commercial aviation at all -- the 747, the 707, and the DC-3 -- note the last one was some 50 years ago.  And it's unlikely there will ever be another one barring someone figuring out super-efficient SSTs.

[swiftus27]

One credit I will give Boeing is that it appears that every new plane they come out with is 1/2 of a generation ahead of the previous one.  Many components on 767 used on 777 and on.

[Sigma]

One credit I will give Boeing is that it appears that every new plane they come out with is 1/2 of a generation ahead of the previous one.  Many components on 767 used on 777 and on.

Well that's just good sense.  Why re-invent the wheel if what you've got works fine, ya know?

It's a different story when you're a consortium, and you get countries to pony up some dough to finance the development of a new plane.  They're going to want a piece of the pie.  And that may mean they want you to expend some money redesigning a part that you buy from their country so that you employ engineers, tooling manufacturers, etc in that country rather than just keep on making the same part you have been for a while and likely getting production efficiencies (i.e. even less jobs).

[Zabuti]

Hello folks,

sorry to jump in, but I'd just like to add a bit of info on what makes the A380 special. I'm talking from a business standpoint, not from engineering standpoint (since I'm not).
3 positive unique aspects, and 1 negative one as well... (we need to talk on both sides)

What is A380 for airlines ? obviously, a bigger airplane, which was indeed originally designed to increase capacity at crowded expensive airports (like sbdy said before), while being more fuel efficient, etc; This was the original business interest;

Now from a business standpoint, A380 has three key advantages (call them core competencies, unique abilities,... or what best suits you) :

- it is an excellent plane on secondary airports for airlines, which differentiate him from its equivalents. If sbdy need to go from Munich to Singapore, he doesn't care that much about the timetable, but much more on safety and price.
Therefore, if you can offer an affordable flight from this city, and catch all of your demand in one shot, you tremendously reduce your operating costs (less staff needed, no dedicated counter needed (alliance counter is fine),... please note that the new B747-8 is expected to play a similar role.A380 allows business to serve airports with good demand, but not good enough to develop several stops.

- it is also an excellent marketing tool, probably unique. People actually WANT to fly the A380. The airline I work in did a test for that, by tracing the choices of people on the booking website. When people have the choice for the same day, at 1h30 difference, between a B777-300ER and an A380, 72% of people asked for the A380, although it was 6% more expensive. This makes the A380 unique, altough it is also unique by the mess at boarding...

- it is a damn profit maker, the best one of all airplanes, since the cost per seat is far smaller than on all equivalent aircrafts (i have figures, but sry can't share them since they're confidential). it rationalizes the costs, allows big savings, etc. May sound like nothing, but it is crucial for airlines like us.

And one last point making the A380 unique... (not a good one though)... it is probably a program which won't break even... the most admired plane of world need approx. 520 aircrafts to break even, due to tremendous costs generated by delivery issues. However, Airbus benefits from "success loans". They reimburse them only if they break even, downsizing their delivery point to around 125 a/c. This makes life easier for Airbus.

I love Airbus, I admire Boeing as well. I have no clear preference for the brand, but mainly for the type of a/c. To me, B777 is a GREAT plane, as well as the A330/340.

As for the debate on B777 development time, it was strongly delayed because the plane was too advanced at its first release and did not convince. It was also less well balanced than the current ones. The A340 suffers from the same issues of wrong balance. production lines are being slowed down to stop. The A350 will take over with a fresh breath (might also take over A330, but not so soon I guess ;-) )

Ok, I stop there the long reply. Thank you to those who read me to the end.

Kind regards to all of you, and good luck for your presentation mate.

flobacca

[flightsimer]

Sigma, i agree with you 100%. Every point you made, was what i was actually trying to say, but my "proof" was the wrong way to back it up. And when i typed my last post, it was meant to disprove Dan, not support my reasoning why it is nothing special other than its size.

Somehow i went way to complex with it when i simply could have summed it up with six words: there was no big step change.

However, i do disagree with you on the latest one. I believe the 787 to have been a big step change from everything in the past simply from the aerodynamics and systems standpoint. It is still a tube with wings like everything else currently flying though, but i think it will impact every new design from this point forward until we transition into flying wings or the SST's or Sub-orbital aircraft or the next high speed transportation system that takes over aviation.

Flobacca, good points. It is amazing how the name can affect its ridership. Though, I’m not quite sure yet if it really has to do with the A380 or the current airline's products. I’m guessing since you said Singapore, you work for Singapore Airlines, which is known for its quality product, but when say Austral gets its A380 in a 840 seat config, I'm a little skeptical that people will fly them just because its an A380 especially if another airline is offering flights with say a 777 or 787 or whatever.

[forsberc]

Let's not forget, Lufthansa now uses the A380 as well.

[Sigma]

However, i do disagree with you on the latest one. I believe the 787 to have been a big step change from everything in the past simply from the aerodynamics and systems standpoint. It is still a tube with wings like everything else currently flying though, but i think it will impact every new design from this point forward until we transition into flying wings or the SST's or Sub-orbital aircraft or the next high speed transportation system that takes over aviation.

I have little doubt that most of the new features that the 787 is using will make their way into future models, as that's almost always the case thesedays as models come out so relatively rarely that each must be a fairly significant step over the previous -- I'm sure that's happened with both Boeing and Airbus for every model designed in the last 30 years, it was just that the designs were so similar in general appearance that it was difficult to notice and/or buried deep within the aircraft so it wasn't something  you could see was a shared component or idea.  Since the 787 appears so different (relatively speaking) it will become obvious when subsequent new designs share many of these features. 

But the 787 isn't going to change the way we fly.  It isn't going to bring air travel to the masses anymore than what already exists.  It isn't going to "make the world a smaller place" like the first jumbos by making international air-travel affordable.  It's simply an evolution of what we currently have and doesn't represent any sort of shift in the paradigm of commercial air travel at all.  Lightweight technologies and numerous 'behind-the-scenes' technological improvements save companies money in a time of rising fuel prices, but they won't create $20 plane tickets.   LED lighting, bigger windows, etc may make things a bit more comfortable, but they aren't exactly going to change the way we travel.  There's not millions of people out there going "I'd really like to travel to Europe and expand my culture horizons but, man, those windows on planes today are just so small that I can't handle it."

[swiftus27]

  There's not millions of people out there going "I'd really like to travel to Europe and expand my culture horizons but, man, those windows on planes today are just so small that I can't handle it."

I disagree with you a TON here.

The 787 is designed to NOT fly out of JFK, EWR, LHR, CDG....  It is designed to fly at a tier 2 airport.  Imagine Miami to Barcelona?  Boston to Berlin?  Charlotte to Nice!?!?  This plane opens a whole new market for long haul.  It will cheapen tickets because fewer people will be flying connections into major cities (with their often large fees). 

So sorry, I must say that the 787 (if it works the way it is intended) has much larger market potential than the 380 and the 747 before it is.

[Sigma]

I disagree with you a TON here.

The 787 is designed to NOT fly out of JFK, EWR, LHR, CDG....  It is designed to fly at a tier 2 airport.  Imagine Miami to Barcelona?  Boston to Berlin?  Charlotte to Nice!?!?  This plane opens a whole new market for long haul.  It will cheapen tickets because fewer people will be flying connections into major cities (with their often large fees). 

So sorry, I must say that the 787 (if it works the way it is intended) has much larger market potential than the 380 and the 747 before it is.

A smaller plane is almost always going to have a much larger market potential than a larger one.  It'd be an utter surprise if the 787 doesn't eventually outsell the 747 and it'll blow WAY past the A380 in sales by an order of magnitude.

And direct flights are rarely cheaper than indirect ones.  If they are, it won't be appreciably so, and it's not going to expand the market of international flights in any appreciable fashion through a fairly negligible decreases in costs.  By and large, air travel is already about as cheap as it can get (as indicated by dismal profit margins).  Any slight decrease in rates on individual convoluted routes (like, say CLT to NCE) by way of more direct routes, is only going to be offset by higher rates as a result of decreased load factors on whatever route those travellers are flying on today.  No one's going to save money by way of more individual flights all over the place; density is key.

And, for the record, you can already fly MIA-BCN direct.

[flightsimer]

A smaller plane is almost always going to have a much larger market potential than a larger one.  It'd be an utter surprise if the 787 doesn't eventually outsell the 747 and it'll blow WAY past the A380 in sales by an order of magnitude.

And direct flights are rarely cheaper than indirect ones.  If they are, it won't be appreciably so, and it's not going to expand the market of international flights in any appreciable fashion through a fairly negligible decreases in costs.  By and large, air travel is already about as cheap as it can get (as indicated by dismal profit margins).  Any slight decrease in rates on individual convoluted routes (like, say CLT to NCE) by way of more direct routes, is only going to be offset by higher rates as a result of decreased load factors on whatever route those travellers are flying on today.  No one's going to save money by way of more individual flights all over the place; density is key.

And, for the record, you can already fly MIA-BCN direct.

its already blown WAY past the A380 a funny fact is that there are nearly as many 787's sitting in Seattle now as the entire world's current A380 fleet after six years of production. As for the 747, its about half way there.

But anyways, i agree with swiftus about smaller cities. I mean the first routes for some of the initial operators have already been announced. A lot of them have never been able to commercially be successful until now. Like United's Houston-Auckland or Boston-Asia route that previously was flown but couldn't make a dime. (i can think what city it was, maybe Tokyo but i cant remember) But that was what Boeing designed it to do. It was built for the long thin routes that needed the range but not the capacity and while doing so still be the most efficient aircraft. Anyone can build a small plane with a lot of range, but its going to use a lot more fuel per passenger than even the bigger jets. Look at A318. Only two that i know of in the world are being used for long thin routes. The same with the 737-700ER, i only knew of one route and even it just got replaced last month or the month prior with a 767 i believe.

As for non-stops vs. one-stops. Its really 50-50 as to which is more expensive. I have tried to book one stops around specific aircraft just to experience them for the first time and the one-stops were more expensive than the non-stops.

I was looking for flights between Pittsburgh and Jo-burg and obviously there were no stops. But i could have flown a couple combos like PIT to Atlanta to Jo-burg
PIT to MSP to Paris to Jo-Burg
PIT to Paris to Jo-burg

and they all were relatively the same in price, but i think the MSP one was the most expensive, which it should be. Where one/two stops get more expensive is when they have to fly people backwards to go forwards like me flying PIT-MSP to go on to Paris when i could have just flown directly to Paris in the first place.

Say all those going form CLT-NCE are flying through JFK currently. your assuming that when the CLT-NCE flight starts, JFK-NCE is staying at its current capacity. if that flight is being flown with a 747 for example, they might drop it down to a 787 as well. the 787 is supposed to allow the industry to get away from the hub and spoke system and allow direct flights from the smaller airports that have the O/D capacity there, but nothing to economically serve the route.

[swiftus27]

Perhaps the 787 will end up 'inventing' new hubs around the world???  Fly into all of the secondary airports around the world and get there without the heavy fees seen at the largest?!?!?  It is very attractive.