[Pukin Dog]

Well, its very simple. The 747 was built by men with imagination a slide-rule. The A-280 was designed by two versions of incompatible software. There is no style to the A-380, no elegance. The thing looks like one of those large Russian cargo planes, while the stuff out of Boeing look like cruise-liners.

There is the old adage that suggests that what looks good will fly good, and in this case it appears true, as every A-380 landing I see, comes with a moment of yaw suggesting that the vertical tail loses authority at high alpha conditions. Anyone can watch how much the rudder is working to see that the ILS is working hard to keep it on centerline.

747s and especially 777s are rock solid in all flight aspects, but I think it is a good bet that one of these A-380s is going to have a really bad landing someday and kill a lot of people.

[dalereed]

There are partially good landings, those you walk away from and then there are good ones, those that allow you to take off again.

[GeorgiaDawg32]

747-400 has to be the prettiest plane flyin IMHO..

[longtermmemmory]

The 747 was made with a vision of making profits for the airplane maker by providing a product that will make money for the buyer.

The a380 was made to hand out the maximum number of jobs across the EU and create public works projects as all airports in the EU are forced to upgrade to take this monster.

Does anyone know if it is still taking up two airplane slots per takeoff landing?

[Rockpile]

I reckon that the A380 has an extra-wide fuselage. Do you think that there getting more than normal turbulence in the airflow around the tail?

[DuncanWaring]

...every A-380 landing I see, comes with a moment of yaw suggesting that the vertical tail loses authority at high alpha conditions.

I wonder if they will end up putting "supplemental rudders" on it like on the 747 Shuttle Transport.

Won't do the empty weight or fuel consumption any favors.