The Airbus A380 is a double-deck, wide-body, four-engine jet airliner manufactured by the European corporation Airbus, a subsidiary of EADS. Referred to as the Super Jumbo, the Airbus A380 is biggest passenger plane ever made. Built to outcompete the Queen of the skies, the 747, this airplane is capable of hauling up-to 800 passengers in a single class configuration, and 525 in a three class configuration. The A380-800 has a design range of 15,400km (8,300nm), sufficient to fly from New York to Hong Kong, and a cruising speed of Mach 0.85 (about 900 km/h or 560 mph at cruising altitude).
The A380 is available with two types of turbofan engines, the Rolls-Royce Trent 900 (variants A380-841, −842 and −843F) or the Engine Alliance GP7000 (A380-861 and −863F). While most of the fuselage is aluminium, composite materials comprise more than 20% of the A380's airframe. Carbon-fibre reinforced plastic, glass-fibre reinforced plastic and quartz-fibre reinforced plastic are used extensively in wings, fuselage sections (such as the undercarriage and rear end of fuselage), tail surfaces, and doors. The A380 is the first commercial airliner to have a central wing box made of carbon fibre reinforced plastic.
Initial production of the A380 was troubled by delays attributed to the 530 km (330 mi) of wiring in each aircraft. Airbus cited as underlying causes the complexity of the cabin wiring (100,000 wires and 40,300 connectors), its concurrent design and production, the high degree of customization for each airline, and failures of configuration management and change control. Dubbed the Superjumbo by the media the first aircraft was delivered to Singapore Airlines on 15 October 2007 and entered service on 25 October 2007 with flight number SQ380 between Singapore and Sydney. Passengers bought seats in a charity online auction paying between $560 and $100,380. Two months later, Singapore Airlines CEO Chew Choong Seng stated the A380 was performing better than both the airline and Airbus had anticipated, burning 20% less fuel per passenger than the airline's 747-400 fleet.
The A380 offers a flying experience no other aircraft in the sky can match, and redefines the meaning of comfort for all passengers – whether they are premium customers in first and business class, or leisure travelers in the economy cabin. Airbus has gone to great lengths to make long-haul flying aboard the A380 feel more natural for its passengers – with broader seats, more personal storage, better head room and wider stairs and aisles. It’s got cleaner cabin air which is recycled every three minutes leaving a fresher cabin. The passengers love it for its sheer size and quiet cabin.
Airbus' publicity has stressed the comfort and space of the A380 cabin and advertised onboard relaxation areas such as bars, beauty salons, duty-free shops, and restaurants. Proposed amenities resembled those installed on earlier airliners, particularly 1970s wide-body jets, which largely gave way to regular seats for more passenger capacity. Airbus has acknowledged that some cabin proposals were unlikely to be installed, and that it was ultimately the airlines' decision how to configure the interior.
This aircraft features a similar flight deck with the A320, A330. A340 and A350 families. Thus airlines benefit from the reduced training requirements and a common pool of pilots.
The strategy for airbus is simple. With air-traffic doubling every 15yrs, Hub cities will be getting bigger with greater passenger loads, since 90% of long-haul passengers fly from, to or through some 39 hub-cities worldwide, a plane with a larger capacity with fewer additional flights is the solution.
The A380 has a market driven performance with several advantages over the closest competitor the 747-8. It offers 1300nm more range than the 747-400, and 900nm more than the 747-8. It needs 17% less runway to land, has 4000ft higher initial cruise altitude and has a 20kt lower approach speed(same as A320). It’s also got 100 more seats in a 3 class configuration than the dash 8. Airbus says that the A380 burns 17% less fuel per seat than the 747-400 and thus reducing the carbon footprint.
The A380 has been involved in one aviation occurrence and no hull-loss accidents as of July 2012. On 4 November 2010, Qantas Flight 32, en route from Singapore Changi Airport to Sydney Airport, suffered an uncontained engine failure, resulting in a series of related problems, and forcing the flight to return to Singapore. There were no injuries to the passengers, crew or people on the ground despite debris falling onto the Indonesian island of Batam. The A380 was damaged sufficiently for the event to be classified as an accident.
Flight simulator lovers can find this plane from Wilco A380 which is the best I recommend, there are options like the abacus A380 but none of these will be so appealing to the extremely experienced simmers.
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