Ship 741I never compared the sales of the A380 to the 787. Not sure how anyone could claim that I did
Ship 741Aside from the general premise, which you know I already disagree with…
Can I infer from this ‘fact’ that the history of aviation is littered with double deck airliners that were failures? Care to enlighten me and name some? 🙂
You can infer whatever you like. Double deckers are a bad idea……Joe Sutter and his team thought so in 1966 and not much has changed since.
Ship 741Are gateway hubs fragmenting? I’m from the UK, so I’ll use here as an example. If you want to fly from the UK to anywhere outside of Europe, the only viable option is LHR. LGW’s been making headway on international routes in recent years, but only due to capacity constraints at LHR. I find it highly unlikely that you will ever be able to fly direct from Glasgow to Tokyo or Hong Kong, meaning there will always be a need for gateway hubs.
The design may already be 10 years old, but that doesn’t make it outdated. When the 747-400 first flew, the 747 design was 22 years old… The A320 design is 28 years old.
I would respectfully submit that the UK is bucking the trend. The NIMBYs are holding up much needed airport/runway construction at LHR. Many runways have been built or are planned in Europe and Asia, and many flights are in fact over-flying the historic gateways of LHR and JFK in the Atlantic. In the pacific, tokyo will increasingly be bypassed by direct flights into China in the future…..same trend: fragmentation.
Ship 741I suggest you look at what’s happening in Europe & Asia, where a few hubs are growing very rapidly, & look at where the biggest A380 customers are based.
There are many airports which are bursting at the seams, & can’t squeeze in more aircraft movements. Bigger aircraft are the obvious answer for them. There are routes which are crowded, & getting more so. Again, bigger aircraft are the answer. There are airlines running intercontinental flights between the same two points half an hour apart, which want to combine them to save money, & need something A380-sized to do it. Oh, there’s a market all right.
BTW, your numbers are wrong. Too many 747 (you ignore the first year in which deliveries were made, & start with the second) & too few A380 (you’ve given the number of deliveries for the first five years, not six). Careless or dishonest?
And surely, there has been a successful double-decker (albeit with only a part-length upper deck) – the Boeing 747. I’ve flown on the upper deck, bumped up a class because economy was oversold & there was space upstairs. That reminds me – what was that about lower-density routes?
In Europe I see new runway at FRA, new runway just a few years ago at CDG, MUC now planning for a new runway, and the new Berlin airport building a new runway. “The authorities” would like to build a runway (or two) at LHR, but the NIMBYS won’t allow it. In Asia, I see a newly opened runway at HND, a new runway coming at KIX, which already has two. A new runway is being talked about at HKG, and then there is the rest of China: I think Aviation week reported 6 airports the size of ATL (4 parallels) under construction. A new runway AND a new airport are being built in Beijing. The list goes on and on. Congested “old hubs” like JFK and LHR are consistently being over-flown. All just off the top of my head.
I took the 747 deliveries off wikipedia a few months ago….I confess I did not pull up the thread I posted at that time and I wagged the numbers, but I just recalculated and if wiki is to be believed Boeing delivered 264 747’s in the first 6 years…….92 in the first year alone, more 747’s were delivered in the first year than A380’s have delivered in 6 years. Careless really, a few frames don’t really matter too much to the overall calculus.
I was referring to full length upper deck, its such a great idea that no one has ever done it before, and the one manufacturer who tried it is having real problems selling planes…..if there is such a market, why aren’t more A380’s selling?
Ship 741I think the fact AA only just recently ordered the 77W (to become the first US 77W customer) says a lot about the US airlines in general.
Despite the good old American ethos of ‘bigger is better’, this quite clearly doesn’t follow trough when it comes to airliners. If one airline can only just get its act together to order the 77W, an A380 order is years off.————————————————————–
I’m a believer in the A380’s future success. Take the 747, for example. In the first 10 years after its launch (1966-1976), it had only sold 286 frames (most of which were for a single customer, PanAm)… Sound familiar?
The fact of the matter is this – the long term trend of oil prices is only going one way, and that’s up! Sooner or later, or more likely a slow progression over the next few decades, passengers will care less about frequency and more about price when it comes to booking tickets. When that day comes, the A380 will rule.
Fact Check: Pan Am was the launch customer for the 747 with 25 orders, and several airlines eventually operated more 747’s than Pan Am. By comparison, Emirates has ordered almost 50% of all the A380’s ordered.
Boeing delivered something like 247 747’s in the first 6 years of production, Aibus delivered 67 airframes in the first 6 years of production.
The fact of the matter is that world air travel markets are fragmenting, and gateway hubs are being bypassed more and more all the time……thus obviating the need for VLA’s. If, and when, this trend changes, a new airplane will be built by a competitor and the A380 will represent out-dated technology, as the design is already over ten years old.
The fact is that there has never been a successful double decker airliner. What has changed to make that configuration suddenly successful?
Ship 741I can’t remember where I read it, but I recall seeing a number of years ago that Honda automobiles assembled in the U.S. were of higher quality than the Hondas assembled in Japan.
I would suppose those statistics vary over time.
Ship 741One can, can they? All day long? Really? I find it hard to believe they would accomodate a 4000′ block request when spacing is at only 1000′ vertically! You’d be going down to Non-RVSM altitiudes straight away believe me.
By the way, you were indicating you knew what happened to SR111 purely because it was an MD-11. Now you’re bringing your ladder up.
Yes…..really…..all day long. As long as ATC clears them, there is no restriction if a required piece of equipment for RVSM fails in flight. The difference between Dispatch (MEL) requirements and enroute.
Please show me one time where I ever indicated I knew what caused 111. I challenge you.
If you look back through the thread you’ll see I indicated from the first mention that no one knows what really caused it, any other assertion is merely wishful thinking on your part. It IS true that 111 is YET ANOTHER tragic and regrettable crash resulting in loss of life from the flawed DC10/MD11 series. I’m can’t figure out why you’re so combative and protective about “the airplane that killed off the Douglas Commercial airplane division” when it seems pretty apparent from the record that they’re pretty dangerous airplanes (see my graphic with the hull loss statistics from Boeing.
Ship 741I’m guessing the wear/tear issue would be significant. IIRC, Boeing did a significant number of modifications to the 747 airframe to beef it up for high volume/short haul operations. And given that the wings are already cracking on the A380…..well, it looks like there would have to be some mods done.
Ship 741I would be very suprised to see any new customers in the short term….no one seems to want the thing…..if you take away Emirates and the “de-facto” state run carriers in Europe, over half your orders are gone.
Ship 741Aren’t you assuming it doesn’t disconnect on its own? From the jumpseat (I’m not a pilot, apparently you are) I’ve seen it disconnect on it’s own in a mountain wave. I was glad the guys flying knew how to fly “up high” that night.
I’ve heard of the AP disconnecting after an engine failure, though I have not seen that on my own.
I’m curious…..everyone seems to have been saying the last few years that AF447 crashed due to pilot error, yet several people seem to be making the case on this thread that poor flying qualities at high altitude (ala MD-11) don’t matter because its not ever necessary to hand fly up there in any event…..you guys seem to be saying, “why worry about crappy high altitude handling, we don’t ever do that anyway….”
Of course this all digresses from the main point, the MD-11’s treacherous landing characteristics, proven by the record in actual service.
Ship 741Yes they do. It is only you who seem to think it was something else.
Anyway, tell your mate, best of luck hand-flying in RVSM airspace, I’m sure he’s popular with ATC.
Only 1 to go now
1. Please tell me definitively what started the fire, if you can find that in the TSB report.
2. WRT handlflying in RVSM airpace: You now agree! Thank you! When I pointed out the difference of dispatch versus enroute requirements, you went from saying it can’t be done, to tacitly admitting that it can be done but that ATC won’t allow it.
Ship 741Well thats a pretty important time isn’t it!?
I cited the AF447 reference. How about when encountering a mountain wave? How about drifting down after an engine failure?
Editorial Comment: I never said I was a commercial pilot…….if you are trying to “prove” I’m not, you’ve won already, I’m not.
I haven’t seen anyone post anything factual to dispute that the MD-11 is a dangerous airplane and has a horrible record, yet I have posted anecdotal and manufacturer data to support the assertions. All the attention on what my personal qualifications may or may not be don’t change that.
Ship 741As of August 3, 2012, JAL and ANA still haven’t ordered any A380’s. 🙁
Ship 741But Iberia haven’t ordered the A380, have they? Unless IAG are going to move some over from the BA order.
Correct me if i’m wrong, but isn’t Iberia about 1/3 the size of LH, and isn’t the Spanish investment/ownership in Airbus a small fraction of the German investment/ownership of Airbus?
I guess I have a hard time equating Iberia and Deutsch Lufthansa.
Ship 741Here is some data to chew on……Hull loss summary by aircraft type…….Boeing data……I see one particular aircraft that kind of sticks out…..I’ve placed a red box over the airplane type…….I didn’t come up with this information on my own, someone told me the data: Boeing.
It’s quite a testament to the training and quality of the KLM pilots that they’ve never lost one, given the records that other carriers experienced.
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