last update 2. January 2011
written 1. January 2011

Aircaft in Detail

Development

Airbus started the development of a very large airliner in the early 1990s, both to complete its own range of products and to break the dominance that Boeing had held in this market segment since the early 1970s with its Boeing B747.

McDonnell Douglas pursued a similar strategy with its ultimately unsuccessful MD-12 design. As each manufacturer looked to build an own successor to the B747, they knew there was room for only one new aircraft to be profitable in the 600 to 800 seat market segment. Each knew as well the risk of splitting such a niche market, as had been years ago demonstrated by the simultaneous debut of the Lockheed L-1011 and the McDonnell Douglas DC-10; either aircraft met the market’s needs, but the market could profitably sustain only one model, eventually resulting in Lockheed’s departure from the civil airliner business. A few years later the same thing happened to McDonnell Douglas. It was overtaken by Boeing cooperation and not building civil airliner anymore.

In January 1993, Boeing and several companies in the Airbus consortium started a joint feasibility study of an aircraft known as the Very Large Commercial Transport (VLCT), aiming to form a partnership to share the limited market and the financial risks.

In June 1994, Airbus began developing its own very large airliner, designated as A3XX. Airbus considered several designs, including an odd side-by-side combination of two fuselages from the A340, which was Airbus’s largest jet at the time.
The A3XX was pitted against the VLCT study and Boeings own “New Large Aircraft” successor to the B747-400, which evolved into the B747-X, a stretched version of the 747 with the fore body “hump” extended rearwards to accommodate more passengers. The joint VLCT effort between Airbus and Boeing ended in July 1996, and Boeing suspended the 747X program in January 1997. 

From 1997 to 2000 as the East Asia financial crises darkened the market outlook, Airbus refined its design, targeting a 15 to 20 percent reduction in operating costs over the existing Boeing 747-400.The A3XX design converged on a double-decker layout that provided more passenger volume than a traditional single-deck design. 

On 19^th December 2000, the supervisory board of newly restructured Airbus voted to launch a 8.8 billion Euro program to build the A3XX, re-christened as the “A380 program”, with 55 firm orders from six launch customers. The A380 designation was a break from previous Airbus families, which had progressed sequentially from A300 to A340. It was chosen because the number “8” resembles the double-deck cross section, and is a lucky number in some Asian countries where the aircraft was mostly marketed.

The aircraft’s final configuration was frozen in early 2001 and manufacturing of the first A380 wing box component started on 23^rd January 2002. The development costs of the A380 had grown to the astronomical sum of 11 billion Euros when the first aircraft was completed!

Meanwhile, Boeing resurrected the 747X program several times before finally launching the 747-8 Intercontinental in November 2005. Boeing chose to develop a derivative for the 400 to 500 seat market, instead of matching the A380’s capacity.

Testing

By now, five A380’s were built for testing and demonstration purposes.The first prototype, serial number MSN001 and registration F-WWOW, was unveiled at a ceremony in Toulouse on 18^th January 2005. Its maiden flight took place at 10:29 a.m. local time, 29^th April 2005..

Push-back of SIA, A380-800 (Photo courtesy Raimond Dollnik  2010)

The prototype, equipped with Trent 900 engines, departed runway 32L of Toulouse Blagnac International Airport with a flight crew of six, headed by chief test pilot Jacques Rosay, carrying 20 tons of flight test instrumentation and water ballast.

The take-off weight of the aircraft was 421 tons; although this was only 75 percent of its maximum take-off weight, it was the heaviest take-off weight of any passenger airliner ever flown. This remarkable heavy weight was only overbeaten by the Russian Antonov AN-225. The Antonov AN-225’s maximum take-off weight counts incredible 680 tons!

In mid-November 2005, the A380 embarked on a tour of Southeast Asia and Australia for promotional and long-haul flight testing purposes, visiting Singapore, Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne and Kuala Lumpur. On 19^th November 2005, an A380 flew in full Emirates livery at the Dubai Air Show.

On 1^st December 2005, the A380 achieved its maximum design speed of Mach 0.96, in a shallow dive, completing the opening of the flight envelope. The aircraft’s maximum allowed operational speed is lower, at Mach 0.89, and its cruising speed is set to the speed of Mach 0.85.

In the upcoming months following tests have to be done regarding the program schedule:

• Aerodynamic- and vibration tests as well as aquaplaning tests, Istre-France

• Low speed take-off tests, Istre-France

• Engine tests on high altitude airports, Medellin-Colombia

• Heat tests take-off and landing (engine &electronic), Guadeloupe-France

• Cold tests take-off and landing (engine & electronic), Iqaluit-Canada

• Emergency evacuation tests, Hamburg-Germany

Three days after the Emergency evacuation tests at Hamburg, on 29^th March 2006, Airbus received from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and from the United States Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) the Emergency-Evacuation Certificate for their A380.

In May 2006 the first A380 (MSN003, F-WWSA) for a customer was completed and had his maiden flight.

On 25th August 2006, the first A380 (MSN009, F-WWEA) equipped with the Engine GP7000 from Engine Alliance took off to his first test flight.

On 4th September 2006, the first full passenger-carrying flight test took place. The aircraft flew from Toulouse with 474 Airbus employees on board, in the first of a series of flights to test passenger facilities and comfort. In November 2006, a further series of route proving flights took place to demonstrate the aircraft’s performance for 150 flight hours under typical airline operating conditions.

Airbus obtained type certificate for the A380-841 and A380-842 (RR Trent900) model from EASA and FAA, on the 12^th December 2006, in a joint ceremony at the company’s French headquarters. The A380-861 (EA GP7000) model type certificate is planned for 12th December 2007.So far a great “milestone” was reached by Airbus Company and their employees.

As of October 2007, ten A380’s had flown, and the five A380’s in the test program had logged over 4’565 hours during 1’364 flights, including route proving and demonstration flights around the globe.

Delivery delays

Initial production of the A380 was plagued by delays attributed to the 530 km (330 miles) of wiring in each aircraft. Airbus cited as underlying causes the complexity of the cabin wiring (100’000 wires and 40’300 connectors), its current design and production, the use of two incompatible versions of the CATIA computer-aided design software, the high degree of customization for each airline, and failures of configuration management and change control. Deliveries would be pushed back by almost two years.

Compensation payments as well as cancellations namely by FedEx (10) in November 2006, UPS (10) in March 2007, Emirates (2) and ILFC (5) for the Cargo version (A380-800F), brought the Airbus company in financial turbulences. FedEx ordered 15 x Boeing B777-200F, because they were already on the market at that time. Regarding to all cancellations of the A380-800F cargo version, Airbus decided to stop the A3800-800F program for the time being. Therefore, the planned production rate of 120 aircraft’s by the end of 2009 dropped down to 90 – 100 aircraft’s at the most!

In June 2006 Airbus announced a further delivery delay by six to seven months ahead. Even so, Airbus was convinced and guarantied its first delivery to a customer by the end of 2006. Planned delivery rates for 2007 fell down to only nine aircrafts. Deliveries until the end of 2009 came down to the lowest rate of maximum 70 – 80 aircrafts, announced by Airbus. All these bad news infected also the financial markets around the world. Meanwhile the EADS shares lost 26% of their value on the stock exchange markets! Regarding to this poor management, EADS CEO Noel Forgeard, Airbus CEO Gustav Humbert and A380 program-director Charles Champion were fired and had to leave the company.

Even so, with all this turbulences and mismanagement no further cancellations were made by the customers. Instead, Singapore Airlines increased their orders by nine further A380’s on 21^st July 2006.

But bad news continues ….!

On 3^rd October 2006, the new Airbus CEO, Christian Streiff announced the biggest delay ever, as follows:

• Singapore Airline will receive the first A380 in October 2007! (One year later then promised) 

• 2008 Airbus can only delivery 13 A380’s to their customers. 

• 2009 it will increase the deliveries up to 25 aircrafts. 

• 2010 the production rate will reach the full capacity of 45 aircrafts per year. 

Orders, deliveries and cancellations 

..

All together 16 customers ordered 234 (+1) A380-800. All orders regarding the A380 passenger version. The previous 27 orders for the A380-800F cargo version were cancelled (20) or changed (7) in passenger version’s.

By October 2010, 39 aircraft’s were delivered to five customers; Singapore Airlines (11), Emirates (14), Qantas (6), Air France (4) and Lufthansa (4). In November and December 2010, Airbus continues to delivery another 20 A380’s.

(Remark by the author)

Interesting but not surprising is the fact, that not one airline from United States, (Except FedEx, UPS, ILFC, for the cargo version),Latin America or Africa ordered the A380 by now; even so there are potential customers in this regions as well. I’ll guess it is just a matter of time.

Regarding the U.S. market it is no surprise, considering the evaluation of the new tanker aircraft by the

U.S. Air Force in the past, B767 vs. A330-200. (Protection of their own industries!) And now they set a new evaluation, even if Airbus won the previous evaluation and competition. I’ll guess this is the U.S. understanding of free trading, worldwide?! I’m sure this chapter isn’t closed and will go on for another while. We will see!