4 ms·

First flight is a bit more than 2 years late according to Wikipedia. However that's not bad for a project this complicated, being built in so many different pl

First flight is a bit more than 2 years late according to Wikipedia. However that's not bad for a project this complicated, being built in so many different places. I know more than a few aerospace engineers who would be delighted to deliver their projects only 2 years late. For the frequent fliers here I'd recommend this wing load testing video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe9PVaFGl3o http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pe9PVaFGl3o - it's from the 777 program but it's pretty interesting. Personally I think the A380 will be more successful due to the increase in the number of Chinese residents able to afford flights and their population density making big city to big city routes a larger component of demand. However there's clearly space in the market for both as they have different roles.

gvb 17y ago
"However there's clearly space in the market for both as they have different roles." Agreed, they serve very different markets in many ways. In addition, I see the A380 and 787 as radically different approaches to the same problem: fuel economy. The A380 approach is to use a lot of fuel but to haul as many bodies as possible. By amortizing the fuel over more bodies, it gives good fuel economy per body. The 787 uses a very efficient aerodynamic design and reduced weight to use less fuel per aircraft, thus amortizing less fuel over the (fewer) bodies it hauls. The weakness of the A380 approach is load factor: if the plane isn't full, it will use more fuel per body. The weakness of the 787 approach is that they must hit their weight targets to achieve all of their projected fuel savings. They are currently overweight compared to their wishes (some of the first flight delays were caused by a need to reinforce parts - that means more weight).
- notauser 17y ago
  The A380 also gets cost savings from sharing the landing fees, taxes and slot costs between more passengers. That's more applicable for busy airports though - I'd bet that a lot of the traffic at LHR and ATL will switch over to A380s, while it's not as necessary for places like IAH.
deleted 17y ago
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gvb 17y ago

"However there's clearly space in the market for both as they have different roles." Agreed, they serve very different markets in many ways. In addition, I see the A380 and 787 as radically different approaches to the same problem: fuel economy. The A380 approach is to use a lot of fuel but to haul as many bodies as possible. By amortizing the fuel over more bodies, it gives good fuel economy per body. The 787 uses a very efficient aerodynamic design and reduced weight to use less fuel per aircraft, thus amortizing less fuel over the (fewer) bodies it hauls. The weakness of the A380 approach is load factor: if the plane isn't full, it will use more fuel per body. The weakness of the 787 approach is that they must hit their weight targets to achieve all of their projected fuel savings. They are currently overweight compared to their wishes (some of the first flight delays were caused by a need to reinforce parts - that means more weight).

notauser 17y ago
The A380 also gets cost savings from sharing the landing fees, taxes and slot costs between more passengers. That's more applicable for busy airports though - I'd bet that a lot of the traffic at LHR and ATL will switch over to A380s, while it's not as necessary for places like IAH.

deleted 17y ago

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