Airbus A380 superjumbo jet lands in U.S.

The massive multibillion-dollar plane makes stops in New York and Los Angeles as Airbus continues its dogfight with Boeing.
Photos: Airbus A380 lands in the U.S.

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[Commander_Spock]

Congratulations to the AIRBUS Team, but...

... as some await to return to the stars from whence we came (and since the "Silent" CONCORDE is not yet available) the choice will those BOEING DREAMLINERS for now!

[shoffmueller]

huh?

That doesn't make any sense.

[open-mind]

Illogical. Illogical.

All units relate, all units. Norman, coordinate.

...

Your statement does not relate; we must study this.

; - )

[SiouxsieCat]

Sounds great...until

Can't wait to see the news when the first one of these, full of passengers, crashes into a population center. It'll remind me of an old Marines t-shirt: "maximum death and destruction, minimum time".

[gggg sssss]

metric

no, it will be when the runway in yards does not agree with the manual in meters. yards are shorter than meters. Crunch.

[itango]

I think "Commander Spock" makes sense - he (or she) is poetic

I was fortunate enough to have flown the Concorde, once. What an incredible marriage of utilitarian function and equisite design! The problem is, it was too noisy to land in most airports, and the fare was too expensive, so sadly, all Concords were mothballed some years ago for financial reasons. I, too would love to see a second generation "silent" Concorde, so I could have the pleasure of seeing such a beautiful machine again, and perhaps take another ride.

Apparently, "Spock" prefers flying the Boeing Dreamliners to the Airbus "wide bodies". I also like his sentiment that we will return to the stars someday. I watched Armstrong's landing on the moon as a child, enthralled, and it changed me forever. I dreamed that by the time I was an adult, I would be able to ride a shuttle to Mars or Venus, or perhaps pilot one of the shuttles.

I know I will never make it now, this is why I find "Spock's" thought of returning to the stars so wonderful.

BTW, English is my 4th language (EFL). I have native fluency in 3 others. LOL!!

[Commander_Spock]

Aye, Aye there "itango"!

Like you I was fortunate to have flown on the 747, 727s and even the smaller 6 seater Highlanders... I particularly liked your statement; "What an incredible marriage of utilitarian function and exquisite design!" [[STOP]] the design of the "metallurgical mixes" for the resultant materials or what? (laughter) as I was just getting down a bit deeper into the engineering and in terms of the usage of word design. One thing though, having participated in however a small part in the initial materials testing (sample preparation) of some of the materials for the CONCORDE then there might very well be a deep sense of pride on the part of Commander_Spock only to see these magnificent flying machines being mothballed. The feeling is, with the growing numbers of billionaires around the world it is quite possible to see the CONCORDE fly again.

How often have people all over the world not watched with excitement and anxiety as the NASA Space Shuttles successfully lift off the ground to explore that "final" frontier. And talking about this, God forbids, "ralfthedog" et al are stranded in space and there are no available US Shuttle to stage an and early rescue mission; the question is, will the likes of "ralfthedog" et al accept a ride back to Earth on board a Space Vehicle commanded by a Russian/s (or Chinese for that matter in the future - who knows) whose usage/fluency of EFL is not as good as their EFL!

[Vegaman_Dan]

All good and well until...

555 passengers on board. That's great! But what if you can't fill those seats? Is there enough of a demand on those routes that airliners will be able to pack those planes full to warrant having the greater expense, or will they go with a smaller Airbus/Boeing midrange plane instead?

The problem with driving a bus is that you need passengers on board to make it worth while. Empty seats don't pay the bills, and a plane that isn't full all the time and in the air isn't making money. Big planes have been tried before and they just don't make economic sense in the current marketplace.

There's a reason why midsize planes are dominant.

[Swiss in Zurich]

Big Planes

Big Planes have worked before.

Look at the 747, great success, both commercial and engineering. When it was developed many skeptics said that it would never work, to big and expensive.

10 years from now, the 380 will have similar results as the Asia economies grow in importance and we all know how many people live in India and China.

They need BIG planes!

[gggg sssss]

All good and well until

Al Gore tells the inconvenient truth about how much carbon dioxide and worse that thing will put out per passenger mile. If France has to pay his much touted carbon tax on building thatthing as required by Kyoto ( remember USA did not sign onto that fraud - good thing Gore was not in charge then) so Boeing will have a huge price advantage. Go Al go.