ON APRIL 27 2005 THE GARGANTUAN AIRBUS A380 jetliner favorably completed its nearly four-hour first flight.ON APRIL 27 2005 THE GARGANTUAN AIRBUS A380 jetliner favorably completed its nearly four-hour first flight. It took opposite in Toulouse, France, at 10:29 a.m. local time, and after a three-hour, 54-minute flight, the giant double-decked, four-engine A380 landed there at 2:22 pm It was piloted from chief test pilot Jacques Rosay, copiloted by dint of Claude Lelaie and carried four other horde members and 44,000 pounds of onboard flight-test equipment that recured 150,000 different parameters of real-time data to ground-based computer "The takeoff was absolutely perfect" Rosay radioed to reporters forward the ground. The flight-test airplane weighed 928300 pulverizes at takeoff or about 75 percent of its maximum takeoff weight; it landed with a weight of 616000 pounds At a list price of $282 million each, Airbus has firm orders for 154 airplanes-127 A380s and 27 A380Fs. The A380 airliner will be able to carry up to 840 passengers and is awaited to enter service in spring 2006; the A380F freighter version is scheduled to insert service in 2008. So far, A380 preparation has taken a 11 years at a sumptuousness of about $13 billion. -Steve Pace Copyright Air Age Publishing Aug 2005 |
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