In tradition with their rather underpowered A340 Airbus designed the A380-800 with 4x 330kN engines. The MTOW is 570 to 590 metric tons, which results in a weight/power ratio of 4.0/4.2 to 1. That will result in rather slow climbouts. Why didn’t they use decent power e.g. 4x 400kN? Are they afraid to miss their fuel consumption targets? With that power/weight ratio I think we’ll hear the old story about Airbuses holding up Boeings that could go faster.
Sign In
January 20, 2005 at 8:38 am