Airbus A380 completes historic 1st flight

BLAGNAC, France (AP) -- The world's largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380, completed a maiden flight Wednesday that took it over the Pyrenees mountains, a milestone for aviation and for the European aircraft-maker's battle with American rival Boeing Co.

The double-decked, 308-ton plane landed successfully to applause at 2:22 p.m (8:22 a.m. EDT) after a flight of nearly four hours. About 30,000 spectators watched the white plane with blue tail take off and touch down, 101 years after the Wright brothers achieved the first controlled, sustained flight.

Before it landed, its front lights shining, the A380 did a slow flyover above the airport in Blagnac, southwest France, where it had taken off at 10:29 a.m. (4:29 a.m. EDT).

The plane carried a crew of six and 22 tons of on-board test instruments. It can carry as many as 840 passengers on commercial flights.

"The takeoff was absolutely perfect," chief test pilot Jacques Rosay told reporters by radio from the A380 cockpit as he flew at 10,000 feet just north of the Pyrenees mountains, about an hour into the flight. "The weather's wonderful."

The pilots checked the plane's basic handling characteristics while the on-board equipment recorded measurements for 150,000 separate parameters and beamed real-time data back to computers on the ground.

Rosay, co-pilot Claude Lelaie and four fellow crew members took no chances - donning parachutes for the first flight. A handrail inside the test plane lead from the cockpit to an escape door that could have been jettisoned had the pilots lost control.

In Paris, French Cabinet ministers broke into applause when President Jacques Chirac told them of the successful start to the flight. The head of competitor Boeing's French division, Yves Galland, said he watched the televised takeoff and, just this once, "shared the emotion of the people of Airbus."

Orville and Wilbur Wright, by comparison, spent an estimated $1,000 developing their skeletal flyer, which stayed airborne for 12 seconds on the sands of Kill Devil Hills, N.C., the morning of Dec. 17, 1903.

Built of spruce and ash covered with muslin, the Wright brothers' flyer weighed 605 pounds, according to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum in Washington.

The A380 weighed 464 tons on takeoff, including its bulky test equipment, fittings and fuel, Airbus said. That is about 75 percent of its maximum authorized takeoff weight for commercial flights.

Spectators camped out by the airport to be there for what some said was Europe's biggest aviation event since the first flight of the supersonic Concorde in 1969. About 30,000 people gathered around the airport to watch, police said.

Emergency services took no chances and stationed fire trucks at regular intervals along the runway, although aviation experts say modern computer modeling and wind-tunnel tests have made maiden flights safer than ever.

Problems are more likely, but still very rare, later in the test-flight program, when the pilots deliberately take the plane to its limits. An Airbus A330 prototype crashed here in July 1994, killing chief test pilot Nick Warner and six others as they conducted a simulated engine failure exercise.

Airbus says the A380 test-flight program is likely to take over a year and finish soon before the plane enters service for Singapore Airlines in mid-2006.

The A380, with a catalogue price of $282 million, represents a huge bet by Airbus that airlines will need plenty of large aircraft to transport passengers between ever-busier hub airports.

So far, Airbus has booked 154 orders for the A380, which it says will carry passengers 5 percent farther than Boeing's longest-range 747 jumbo at a per-passenger cost up to one-fifth lower.

But Airbus has yet to prove that it can turn a profit on its investment, a third of which came from European governments. Some analysts say signs of a boom in the market for smaller, long-range jets like Boeing's long-range 787 "Dreamliner" show that Airbus was wrong to focus resources on the superjumbo at the expense of its own mid-sized A350 - which enters service in 2010, two years after its Boeing rival.

Just this week, Air Canada and Air India announced a total of 82 new orders for Boeing jets - including 41 787s - taking Boeing's Dreamliner order book to 237.

But Airbus CEO Noel Forgeard played down Boeing's recent orders and the 787's development lead, saying the battle for the market in smaller planes would be fought out over 20 years, not two.

"Our competitor Boeing has woken up and gets a wave of orders," Forgeard told reporters attending the A380 test flight. "Good! Competition is an excellent thing."

Forgeard, who steps down later this year to become joint CEO of Airbus parent European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co., congratulated the A380 development and test-flight team for a "fantastic collective effort" and said the plane would enter service in the "second half of 2006" - about three months behind the previous schedule.

Part of the delay is down to the superjumbo's struggle with a weight problem that consumed months of engineering time and pushed the program's cost overrun to $1.88 billion. Competitive pressure on airlines to offer plusher, heavier business-class seating tightened the squeeze.

Title: Boeing upbeat over new orders for 50 jet airliners (orders from previous Airbus clients!)
Source: AP
URL Source: http://www.mailtribune.com/archive/2005/0427/biz/stories/03biz.htm
Published: Apr 27, 2005
Author: AP
Post Date: 2005-04-27 12:01:30 by Mark_Felton

Air India has committed to buying 50 new jetliners for about $6.8 billion By MATTHEW DALY The Associated Press

WASHINGTON — Buoyed by an influx of new orders, Boeing Co. appears to be turning the corner in its battle with archrival Airbus SAS.

Boeing’s commercial airplanes chief, Alan Mulally, conveyed that message in a private meeting with lawmakers Tuesday — backed by a slew of new orders that testifies to the company’s improving jet sales outlook.

The latest evidence came earlier Tuesday when Air India announced plans to order 50 new Boeing jetliners — a deal worth $6.8 billion minus undisclosed price discounts. On Monday, Air Canada said it had made firm orders for 32 Boeing jets at a list price of $6 billion.

Earlier this month, Korean Air said it will order up to 20 of Boeing’s new fuel-efficient 787 aircraft in a deal worth up to $2.6 billion at list prices. Analysts and numerous published reports also have said that Northwest Airlines Corp. is negotiating an order for a substantial number of planes.

"The momentum has definitely swung in their favor, in terms of orders," analyst J.B. Groh of D.A. Davidson said of Boeing.

All the airlines involved in the recent orders had been committed Airbus clients.

"It’s not just sheer volume in customers’ orders — it’s penetration deep in the heart of Airbus territory," said Richard Aboulafia, an aviation analyst for the Teal Group in Fairfax, Va.

Boeing’s stock fell 58 cents to close at $59 in Tuesday trading on the New York Stock Exchange, after earlier rising to $60, matching a four-year high it also reached earlier this month.

Mulally wouldn’t give specifics about his closed-door presentation, which lawmakers commented on afterward, other than to say the meeting "went really well." But numbers released by Boeing show the company is making inroads in the airplane market after being runnerup to Airbus in each of the past two years.

Boeing said that in 2005 it now has 57 net new orders plus unsigned but announced commitments for another 238, compared with the 2004 total of 272 orders. For the 787, it has a total of 237 orders and commitments since that program was launched a year ago Tuesday, company spokesman Todd Blecher said.

Mulally, a top contender along with Boeing defense unit chief Jim Albaugh to become the company’s new CEO, made an upbeat presentation to Washington state’s congressional delegation on the day before Boeing reports quarterly earnings results.

Mulally said the company was pleased with the U.S. government’s response to Boeing complaints about subsidies given to Airbus by European governments.

The Bush administration has threatened to resume a trade case against the European Union if Europe goes forward with new development subsidies for Airbus. Despite missing an April 11 deadline, both sides have offered to keep negotiating to avoid a formal complaint with the World Trade Organization.

"I don’t know how that will come out, but we’re all very supportive of the United States and Europe working things out. We’re very encouraged by what’s going on," Mulally said.

Washington lawmakers also were encouraged — but for a different reason. They said the company appears back on track after a difficult two years in which it lost market share and watched as Airbus became the world’s top supplier of commercial airplanes.

Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash., said she was struck by the difference in tone from a similar meeting with Mulally two years ago.

"Basically it’s good news and great orders," she said, contrasting it with Boeing’s recent troubles over an ethics scandal and a business slump spurred by the 2001 terrorist attacks.

Cantwell called the company’s new 787 Dreamliner — which has played a key role in new orders from Canada, India and China — a "game-changer" and said Mulally deserves much of the credit for it.<

Rep. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., also touted Mulally. "We’ve turned the corner and are going to be able compete effectively with Airbus," Dicks said, referring to Boeing.

Dicks, the delegation’s senior member, convened the meeting with Mulally, saying it was time to re-establish the monthly breakfasts and strengthen ties with the jet-maker, the state’s largest private employer.

Many Washington lawmakers were infuriated by the recent tanker-leasing scandal, during which they argued Boeing’s case only to be embarrassed later by revelations of conflicts of interest and illegal actions involving Boeing and Air Force officials.

Despite the suspension of the multi-billion dollar tanker deal, Dicks, Cantwell and other lawmakers said they were confident Boeing will win the contract when the Air Force reopens it to competition.

Dicks said lawmakers may try to tie the subsidy issue to the tanker competition, arguing that the U.S. government should not do business with a company that is receiving what he called illegal subsidies to help launch its commercial planes. Airbus is 80 percent-owned by European Aeronautic Defence & Space Co., which has said it will seek to bid on the tanker deal if is rebid by the Air Force.

Also on Tuesday’s agenda were upcoming labor negotiations between Boeing and two major unions that come up for renewal this year.

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