Airbus A380 Crosswind Landing

Keflavik... that airport was featured in Red Storm Rising by Tom Clancy. It gets attacked by Soviet cruise missiles.

icelandic crosswind yeah!

OMG! What to do with all my travel elephants?

i think you haven't read the first part of my sentence :P cute girl(s)

Hey! That is offending. I'm Icelandic and you don't see me dissing your language! It maybe sounds weird because you don't understand it... but it's not smart dissing other people religion, or in this case, language.

girl is so cute but the language is disgusting

That brunette reporter girl bent my wookiee if you know what I mean!!

lol 560 tons? that are 90 elefants

The debate between the Dreamliner VS A380 is pointless. In 5 to 6 years, Airbus will release the A350 counter strike against the dreamliner where Boeing will counter the A380 with ? Nothing ...
If ever the A380 is not a commercial success, it's still a technological jewel, just like the Concorde was. Outstanding achievement of a United Europe !

imo the SR-71 is the most beautiful. The dreamliner already has more orders than the A380. So the execs at the airlines must not see it like a joke. For a joke -Boeing is laughing all the way to the bank.

The most beautyful plane ever built - Boeing's so called Dreamliner is a joke, compared to this! :-)

Airbus is progressing well with the first customer A380s. The first A380 for Singapore Airlines arrived in Toulouse in mid-July after completion of the cabin installation. It is now submitted to thorough final checks, prior to delivery to the customer in October. The subsequent aircraft, for delivery to Singapore Airlines, Emirates Airlines and Qantas, are also well on track.

Reality against Dreams...Liners...IOL

When is that crappy 787 gonna leave the earth and fly? JJJ

-Cont.- Secondly, I'm not certain that the freighter operators themselves would be happy to get a less than full quality product, when they buy a new plane. Or if they do, how much discount they would demand to operate a testbed? In any case, the whole issue is mute, if Airbus keeps its present revised schedule, since it will deliver its first A380 to Singapore Airlines within 3 months.

-Cont. I'm sure, that after a few years of successful operation, they will add the freighter variety to the line-up with a little less fanfare. You do have a point, that logically why not use A380 as a freighter, while the manufacturer revs up for passenger plane, but I don't think the business work that way. for one thing, I'm not sure, that the approval process would be that much different, that it would significantly push the product lunch that much earlier. -Cont.-

You are right that the A380 and the B787 serve different markets TGSC, -with some overlapping. To return to the original contention in your question, why marketing and prestige is more important than income and manufacturer's confidence? The contradiction is only on the surface. Marketing and prestige is long term profitability for a manufacturer, who is introducing a new product which is intended to be for sale for decades as a passenger carrier. -Cont.

Perhaps it is about creating the marketshare and beating Boeing - the 787 is a very different concept, and allowing the 787 to corner the market might deteriorate the fundamentals of the A380 market. The 787 and A380 are not direct competitors, so if the 787 changes the market towards point-to-point-connections rather than bulk hub connections of the A380, the air traffic infrastructure could be hard to change if the A380 is delayed further.

Perhaps it is about creating the marketshare and beating Boeing - the 787 is a very different concept, and allowing the 787 to corner the market might deteriorate the fundamentals of the A380 market. The 787 and A380 are not direct competitors, so if the 787 changes the market towards point-to-point-connections rather than bulk hub connections of the A380, the air traffic infrastructure could be hard to change if the A380 is delayed further.

Maybe, but why is prestige and marketing more important than income and manufacturer confidence?

yes that was on discovery when they tested max speed called the flutter test or something, the thing was shaking and the first time it lost a panel I think, still pretty good going

Fantasticaly sure handed landing at 90 km/h crosswind. If they wouldn't have mentioned the speed, I would've guessed no more than half the crosswind by how the airplane flew. Very impressive.

Titanium? Just guessing. ☺

Probably because prestige and marketing purposes TGSC. Can you quote any major passenger plane type which started its carrier as freighter? Its usually the other way around isn't it?

Typical Yank. Jealous and ungrateful as Hell.

awesome airplane

if test pilots have nerves of steel, what are their balls made of???? i saw a documentary on the testing of the A380, and when they were testing its max speed at 0.94mach they were so confident, even when there was a chance they could have died. what a great job.

also 850 passengers? ive read reports that it could carry just over 1000 if the entire plane was configured with today's economy class standards.