Posted on 02/19/2019 6:32:53 PM PST by DUMBGRUNT
That is probably because Boeing always has one eye on potential USAF business. Somebody on the design team was thinking long-range about the 747’s possible use as a “KC-?”.
Yeah, it’s the abruptness of the stop...
...and/or the subsequent fire.
Flown on Embraer jets more times than I can remember, no complaints there,
I’ve known pilots who were afraid of Airbus,
Curious about what the orange thing grinding on the deck was??
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7I6SSE88fF0
Part of a test rig.
Also, note the use of ‘duct tape’ at the four-minute mark???
Must be the really good stuff!
Bottom line: Airbus got rick-rolled by Boeing. Boeing made the announcement that they’re getting into the super-jumbo business, let Airbus go all-in, and then said, “Just kidding, we’re doing the 787. The super-jumbo business is all yours.” Boeing and Lockheed did all the studies in the 1980s that showed that a jet comparable in size to the C-5 would actually reduce ramp capacity, be less efficient, and move less people. Airbus didn’t do their due diligence and was buoyed by an adoring media and European public. A380 just never lived up to the hype.
Test equipment usually is painted orange. Ever seen F-15s and F-16s out of Edwards AFB (”ED” on the tail)? The orange panels and any orange control surfaces indicate special equipment installed for test. This looks like a test to me, they were probably testing how/where the tail would drag (with a tolerance added by the lip of the test rig) when developing charts and procedures for the flight manuals.
The A380 quickly became an example of how not to develop an airliner. I still think Boeing should’ve ran an advertisement showing 600 people milling around the baggage claim area.
There’s other problems with the A380 that weren’t covered in the Wall Street Urinal article. As usual, their reporters are lazy and only glossed over the surface of their Google search.
The ongoing wiring problems of the A380’s entertainment system was a crock that the adoring media was more than happy to rationalize. The fact is, the entire electrical system had a lot of problems and had ghosts in the machine that were never fully solved.
Airbus’s biggest sin was their minimization and poo-poo-ing of major structural problems. The article does mention premature cracking in wing structures, which really shows that Airbus’s structural engineering, testing, and knowledge of fatigue prevention just never was what it should be. There were early signs of poor structural engineering. During the big wing-bending test where the wing is flexed upwards on the jet until it breaks, the wing didn’t break in the part of the wing predicted during the design phase and also broke earlier (less deflection) than predicted. The wing was beefed up with stiffeners, which was really just a band-aid solution to the problem. The jet also had structural problems and premature cracking in the tail that needed to be beefed up. The fact is, the A380’s structural engineers just didn’t do a good job on this aircraft and they were always chasing problems. It’s classic engineering rookie mistakes: beefing up and strengthening one part just pushes the problem somewhere else, Airbus never solved it as a system problem, they just chased symptoms around like a below-average doctor that’s in over his head.
What’s more telling is all the airports that DIDN’T. They rightly said “heck with that, it’s not worth the investment, we’ll never get our money back”. They were right.
Airbus refused, that’s why so many airports opted out. They rightly realized that they’d never get their money back.
This jet was never anything but a status symbol for Arab airlines, Arab oil sheiks, and Arab royal families. Airbus took the approach that the Russians always have. They couldn’t build smarter, so they just built bigger. “Look at us, we built the biggest widget.” It’s lame, that’s what thug societies do. Russia has the biggest jet (its reliability is so bad that it makes the pre-RERP C-5s look like a reliability dream), Saddam had his super-gun (never completed, Mossad killed the designer), Hitler had his super-gun (couldn’t complete because he ran the war so poorly that his resources got cut off and his people defected). When you run out of ideas and just decide to go bigger, that nearly never works.
I remember 10 years ago when we were posting the myriad of problems with the A380 and rightly saying that it was most likely a no-go that wouldn’t last long. We were labeled as haters, told that we’re just jealous, we’re arrogant Americans that have a cow when somebody presents a better product. Uh huh, where are the Euros and their adoring media now? It cracks me up that not even a year ago there were articles saying that the A380 had officially been passed the torch from the 747 and was putting it out of business. Yeah, tell me more...
At least the Concorde flew for 30 years. This junker barely made it 10.
Yep, the 747 has been being produced continuously since the 1960s. The number built is in the thousands. Number of A380s produced: 234.
Give it a few years, we’ll be reading the same eulogy about the Tesla.
Yeah, that’s what I had to do. I’m not interested in subscribing to the Wall Street Urinal.
The video in #46 shows the testing procedure for the A380.
Looks a bit hairy?
I know some people can become’one’ with a machine, feeling any feedback.
But on a 500 ton fly by wire monster?
Plus human response time, over response,hysteresis...
Amazing.
How many hours did he have to learn the brand new beast?
One sensitive seat of the pants!
I flew on an A380 from Brussels to JFK. It’s an amazing plane. The jetway has an escalator for passengers sitting “upstairs.” I upgraded my seat to “upstairs.” It was a little more spacious (more leg room).
Flight was uneventful, but when I landed, I felt rotten.
A visit to the doctor a couple of days later revealed I had e-coli.
Did I contract this on the plane?
I’ll never know.
But I enjoyed the A-380, but I still prefer a conventional wide body, especially the 747.
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