that is sad

Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say Airbus built the A380 for a non-existent market, but it will take them very, very long to reach brake-even point which is officially somewhere between 255 and 270 planes right now.

@Matt Murray: Not really. Only the wingtips are shorter/longer.

Welll I would say the A380 is the wrong plane for todays market. Nearly every major hub (apart from some exceptions) is close or getting close to the max. when it comes to passengers and movements. Ad using the A380 from those hubs (and those are the only ones with enoug demand to justify the A380) you need even more (or larger) feeder flights. Which on the other hand further increase the pressure on the hubs. few hubs will be ablte to grow fast enough with their infrastructure to handle the gowing demands of the passengers. So if airlines want a share of the increasing demand they will have to offer more point to point connections. And the plane you would want for that is the 787.

I have seen both. But the outboard side seems to be prefered though. I have also seen 4 AIM-9Ls being carried. But the normal layout is as above.

Standard load is.

3x AIM-120A
2X AIM-9L
1X ALQ-119
2X wing tanks

for the leader

same but with a fourth AIM-120A replacing the ECM pod for the wingmen.

For operations in Lativa I would expect that they won´t carry the tanks and will probably only carry 2 winders + 2 AMRAAMS.

I woukld expect more major carriers order the 787 this year. In the 50 years LH magazine, there is a statement that they will always order jets from both manufacturers and that their Boeing fleet is a little small at the moment.

The main problem is that Airbus went for the wrong product with the A380. With every major airport facing server problems, when it comes to landing slots, noise control and missing capacity at key hours, the hub and spoke system is losing interest.

Point to point connections will be the way to grow in the future. (Apart from some airlines like EK, who are not bound by the problems with the airport infrastrucuture).

And there is a need for a A300 replacement. A high density plane optimized for medium range operations. And with the 787 Boeing will occupy both markets with a very modern product.

The A350 won´t cut it, as nobody seems interested in it.

They should update the A300 instead and focus on an improved A320. A medium range optimsed A300 could probably be an interesting alternative.

We are heading for Boeing times again. 😀 🙂

I hope Rafale wins.

What did I hear a friend working in northeaster nGermany say :

” EF is the perfect plane for Germany. It costs too much, so it saves jobs in the industry. And it so useless that nobody will ever ask Germany to deploy those planes to a real war.”