The Airbus A380 winds up world test flight with North American stop in Vancouver
Published: Agence France-Presse November 29, 2006
by Deborah Jones, Vancouver
The Airbus A380, the world's largest airliner, made a final stop in a globe-spanning test flight in Vancouver, with company officials saying it flew with flying colors. The superjumbo is to head home later in the day to Toulouse, France, where it is assembled. The company expects to obtain European and US safety clearance for commercial operation next month.
Just before dawn the A380, which had stopped in Johannesburg and Sydney, descended over the Pacific Ocean and landed at snow-blanketed Vancouver International Airport in a blaze of lights.
The aircraft -- fitted inside and out to run experiments and dubbed MSN2 by Airbus -- was parked throughout the day at the southern edge of the airport, where its massive bulk and distinctive gull-shaped wings dwarfed the other aircraft.
Airport employees snapped souvenir photos as busloads of journalists and representatives of airlines and technical companies toured the plane's exterior. Snow and freezing temperatures are highly unusual for Canada's west coast even in winter, but the new plane had no problem, Frank Chapman, an Airbus test pilot, said at a news conference. "It's a surprising airplane for such a large aircraft, the handling is excellent," he said.
The test flight, the last for the A380 in Airbus's application process for an international air safety certificate, went smoothly, said Corrin Higgs, product marketing manager for the A380 program. "It's been one of the most successful flight-test programs in the history of Airbus," Higgs said.
Chapman said Airbus hopes to receive the plane's safety certificate by the end of December.
The A380 program has been plagued with production delays that cost it an order this month from US company FedEx Inc., the world's largest express delivery group. Deliveries are now two years behind schedule because of electrical cabling problems.
Airbus has sold the double-decker plane to 15 airlines, said Higgs, with Singapore Airlines expected to take delivery of the first production jet in October 2007. Higgs said its base price is 300 million US dollars, and while it can carry as many as 800 passengers in an economy-seating configuration, most airlines were expected to order seating for fewer than 550 to offer a mix of first-class, business-class and economy-class seating.
Higgs said Airbus had chosen Vancouver for its only landing in North America, instead of the United States, because Vancouver is a convenient stop on a round-the-world trip and because of US safety restrictions that made it more difficult for Airbus crews to land on American soil.
"The practical reason was immigration ... it's more practical for us to take the aircraft to alternate destinations," said Higgs. He said Airbus was planning an American tour for the giant jet "at some stage" in the future.
Airbus officials said about 80 people travelled on board the plane's test flight, and many seats were outfitted with mechanical dummies set up to measure air flow, temperature and noise levels.
The round-the-world test was designed to measure "1,000 different parameters," said Higgs. "It looks conventional, but underneath the skin there are a whole raft of innovations," he said, displaying a graph of the plane's construction. Along with traditional metal, the plane maker used plastic reinforced with glass fibre, quartz fibre and carbon fibre. "It's 15 tonnes lighter than if we had used conventional materials," he said.
Higgs said the plane has a longer range than its Airbus predecessors or competitors, can carry greater weight and more people, land on shorter runways, and is quieter than other commercial jets, allowing it to land more frequently at airports like London with strict noise restrictions. "It's a design for the 21st century, with levels of economy and efficiency appropriate for the 21st century," he said.
Paul Levy, vice president of the Vancouver International Airport Authority, said the airport is building new gates that will allow passenger boarding and disembarking on both the lower and top levels of the two-storey aircraft.
Airbus has 149 firm orders for the A380 from 15 airlines. Airbus's parent, the European Aeronautic Defence and Space Company (EADS), has said the delays mean it will now have to sell 420 of the superjumbos to break even on the ambitious project, instead of 270 as previously announced.
Copyright Deborah Jones 2006
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