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Four million parts, 30 countries: How an Airbus A380 comes together (2018)

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Re: Four million parts, 30 countries: How an Airbus A380 comes together (2018)

#61

Post by ReptileMan »

ashtonkem wrote: post #23
redis_mlc wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> one of best balanced planes out there Airliner design is regulated for stability for passenger flight on IFR approaches. So they're all pretty smooth. (The reason for the 737 MAX MCAS system was to meet those requirements, although they failed in that case.) All planes can glide if the wings are attached, and any essential electricity is available for control (if necessary.) A corollary of "all planes glide" is tha…

All planes can glide, but not to the same degree. The glide ratio, or the ratio between distance travelled per distance dropped, varies wildly between planes. A purpose built glider has a glide ratio of about 60:1, so it could travel 60mi while only losing 1mi of altitude, while a Cessna 172 has a glide ratio of 9. Large passenger aircraft have glide ratios inbetween, with a 737 having a ratio of 17. On the other ext…

> which tend to more closely resemble well propelled un-aerodynamic objects once their engines give out.

With sufficient thrust pigs fly just fine

Re: Four million parts, 30 countries: How an Airbus A380 comes together (2018)

#62

Post by ashtonkem »

ReptileMan wrote: post #61
ashtonkem wrote: post #23

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All planes can glide, but not to the same degree. The glide ratio, or the ratio between distance travelled per distance dropped, varies wildly between planes. A purpose built glider has a glide ratio of about 60:1, so it could travel 60mi while only losing 1mi of altitude, while a Cessna 172 has a glide ratio of 9. Large passenger aircraft have glide ratios inbetween, with a 737 having a ratio of 17. On the other ext…

> which tend to more closely resemble well propelled un-aerodynamic objects once their engines give out. With sufficient thrust pigs fly just fine

With well vectored thrust, you don’t even need wings. Heck, that’s literally how rockets work.

Re: Four million parts, 30 countries: How an Airbus A380 comes together (2018)

#63

Post by onetimemanytime »

cancerSpreads wrote: post #49
onetimemanytime wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the other hand, it's such a massive employer (directly or indirectly funded by tax dollars) so everyone says, why shouldn't we have a piece too?

Government employment is not necessarily beneficial. It's not governed by economics. You can have completely useless roles exist for hundreds of years. Skilled or unskilled labor is better in the private sector for everyone's sake.

Say, Kentucky gets 1200 high paying jobs they never had due to their Senator's power (I'll veto the bill unless you build a factory there too...) . How is this bad for the state of KY?

Re: Four million parts, 30 countries: How an Airbus A380 comes together (2018)

#64

Post by kortilla »

p_l wrote: post #32
kortilla wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the killer was the move away from hub and spoke model to directs between secondary cities. This was exacerbated more by ETOPS allowing narrow body jets to cover ocean flights. No point in Southwest funneling all passengers to LAX to board an A380 to HNL when they can just have directs on 737s from every west coast city.

That's, however, specific more to USA. Intercontinental flights (and not only) seem to me to always go through hubs, and within Europe also through hubs, if maybe a bit smaller.

Not even in Europe. The growth didn’t happen because so many point to point flights displaced the need. LHR hasn’t become significantly larger since the late 90s, which was what the A380 (and 747 passenger for that matter) depended on to really compete.

Look at an airport like Naples. It has over 100 direct flight destinations.

Re: Four million parts, 30 countries: How an Airbus A380 comes together (2018)

#65

Post by p_l »

kortilla wrote: post #64
p_l wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's, however, specific more to USA. Intercontinental flights (and not only) seem to me to always go through hubs, and within Europe also through hubs, if maybe a bit smaller.

Not even in Europe. The growth didn’t happen because so many point to point flights displaced the need. LHR hasn’t become significantly larger since the late 90s, which was what the A380 (and 747 passenger for that matter) depended on to really compete. Look at an airport like Naples. It has over 100 direct flight destinations.

Just took a look - most of the point-to-point are short-distance low cost flights. Which fly A320 and 737, not 787 nor A380. When you look at connections involving distances where one would use a long-range plane, it's pretty much always with a hub at one end - at least that's what cursory glance shows me.

non-low cost airlines will schedule intra-european flights through hubs as well, the hub you will fly through depends on airline used (so Lufthansa will put your through MUC or FRA, LOT will do everything through Warsaw with few long-range flights from Cracow, BA will do Gatwick and Heathrow depending on the flights, etc.)

Re: Four million parts, 30 countries: How an Airbus A380 comes together (2018)

#66

Post by linuxhansl »

Erlich_Bachman wrote: post #13
linuxhansl wrote: post #11

I met an Airbus test pilot once. Among other stories he told me that the A380 is one of best balanced planes out there, and apparently a joy to fly. He said even without engines he could easily land it like a glider. Now, I can't really verify what he said, but he seemed sincere. Having travelled in the A380 as passenger, I will sure miss it.

> without engines he could easily land it like a glider. Most airplanes are designed to glide down and be able to land in the event of loss of all power from all existing engines, subject to the available altitude above ground (the potential height energy from the fall is used as the source of kinetic energy for keeping airspeed+lift) and distance to a suitable for landing piece of land.

True.

He just specifically called out the A380 for being exquisitely balanced.

There were many more interesting stories including some (controlled) crashes and an uncontrolled crash when they tried the planes under extreme conditions.

He actually felt sorry for "normal" pilots, since they do not really get to try out the planes :)

Anyway...

Re: Four million parts, 30 countries: How an Airbus A380 comes together (2018)

#67

Post by Google234 »

s1artibartfast wrote: post #55
Google234 wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why rebuild it when you can design a better plan?

High cost and the possibility that you design a worse plane.

Imagine what would happen if Toyota tried to relaunch the 1999 Corolla. New designs are more efficient, there’s no way they would design a worse plane.

Re: Four million parts, 30 countries: How an Airbus A380 comes together (2018)

#68

Post by asldfhasdf2 »

doctor_eval wrote: post #47
asldfhasdf2 wrote: post #44

four million parts, and one whistleblower. Let's not forget https://www.pilotsofamerica.com/community/threads/a380-whist...

A very complex story from 15 years ago. There haven’t been many depressurisation incidents on the A380 and like they say in the article, why would they cover this up? Maybe the whistleblower really is just a disgruntled employee.

you will never know if the lack of pressurization issues was because their plan was fine or caused by changes thanks to his campaign. hindsight is 20/20.

the fact that they took that route is the problem.

Re: Four million parts, 30 countries: How an Airbus A380 comes together (2018)

#69

Post by s1artibartfast »

Google234 wrote: post #67
s1artibartfast wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

High cost and the possibility that you design a worse plane.

Imagine what would happen if Toyota tried to relaunch the 1999 Corolla. New designs are more efficient, there’s no way they would design a worse plane.

If you honestly believe that a corporation can not develop a new product inferior to a past product, then we will have to agree to disagree.

There are any number of reasons this can happen, including fewer developmental resources and different timelinelines.

You also ignored my point about cost. The a380 took 15 years and $25 billion to develop. If the existing design met a new need, they would absolutely consider dusing off the design.

Re: Four million parts, 30 countries: How an Airbus A380 comes together (2018)

#70

Post by kortilla »

p_l wrote: post #65
kortilla wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not even in Europe. The growth didn’t happen because so many point to point flights displaced the need. LHR hasn’t become significantly larger since the late 90s, which was what the A380 (and 747 passenger for that matter) depended on to really compete. Look at an airport like Naples. It has over 100 direct flight destinations.

Just took a look - most of the point-to-point are short-distance low cost flights. Which fly A320 and 737, not 787 nor A380. When you look at connections involving distances where one would use a long-range plane, it's pretty much always with a hub at one end - at least that's what cursory glance shows me. non-low cost airlines will schedule intra-european flights through hubs as well, the hub you will fly through de…

The point is that you can get to every major city in Europe from Naples directly. Of course they aren’t going to be serviced by A380s, that’s part of the point I’m making.

The hub model didn’t continue to grow like it was supposed to. The A380 was supposed to service the mega hub to hub routes (e.g. JFK-CDG) as gates became coveted at those airports.

Instead, it turns out that a bunch of that demand was relieved by adding in other smaller (e.g. a 757) directs that previously depended on a bunch of double layovers. (e.g. ATL-JFK-CDG-FCO becomes ATL-FCO).

The A380 was built on a dream that everyone would pack into one of a few major hubs and all of the long flights between hubs would obviously be perfect A380 material. The surge in point to point flights destroyed the economics of that. Gate fees didn’t rise like they were supposed to, passenger counts at the hubs didn’t rise, etc, etc.

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