Early next year, the Airbus A380 ultra-large aircraft is scheduled to make its first flight. The multi-billion-euro "jumbo of the 21st century" has been a titanic exercise in aerospace industry cooperation and the focus of a heated debate between Airbus and Boeing. Mike Martin reports on the industry triumph that is coming our way.
If you are still mourning the demise of Concorde, European "grand projet" of the 20th century, then dry your eyes. The grand projet of the 21st century is only months away from first flight.
The Airbus A380 "mega jumbo" takes to the air early next year and is scheduled to fly at the Paris airshow in June. With 129 firm orders from 11 customers, the 555-seat passenger aircraft will enter service with Singapore Airlines in 2006.
The origins of the project go back years to a study programme with Boeing into the feasibility of jointly building a new high capacity aircraft. Boeing rejected the programme on the grounds that there wasn't a market for such an aircraft. It maintains the argument to this day.
Airbus went ahead with the $10.5 billion programme which is now coming to fruition with four development aircraft nearing completion.
In the European manufacturer's current 20-year forecast for aircraft demand, it says there will be a need for 16,500 aircraft in all categories over 100 seats, and 1,535 aircraft in the 400+ seat category.
"The total value of all the 16,500 aircraft that will be delivered in that time will be $1.5 trillion," says John Leahy, Airbus chief commercial officer. "Some 21% of all that revenue will be in very large aircraft and we do not have a competitor.
"We originally envisaged a 50:50 split with Boeing [in this category] but we seem to have this market to ourselves."
He was speaking a few weeks before Airbus rolled out the first A380 flight test aircraft from the structural assembly station at its Toulouse headquarters. It is one of four development aircraft that will be used in a three-phase flight test programme that kicks off soon.
The first flying aircraft, MSN001, is scheduled to reach the "power on" milestone next month. By then, structural assembly of the second flight-test aircraft, MSN004, should be under way. MSN001 could fly as early as February, with MSN004 expected to follow in March.
The two aircraft will be equipped with flight-test instrumentation and will be used for airframe and systems development and certification. The next two aircraft, MSN002 and MSN007, will be fitted with full interiors for cabin trials and will enter the programme in the third and fourth quarters of next year.
Powered
The first A380s will be powered by Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines, the lead variant of which is due for certification in the first quarter of 2006 with delivery to Singapore Airlines soon after.
The maiden flight of the Trent 900 was in May, aboard Airbus's A340-300 testbed. It was the first flight in a 50-60h test programme based around 30 flights planned over four months.
While all eyes are on this programme centred in Toulouse, a huge parallel effort is under way to ready an elite group of some 60 airports around that world that will take the A380, and in teams that will support the aircraft as it enters service.
While London Heathrow and New York Kennedy airports are leading the way in preparing for the arrival of the A380, there have been teething troubles at other airports.
Doubts that Charles de Gaulle and Los Angeles airports would be ready for the huge aircraft have led Air France and Virgin Atlantic - two key buyers of the aircraft - to defer deliveries.
Air France has delayed delivery of its first A380 by five months - to April 2007 - citing its concern that its Charles de Gaulle base would not be ready to handle the aircraft earlier.
More seriously, Airbus itself has voiced concerns over Los Angeles airport management's commitment to meeting extended plans to prepare for the A380 following a decision by Virgin Atlantic to defer deliveries by 18 months. Officials insist the airport is on track to be able to handle several frequencies a day.
New levels of passenger handling will be needed for the double-deck 555-passenger aircraft.
Upgrades
Kennedy Airport is investing $179 million in infrastructure upgrades, including the facilities needed to handle the A380. Heathrow is investing three times that amount on the strength of forecasts that by 2016, one in eight flights into the airport will be operated by an A380.
Some $180 million is being spent on renovating Terminal 3 alone. The terminal's Pier 6 is being demolished and rebuilt as a three-storey pier that will provide four stands for the A380, each of which will have two air bridges to enable loading of the main and upper decks simultaneously.
Terminal 4 will have four stands and three gates configured for the A380 by mid-2006. When it opens in 2008, the new Terminal 5 will have five A380 stands, rising to 14 by 2011.
Willy Pierre Dupont, Airbus A380 infrastructure and environment director, says that many features of the aircraft were dictated by the needs of airports. That starts with the 80m x 80m (260ft x 260ft) "footprint" of the aircraft.
Contacts
"We started to work with the airport community in 1994 and have had regular contacts with the 60 airports around the world that will handle the aircraft in the early phases," he says. "This consultation has driven the design of the A380."
He adds that the new aircraft will be valuable for many airports, with space constraints limiting physical growth, because it will enable passenger growth without the need to provide for increased aircraft movements.
"There is no way many airports can put in new runways so the answer is a greenfield site and a new airport can cost $25 billion. The biggest problem for many airports is how they accommodate growth. The A380 can help them because it is a minimum investment answer for airport growth."
To support the A380's entry into service (EIS), the manufacturer has developed a four-player partnership to deliver what it called "enhanced support". Airbus says that it will become the standard for all new aircraft models entering service in future. A system has been put in place to enable immediate response to any issues affecting an aircraft. The aim is to achieve "100% despatch reliability", says Gerard Misrai, Airbus customer services division deputy vice-president engineering and technical support.
He says: "The A380's size and its type of operation - long haul - means that a very good despatch reliability performance must be achieved at entry into service, so we will put in place the means for the airlines and Airbus to better anticipate, and react faster to, problems."
Source: Flight Daily News
