A380 Takes to the Skies on Maiden Flight

The largest passenger plane, and what is quite possibly the most technologically advanced passenger plane in the world, the Airbus A380 lifted off on its maiden test flight Wednesday, 27 April 2005.

Thousands of people were in Toulouse to watch the historic take off, with Airbus and many major airlines such as Singapore Airlines, Emirates and Virgin eager that the take off happen without a glitch. The maiden flight stayed within a 100 mile area of the Toulouse Airport in Southern France, and due to favourable weather conditions and good aircraft handling, lasted around four hours before returning to land.

For its first flight, Airbus’ 21st century flagship, carrying the registration F-WW0W, took off at a weight of 421 tonnes / 928,300 lbs, the highest ever of any civil airliner at take-off to date. It was powered by four Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines. In addition to water ballasts, the equipment on board the A380 comprised a full set of flight-test instrumentation to record the thousands of parameters necessary to enable in-flight performance analysis. Being a true twin-aisle double-decker, the test A380 is fitted with two test instrumentation sets and working stations, one on the main deck and another on the upper deck.

Prior to taking off, the A380 had successfully completed a series of ground tests, which started in the summer of 2004 when the electrical power was put on for the first time (so-called “power-on” milestone). Since then Airbus has systematically and exhaustively tested all A380 systems, from hydraulics to electrics, and all parts of the airframe structure, including static testing and wing and fuselage load testing; a programme that has been carried out over thousands of hours at centres across France, Germany and the UK.

Today's first flight marks the beginning of a flight test campaign which will involve as many as 2,500 hours of test flights on a total of five development aircraft. This rigorous sequence of test flights should lead to the certification of the A380 by the European and US airworthiness authorities, allowing the world’s largest commercial airliner to enter into service in the second half of 2006 with launch customer Singapore Airlines.

Airbus has optimised the A380’s flight performance and economics by incorporating cutting-edge technologies in systems and materials. It benefits from the significant weight savings brought about by composites and other advanced materials (for instance GLARE) which comprise 25% of its structure, and from the weight, reliability and cost benefits of new systems such as its 5,000 psi pressure hydraulic system. It also benefits from an advanced cockpit with the latest interactive displays and avionics that retains the unique benefits of Airbus’ operational commonality between all fly-by-wire models.

The 555-seat A380 passenger aircraft has a range of up to 8,000nm/15,000km, allowing it to fly non-stop between Europe and Asia, while the three-deck long-range freighter version, the A380F, will be able to carry up to 152 tonnes/ 335,000 lbs of cargo on standard pallets over distances of up to 5,600nm/10,400km.

To date 15 customers have announced firm orders and commitments for a total of 154 A380 Family aircraft, comprising 127 passenger aircraft from 13 customers and 27 freighters from four customers. The freighter version of the A380, the A380F, will enter into service in 2008.

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