Since SOC closed the old one, here’s the new version for youse guys to play with as Jay would put it.

Be afraid, US CBG, be very afraid.

Discuss…

I generally think that we (=the Forumers) have the ability to overestimate. But apart the bovine merde ping pong match between some posters the thread contains some very useful information, especially from Jonesy and some others.

I think it is more that Leahy thinks Singapore needs more A380, not that they actually asked for it. Time will tell. How many B747-400 does Singapore have?

If you have ever heard an aircraft whose blade tips are supersonic you will know what it sounds like… the Huey is one and that trainer aircraft.. Harvard is it? is another. The blade tips on the Bear never become supersonic… it has a constant speed variable pitch propellers. It uses a very coarse pitch for normal forward high speed flight but doesn’t suffer from having supersonic blade tips which create drag rather than pushing force. The result is that the Bear is about 100km/h faster than the west had first estimated it to be.

…learned that in AFM or AirInt.

The Bear normally cruises at a speed substantially below its VMO/MMO, normally at M0.7. There it had for its time unmatched range and endurance (today’s turbofan jets are of course much better). To reach the top cruise speed of M0.82ish it is equipped with highly swept wings. At such speeds the prop efficiency goes down the sewer. That is the difference between a Bear and a jet: the jet normally cruises quite efficient just short of its MMO, while the Bear has to stay lower to prevent the loss of prop efficiency. If it had a simple prop, it would not reach M0.8 at all.

In the end the Bear is a design compromise caused by the existing circumstances at that time. With the arrival of fairly efficient jet engines (1960ish with JT8D=TF33) it was an outdated concept.

It’s only a matter of time before the suits at Qantas pressure Airbus for an increased MTOW

Currently 8000nm or 14800km are available. We all know that these are best case figures and do not include strong headwinds or operational fuel reserves above the required reserves.

The A380 has plenty of growth potential. If market demand is sufficient, a weight variant with 580t should be possible. Just as every aircraft type things have to establish, experience must grow. Airlines need to figure out what kind of tool they bought and what they can do about it. I keep on saying that the A380 is not just another aircraft, but it is a game changer (maybe comparable to the B767).

It was after SIN-SYD had flown for a couple of months that SQ announced Trent 900 burns several % less fuel than Airbus had promised. 380-861 has not entered service. Will it be no better than Airbus promised, or a few % better like -841, or even better than -841? The range depends on that.

I heard fuel burn is 20% better than on the B747-400 (which actually was the A380 design goal), and actual fuel burn is even a tiny bit better than Airbus promised. Now, consider it to be 1 or 2%. Actually, a real useful average fuel burn can be established after a dozen and more are in service (although the A380 airframe has exceptionel manufacturing quality).

How many 707-s or DC-8s replaced the 747-100 that was 21 hours late on its entry into service? And 747-200 and 747SP could not be replaced because nothing had their range. Nor can A340-500 or 777-200LR. Thai has 1 sole A340-500HGW and 3 A340-500 non-HGW. The SQ and EK A340-500 fleets also are small… And one time of day is often the only time of day that schedules and timezones make sense, so any extra flights would have to fly at about the same time.
How does the cost per seat compare between an 181 seat A340-500 or a 238 seat B777-200LR and an A380-800?

Still doesn’t make sense. First application is on race tracks between congested hubs. JFK, Heathrow, Frankfurt, Hong Kong and Singapoor. Any excess A380 will be available to airlines earliest in 2011.

Still roughly comparable with the YC-14 using a normal takeoff.

Bending reality can be so entertaining!

Wrong about the engines. The Il-76MF has the new PS90A engines that are more powerful and more fuel efficient that the engines previously used. They also meet new European noise emission requirements.

No, not wrong. I know they use the PS90 today.
But even the PS90A are old engines by today’s standards. Everybody who buys such an aircraft has to hope and pray that Russia still uses its own Il-76MF (of which they own … zero) in 30 years. If not, there is hardly any reason to continue support for these engines (the few Il-86/96 will be gone by 2020 latest). For external customers without industrial control over the parts of an aircraft or at least sufficient market power, such a detail can be a serious show stopper. Also consider that you are in a standing dependency to Russia, which is less desirable than being in a standing dependency on 5 European nations with constantly changing governments.

Here is a BLOG I think might be related to this thread (Sorry about its length):

I don’t dispute that Russian transports are very cheap to lease. Why is it so? Because the highest share of costs for a military transport is its purchase price financed over x amount of years. This purchase price includes development. For the Russian leasing company this cost item is somewhere close to zero. It doesn’t prove at all that the lifetime costs of Russian hardware when procured in a Western way does save a single USD. That is why Germany was right in rejecting the An-70 and Canada is right in saying it ain’t a long term solution.
In 10-15 years there will be only few Il-76 out for lease. Rest is grounded or scrapped.