The New Airbus 380

Yup we heard the news that Singapore get themselves a new superjumbo Airbus A380 and nominated as the largest passenger airliner in the world. The aircraft was known as the Airbus A3XX during much of its development phase, but the nickname Superjumbo has since become associated with it. A380 made its first commercial flight on 25 October 2007 from Singapore to Sydney with Singapore Airlines. Its upper deck extends along the entire length of the fuselage and this allow for a cabin with 50 percent more floor space. This new airbus comes in two flavour, The A380-800 is for passenger, and The A380-800F is planned freighting model.

The new Airbus is was originally designed to carry 555 passengers and 853 passengers (538 on the main deck and 315 on the upper deck) for the three class airliner. Future variants may include an A380-900 stretch seating about 656 passengers (or up to 960 passengers in an all economy configuration) and an extended range version with the same passenger capacity as the A380. Stronger wing used on design approach sacrifices some fuel efficiency on the A380 passenger model but coupled with the advances in technology will provide lower operating costs per passenger than all current variants of Boeing 747. A380’s wingtip fences similar to those found on the A310 and A320 to improve performance.

Airbus used similar cockpit layout, procedures and handling characteristics to those of other Airbus aircraft, to reduce crew training costs. The A380 features an improved glass cockpit, and fly-by-wire flight controls linked to side-sticks The improved cockpit displays feature eight 15-by-20 cm (6-by-8-inch) liquid crystal displays, all of which are physically identical and interchangeable. These comprise two Primary Flight Displays, two navigation displays, one engine parameter display, one system display and two Multi-Function Displays. These MFDs are new with the A380, and provide an easy-to-use interface to the flight management system—replacing three multifunction control and display units. They include QWERTY keyboards and trackballs, interfacing with a graphical “point-and-click” display navigation system.