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Random Airbus A380 Facts

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47205

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Here you are, some random A380 facts:

  • There are 320 miles of cable in an A380
  • When tested at 1.3 wing limit load, the wing bows up 20 ft
  • The UK Produce 45% of the parts for the A380
  • The Air intakes on the wings can hold a mini
  • Over 200 designs were produced
  • The Factory they're built is in Toulouse
  • There is a fleet of special ships for the craft parts
  • The Trent 900's deliver 2x as much thrust as an A340 engine
 
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Bighat

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trainlover123 said:
Here you are, some random A380 facts:

  • There are 320 miles of cable in an A380
  • When tested at 1.3 wing limit load, the wing bows up 20 ft
  • The UK Produce 45% of the parts for the A380
  • The Air intakes on the wings can hold a mini
  • Over 200 designs were produced
  • The Factory they're built is in Toulouse
  • There is a fleet of special ships for the craft parts
  • The Trent 900's deliver 2x as much thrust as an A340 engine

Interesting, but not entirely correct. The factory at Toulouse ASSEMBLES the aircraft. The 45% of UK PRODUCTION (mainly the wings and parts of the landing gear) is done mainly at the old de Havilland factory at Hawarden, near Chester, with additional input from Filton (Bristol, also home of the UK assembled Concordes). Other production is done at Finkwerder, near Hamburg, also in Spain at the old CASA facilities.

Also, indivisible parts for earlier Airbus products were FLOWN to Toulouse by converted Boeing 377 Stratocruiser aircraft (old piston-engined aircraft of the 1950's, themselves developed from the B.29 Bomber of World War II). The 'Strats' were converted by Aero Spacelines at Van Nuys airfield, located next to Hollywood (where else?) in northern Los Angeles, California.

The finished conversions, depending on size, were known as Guppy, Mini Guppy or Super Guppy. They were originally developed for use by NASA for moving the Apollo casings for the space launch programme. N1039V (ex Pan American World Airways) was an early example.

When these aircraft became too expensive to maintain and operate, Airbus Industie developed to 'Beluga' freighter, based on the A300 airframe and wings. Four were built for this purpose.
 

Guinness

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trainlover123 said:
Here you are, some random A380 facts:

  • The Air intakes on the wings can hold a mini

Is that a New Word for a Jet Engine? ;)
 

47205

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Just to clear a few things up:

  • Chaz, no the Air Intakes are what send the air into the cabin ;)
  • Interesting facts BigHat, did you by any chance go to that Airbus lecture in Nottingham a week or two ago?
 

Guinness

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Bighat said:
When these aircraft became too expensive to maintain and operate, Airbus Industie developed to 'Beluga' freighter, based on the A300 airframe and wings. Four were built for this purpose.

Five actually.

/Pain the Arse ;)

Beluga was partly built to carry A320 and A330 Fulesage parts from Hamburg.

See - http://www.airliners.net/open.file/656896/L/
 

Bighat

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trainlover123 said:
Just to clear a few things up:

  • Chaz, no the Air Intakes are what send the air into the cabin ;)
  • Interesting facts BigHat, did you by any chance go to that Airbus lecture in Nottingham a week or two ago?

No, 'fraid not. Strange place to hold a lecture on such a topic. Nottinham is rather 'down-market' in aviation terms! lots of history, but that's about all.

Only a small civil aerodrome at Tollerton now, former glories being the ex Royal Canadian Airforce airfield at Langar, the ex USAAF field at Bottesford (now erroniously referred to as Normanton airfield, and now home to about 12,000 cars!).

To the south-west, of course East Midlands Airport (formerly Castle Donnington), but that's more Derby than Nottingham.

Can you think why such a lecture would be held there?
 

Angus

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Yet another curse on aviation. I don't see what's impressive about the A380. It is the most ugly man-made object I've ever seen (even modern architects would be impressed), and has absolutely nothing technically advanced. Its Trent 900 engines are inferior to the Trent 800 on the B777 in terms of performance. It's performance is very average - like all modern aircraft it's typical cruising speed in in the Mach .70-80s. 30 years ago not only did we have supersonic aircraft but we had subsonic aircraft that could comfortably cruise in the 0.90s (the HS Trident and Vickers VC10 (the greatest aircraft of all time)) - some Trident models could achieve M0.97, or virtually the speed of sound. Average cruising speeds have decreased over the last 30 years, aircraft have become larger, uglier, plastic, quiet, computerised and characterless, and pilots have been relegated to IT analysts. For those of you who mourn the replacement of older train designs with modern multiple units, spare a thought for what has happened to aircraft design.
 

0118999

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The VC10 and HS Trident could not "comfortably cruise in the .90s" they could comfortably cruise at .886 for the VC10 and .886 for the Trident. That is Mmo or Mach Maximum Operating. The speeds you quote are Mne or Mach Never Exceed (if such a thing exists, just like Vne only with mach number anyways it is the limiting mach number of the airframe), the maximum structual limits of the aircraft - hardly comfortable cruising (if you exceed these you blow up)!

Also have you ever considered the fuel burn of these aircraft types (especially the Trident, drank Jet-A1 like the Queen Mum drank Gordon's...). Furthermore takeoff performance on all Trident varients was diahore, especially the Trident 1.

When you say the Trent 900 is inferior in performance to the Trent 800 how do you mean? Just because it produces less thrust dosen't make it inferior, I suspect the fuel burn per pound of thrust is actually better on the 900, though I have no proof so I'll shut up.

The Airbus A380 has plenty of technologically advanced features, borrowing a lot of stuff from the A330 and A340 but also included new things too. There isn't too much brand new technology on the A380, but when your making an aircraft this big I think you'd rather not risk it. And yes, the A380 is very, very ugly, but it's not where near as bad as the 747.
 
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