I wonder if the test pilots will get a bit nervous before the first flight…? Now I’m sure it will fly, but there’s a lot of folks watching an dI think I’d get a bit twitchy if I was asked to fly a design that had never flown before.

Andy

The test pilots have spent many hours flying the aircraft in a simulator over the last few years. As well, I am sure that they will have flown the first flight in this simulator to counteract any problems which could occur. With what’s on the line, I am pretty sure that they will leave nothing to chance!

I found this on A.net:
http://membres.lycoc.fr/airbus/A380%20roulage%20150405.htm
It has a few new pictures taken today in Toulouse.

The scary thing is that there is a fair amount of distance between the two aircraft. It looked enormous when it sat next to an A346 in a picture posted previously. I can only imagine how much larger the A388 is when compared to the A320 if they were parked next to one another.

The LCI news network apparently confirmed the first flight is to be made on the 22nd of April, a week from today. I can’t wait to see it fly, I think that many of us have waited long enough!

If this picture was dated on the 9th, it could mean Airbus was trying to catch up some of the delays experienced earlier as the 9th was Saturday. Could it be that EADS is desperate to maintain a strict schedule?
In the mean time, this thing simply looks awesome! Can’t wait to see it fly and eventually fly on one!

FBW would certainly be a possibility. It would help reduce its weight that little bit more.

In this day and age, I think FBW would be a necessity. Many airlines would wonder what Boeing was doing if they were to design the 747ADV with regular old fashion flight controls.

Should Boeing decide to move forward with this project, how many airframes would have to be sold in order to reach a break even point? The reason why I ask is that I’ve only heard of a couple of airlines have expressed any real interest in this aircraft.

Good choice of pic, i thought the other one was some sort of missle at first.

Would the shape of the wing maybe suggest a B-2?