Non-Military Aviation

[tifosi77]

It's super popular among people who have flown it. It's just not economically viable to operate on most routes. Airbus hasn't received any new orders for the type in something like three years, and they're only at around 25% of their sales forecast.

At the time it was announced, a Boeing exec said something like "it is a very big aircraft for a very small market". You look at the newer types that are coming on for widebody long-haul routes and it's aircraft like the 787 and a350 (which is sah-weet).

Shyster's more the expert on this stuff, so I'd be interested in hearing any additional insight he has on the subject of the a380 falling so short of expectations.

[willeyeam]

i flew in a Qantas a380 to Aus and it was pretty sweet

[NTP66]

i flew in a Qantas a380 to Aus and it was pretty sweet

When we do our Australia trip, it will absolutely be on a Qantas A380.

[willeyeam]

i flew in a Qantas a380 to Aus and it was pretty sweet

When we do our Australia trip, it will absolutely be on a Qantas A380.

Where ya going?

[NTP66]

i flew in a Qantas a380 to Aus and it was pretty sweet

When we do our Australia trip, it will absolutely be on a Qantas A380.

Where ya going?

We're still a few years away from even planning it (waiting for my daughter to get older), but I assume we'll likely go to Sydney and Queensland. I look forward to spending most of my time diving the reef and white shark cage diving.

[OutofFoil]

Flew to Oz on an Emirates A380 from Dubai. Can’t really comment on the normal experience since I was randomly chosen for a business class upgrade at 3AM during boarding. Biz class on an Emirates 380 was my second best experience flying ever. Great food, service, liquor. Had a bar in the back you could hang out in. When time for bed, they came and put a 2” thick featherbed on top of the lay flat seat. It’ll never happen to me again, but it was glorious. (Best experience wasn’t because of the plane, flew United first class with my wife for our honeymoon in Hawaii and Australia using miles. Upper deck of a 747 that is practically empty on a 13 hour flight heading on one’s honeymoon was enjoyable.)

[Shyster]

The A380 was designed with the expectation that the aviation world would swing even farther towards the "hub and spoke" model, with the A380 connecting the big hub cities. But that didn't really come to pass, especially with the introduction of the 787 and its ability to economically operate "long and thin" direct flights that bypass the hubs. Also, when it comes to big twinjets like the 777, 787, and A350, they are more efficient on a seat-cost basis than the A380 to the point where I believe the head of Quantas said that they could fly two 787s nose to tail on a route and still have lower per-seat costs than they were seeing on their A380s.

The only airline that has ordered any A380s recently is Emirates, which already operates roughly half of the A380 fleet. The A380 would already be dead but for Emirates. It's one of the few airlines where a big-jet "hub and spoke" model makes sense, since most of what Emirates does is flying people through its massive hub in Dubai.

IIRC, the A380s that are headed to ANA were originally ordered by a Japanese low-cost carrier Skymark, which was going to try to operate long-haul routes. The airline went bankrupt, and in the ensuing litigation and legal deals, ANA ended up holding the A380 orders even though ANA really didn't want the aircraft. ANA itself didn't order them.

[Shyster]

Great views in this video of a departure of a new Cirrus Vision jet from Aspen airport. I don't think that's an airport that I would want to fly into (or out of) at night or in bad weather.



The Vision is a neat aircraft that's only been on sale for a couple years. It's the least expensive new bizjet on the market and is notable for having a single engine. It's safe to say that it costs way less than all of the other private jets one can see parked on the ramp at the Aspen airport. You can really tell that a lot of very rich folks frequent that town.

[willeyeam]

i flew in a Qantas a380 to Aus and it was pretty sweet

When we do our Australia trip, it will absolutely be on a Qantas A380.

Where ya going?

We're still a few years away from even planning it (waiting for my daughter to get older), but I assume we'll likely go to Sydney and Queensland. I look forward to spending most of my time diving the reef and white shark cage diving.

Let me know when you go. I saw a good amount of the East coast so I could point you in the right direction for some things

[NTP66]

i flew in a Qantas a380 to Aus and it was pretty sweet

When we do our Australia trip, it will absolutely be on a Qantas A380.

Where ya going?

We're still a few years away from even planning it (waiting for my daughter to get older), but I assume we'll likely go to Sydney and Queensland. I look forward to spending most of my time diving the reef and white shark cage diving.

Let me know when you go. I saw a good amount of the East coast so I could point you in the right direction for some things

Will do, thanks!

[DigitalGypsy66]

The Jeppeson charts for Santa Claus International Airport

https://twitter.com/AirlineFlyer/status ... 77440?s=19

[Shyster]

That is awesome.

[tifosi77]

[tifosi77]

Gatwick Airport: Drones ground flights

Gatwick's runway has been shut since Wednesday night, as devices have been repeatedly flying over the airfield.

Sussex Police said it was not terror-related but a "deliberate act" of disruption, using "industrial specification" drones.

About 110,000 passengers on 760 flights were due to fly on Thursday. Disruption could last "several days".

An airline source told the BBC flights were currently cancelled until at least 19:00 GMT.

[tifosi77]

Spare a thought for the victims and surviving family members of PanAm 103.... 30 years ago today.

[shafnutz05]

Spare a thought for the victims and surviving family members of PanAm 103.... 30 years ago today.

I never realized how many Syracuse University students were coming home on that flight for the holidays. 35 Syracuse students traveling back stateside after spending the semester abroad. This is a nice read about how Syracuse still honors the dead:

https://www.syracuse.com/news/2018/12/3 ... r-met.html

[Shyster]

This is a deeply nerdy video that would probably only be interesting to aviation geeks, but Captain Joe just posted an interview with Kennedy Steve, who recently retired.

[Shyster]

Who wants an hour and a half of planespotting at Brussels, Belgium?

[DigitalGypsy66]

Speaking of airplane spotting, a veteran plane spotter in the UK spotted Air Force One as it headed to Iraq for POTUS' surprise visit:

On the morning of December 26, Alan Meloy stood on the front porch of his home in northern England and noticed that “murky” early clouds were clearing into a crisp and sunny winter’s day.

Meloy, a retired IT professional and a plane spotter of 45 years, decided to grab his best camera to see whether he could catch any interesting flyovers. Before long, he saw a “jumbo”—a Boeing VC-25A—and, knowing there were few such aircraft left, took about 20 photos of the plane. He could tell immediately that there was something unusual about it, though.

“It was just so shiny,” he told me. As it turned out, Meloy had unwittingly captured Air Force One.

Meloy’s photo, which he uploaded to the image-sharing service Flickr, provided the confirmation a group of hobbyists needed to outwit the security precautions of the world’s largest superpower transporting its leader on a secret trip to a conflict zone. In effect, President Donald Trump’s visit to a U.S. military base in Iraq the day after Christmas was publicly known among a band of enthusiasts even before he landed in the country.

The incident is just the latest in a long line in which hobbyists, hackers, or armchair internet detectives have outwitted or thwarted the best intentions of governments, secret services, and militaries, a reminder of how the connected world opens all of them to new, evolving threats—and how unprepared even the world’s most advanced governments are to deal with the simplest of these threats.

https://www.theatlantic.com/internation ... aq/579151/

It might be time to have a spare VC-25A or replacement without the AF1 livery.

[dodint]

That's a pretty big after-the-fact leap to suggest that a guy noticing AF-1 flying over England *knew* that it was going to Al Asad.

[tifosi77]

I believe there are only two VC-25As in the inventory as it is. Given how they operate, they don't really have a lot of options.

Back in the late 80s when I was going to the open house at Andrews every year our bus cruiser got lost on base. We ended up wandering into the area on the southwest part of the ramp where they keep all the executive transports, and we were met with armed resistance. Which was neat, because the group I went with every year was all local police officers. So we had a small group of Air Force dudes guns up running at a bus load of cops.

[Shyster]

Yes, there are only two VC-25As in inventory. IIRC, those two aircraft are the only two 747-200s that are still carrying passengers. The rest of the handful of -200s that are still in operation are all freighters.

New transports have been ordered, but it's highly unlikely that more than two new aircraft will go into service. The Air Force bought two 747-8I aircraft (which will be called the VC-25B in AF service) that had been originally ordered by Russian airline Transaero. Transaero went bankrupt before they were ever delivered, and those two aircraft have been stored in the Mojave for years while Boeing looked for a buyer. Boeing is still building the -8F freighter version of the 747-8, but no one has ordered a -8I passenger version in probably over a decade, and Boeing hasn't delivered one since 2012. The Air Force bought the two stored aircraft rather than have Boeing construct new ones because it would have been way more expensive to have Boeing put the -8I version back into production. And anyway, the expected cost for the Air Force to install whatever special sauce is going into those two VC-25Bs is already in the neighborhood of $4 billion, so I don't see the AF spending the money for any more.

[NTP66]

The GE9X (for the 777X) is larger in diameter than a 737.

[Shyster]

The first 777X should be getting pretty close to the start of testing. I know the first 777X test frame was completed last fall. That frame will be tested to destruction on the ground. I think I recall reading a month or so ago that Boeing was getting ready to finish fuselage assembly of the first 777X frame that will actually fly. I think the initial test program for the GE9X engines (using GE's 747 testbed aircraft) is also done or close to done, so I'm thinking we might see a flying 777X by the summer. Those engines are marvels of engineering. They're actually slightly less powerful than the most powerful versions of the GE90, but the new composite wings on the 777X will generate significantly more lift, so the aircraft doesn't need as much power, and the fuel economy is supposed to be much better.

[tifosi77]

I am currently sitting at the Tanforan mall food court where, for the second time in a month, weather has moved in and 'reversed' traffic in and out of SFO. Arrivals are coming in barely 300' over the building, and it's very neat.

Also, the GE9X is a big honkin' jet engine.