A380 Superjumbo

[Joe K. 99 Zeee!!]

If the 747 just isn't big enough for you, try this out! Simply huge! It's been talked about since the early 90's. Boeing studied the idea of a superjumbo but decided to go for a smaller extremely fuel efficient jet for their newest offering.

http://events.airbus.com/A380/seeing/indexminisite.aspx

[Joe K. 99 Zeee!!]

Here's some more info:

http://www.airliners.net/info/stats.main?id=29

[Steel2686]

Discovery Channel had an hour long show on this a couple months back. It's simply an amazing aircraft. Great links, by the way.

[Jeff_in_Atl]

Did you see the Airbus crash at the Paris air show? It an A320 . The pilot put the plane in "landing mode" to get the wheels and flaps to deploy to do a low speed fly by at the air show. They get down to just off the runway and throttled it up to keep from landing and the planes fly by wire wouldn't let it accelerate. They pushed the throttles to the wall and flipped the switch to take it out of landing mode but a software "bug" wouldn't let the plane come out of landing mode. It kept flying but ended up crashing in the trees just past the end of the runway.

http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~szewczyk/cs294-8/hw1.html

I had never heard the explanation in that link I don't agree with the "flying as low as 30 feet" because I watched the video and it cleared some pretty tall pine trees at the end of the runway that had to be taller than 30 feet. I'm not so sure I agree with the 8-10 seconds to spool up but I was in a Boeing 767 last year and it didn't take but about 3 seconds for them to spool up.

[TraceZ]

How many people should die in a single airplane crash? 100? 200? 500? 700?
I think it's gotten to a point where maybe they are placing to many human lives in jeopardy at once. Too many eggs in one basket so to speak. So, if we could place 5,000 people on 1 aircraft should we? At what point do we say no? What happens if one of those airplanes crashes?

Just because it can be done does not mean it should, bigger is not always better, etc...

Assuming it has a good safety record I would still fly on it, It's likely not any more dangerous than any other airplane. It would just be such a major loss if anything ever did happen.

[Craig 94 TA GT]

That is a remarkable piece of machinery. Simply massive.

Regarding more stories about the A320, I'm sure everyone saw the "sideways landing gear" video on the news a few months ago. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9430871/
That was a Jetblue A320. The pilot did a spectacular job of landing though. But hopefully no more horror stories about the A320 or Airbus...I'm taking one through Jetblue in a month

[Red20170]

You would be surprised at today's modern aircraft. The pilots really don't have much to do.

[Joe K. 99 Zeee!!]

How many people should die in a single airplane crash? 100? 200? 500? 700?

Or you could put them on 3 aircraft and have 3 times the chance of an incident.

For high volume trips, a large plane is the way to go. Helps with overcrowded flight schedules and saves time, money, and headaches. But yeah, if something ever happened it would be an imense tragedy.

[TraceZ]

Or you could put them on 3 aircraft and have 3 times the chance of an incident.

That is an interesting point.

[Jeff_in_Atl]

That is a remarkable piece of machinery. Simply massive.

Regarding more stories about the A320, I'm sure everyone saw the "sideways landing gear" video on the news a few months ago. http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9430871/
That was a Jetblue A320. The pilot did a spectacular job of landing though. But hopefully no more horror stories about the A320 or Airbus...I'm taking one through Jetblue in a month

FYI the company I work for makes the antenna on top of that jet blue plane that allowed them to see the live TV of their own plane.

The top picture on this link http://www.emsdss.com/airterr/ant_mobile.asp labeled Airborne DBS Antenna is the antenna on that jet blue plane.

I redeisgned the little box on the right to fit in an Embraer 190.
http://www.embraercommercialjets.com...ts/emb_190.asp

[Red20170]

I redeisgned the little box on the right to fit in an Embraer 190

You design/redesign avionics equipment?

[Jeff_in_Atl]

You design/redesign avionics equipment?

Sort of. I have a hard time calling that avionics equipment because the first one we made we mounted on the top of a Ford Explorer and were watching live TV through the Dish Network satellite while driving around the parking lot. Another words the unit could go on anything it just happens to be on a plane here. You could just as easily mount it on a ship or a truck. The unit has 3 gyroscopes in it for stabilization and tracking.

[Red20170]

Phalanx: For over thirty years, EMS Technologies' switching networks have provided highly reliable, low loss signal routing functions for a wide variety of communications and remote-sensing applications. These networks are lightweight and consume a minimal amount of system power. EMS provides the switch network for the Phalanx CIWS antenna subsystem, supporting a rapid search capability against incoming threats.

OK Jeff, You work for a cool company.

[Jeff_in_Atl]

Phalanx: For over thirty years, EMS Technologies' switching networks have provided highly reliable, low loss signal routing functions for a wide variety of communications and remote-sensing applications. These networks are lightweight and consume a minimal amount of system power. EMS provides the switch network for the Phalanx CIWS antenna subsystem, supporting a rapid search capability against incoming threats.

OK Jeff, You work for a cool company.

And that is just the stuff they can put on the web site. I did a proposal for the FBI one time. We didn't get that job. You win some you loose some. We have parts on a satellite orbiting Saturn. I've been here 22 years so I've seen a lot of cool stuff.

Do you see those 4 things sticking up just in front of the cockpit? That is the IFF (Identify Friend or Foe) antenna. We make that.
http://www.adc2000.net/pcktech/Chine...afts/F16-2.jpg

[Craig 94 TA GT]

Jeff, that is so cool. I always wondered how they got DirecTV without the dish.

Sometimes I notice, though, that the feed cuts out on some channels during some plane movement. Do you know why that happens to some channels, and not all?