Airbus A380 - The Maiden Flight
Just two hours ago, the super-mega-big-balled jumbo, Airbus A380 made it’s maiden flight from Toulouse, France. I just watched it live, flying across the Toulousan sky and just witnessed the maiden landing of the A380 live via CNN. (I missed its take-off though)
For those of you who have been living in a cave for the past 5 years, the Airbus A380 is a double-decked superjumbo that could carry 555-800 passangers, has a wingspan of 282 feet (78m) which is 51 feet longer than that of the Boeing 747. 8 double-decker buses could park along it and its interior space is equal to that of 10 squash courts and its wingspan is as long as 70 parked cars. It is also known as the world’s largest passenger aircraft. For more technical info on the plane, head to airbus.com.
The touchdown was just.. breathtaking. The 420 tonne bird was virtually hovering on approach, its wings gleaming majestically under the Toulousean sun. At 1222 GMT, she touched the ground gracefully like a feather. Friction from the tyres created two gentle puffs of smoke. Everything went smoothly, as the flight engineer said, and anyone could tell that from the graceful landing.
Malaysia Airlines being one of the first customers, had its logo sprayed on the body of the aircraft along with 15 others. MAS was even mentioned a few times by the commentator on CNN.
I really cant wait to see the A380 in real life. Good news though, the current extension project going on now at Kuching International is said to be able to accomodate the A380. By the end of the decade, we can expect them to be in common sight. Cheers, Airbus and congratulations!
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I piloted the thing - in the first simulator to be built - many times.
MAS gonna buy it? I seriously doubt they will land it on Kuching though. Looks like only for London-US route.
Autopilot, cool, I just read too that MAS is buying the A380 flight simulator. It sure is fun piloting that beast in the air :p
H4RRY, yeah MAS bought six of these beauties. You may be right though that MAS wouldnt land em here in Kuching. bah.
Hey guys, the LAE here..just wanna say that this lady is beautiful and she would no doubt beat the reigning Queen, the already majestic 747, and Mr. H4RRY, the aircraft would not only be used for us london routes, but also any other route requiring it to fly over..the fuel tanks are twice as large as the 74’s so u can imagine the distance covered by this beautiful beast..
Ashwin Nair, does LAE stand for Licensed Aircraft Engineers or something? Forgive me if im wrong but yeah, she really is a beauty and damn, fuel tanks twice as large as 747’s? Wow.. amazing.
don’t the crew have like parachutes on the maiden flight or something?
yeah, they had, heard them talking about how are they using it in case of an emergency over CNN.