Thursday - June 23, 2011
Those Damn French Drivers!
Airbus flew a double-decker Airbus A380 to the 2011 Paris Airshow to put on display and to hopefully attract additional customers. However, while taxiing, the world’s largest airliner’s wing clipped a building ripping off the right winglet and putting the aircraft out of service and unable to fly.
Luckily an A380 owned by Korean Air came to the rescue and flew one of their A380s t0 the Paris Air Show. Being the largest airliner has its benefits and challenges — this is not the first time the A380s size has been an issue. Recently, an Air France A380 struck the tail of a CRJ 700, causing it to spin out.
A spokesperson for Airbus told AirlineReporter.com that the A380, “took the taxiway it was instructed by ground control to take.”
A similar crunch happened a few years ago in Thailand.
The A380’s wingspan is much wider than the B747-400, at 79.8 meters (261.6 feet) compared to 64.5 meters. Even the Boeing 747-8 wingspan is “only” 68.5 meters (224 feet).
Only two larger aircraft have ever been built. Howard Hughe’s Spruce Goose, which sort of flew but once, has a wingspan of 319 feet (97.5 meters). The Soviet Antonov-225, of which only one was ever fully built, has a wingspan of 290 feet (88.4 meters).
Maybe the French pilots should learn to look to the side as well as out the front.
While Airbus draped the exhibition with billboards touting the world’s largest passenger plane as “Love at First Flight,” the A380’s initial rendezvous was with an airport building which kissed a wingtip and forced a return to the factory for repairs.
The wing strike was a rare misstep at a show dominated by orders for Airbus’s A320neo single-aisle model. With the damaged A380 gone for the first two days of the show, Boeing’s 747-8 Intercontinental in red “sunrise” livery made its debut in the expo’s static display and to add insult to injury won 19 orders or commitments as Airbus’s superjumbo came away empty-handed.
...
The run-in with the structure wasn’t Airbus’s only mishap. The A400M, Airbus’s military transport, couldn’t perform a daily flight routine because of a glitch in the gearbox.
Posted by Drew458
on 06/23/2011 at 07:55 AM
Filed Under: • FRANCE • planes, trains, tanks, ships, big machinery, and automobiles •
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