[Paleo Conservative]

Ping!

If you want on or off my aerospace ping list, please contact me by Freep mail not by posting to this thread.

[Prophet in the wilderness]

What most people don't know is ?
On a new airplane design and program, the first few planes are only for test purposes.
The first Aflop-380 is only a prototype and will probably never go into passenger or freight service.
The 2nd plane will be tested and literally broken into pieces to test the engineering limits of it's design.
At least the first 3-4 planes will be for testing.
Me thinks that what is going on behind closed doors ( away from the publics eye and the media's eyes ) is the AirRUST people and the airlines people are having very hot arguments about the so called " Performance " promises.
What is probably going on is, after the first initial " TEST FLIGHTS " and the data from them, the airlines are not happy with the performance numbers ( in spite of what we heard in the news that the A-380 is performing as expected ) and the airlines are telling AirRUST to get the numbers that they ( AirRUST ) promised.
I don't believe what we heard in the news for the reasons of the delay of another 6 months for the delivery dates on the A-380 is because of the interior suppliers are late getting up to speed on the interiors for the Aflop-380 --- what do you think the PR people are for ?
These 6 months is going to be a weight cutting diet program for the A-380 to bring down the weight of the airplane, and AirRust is wringing their hands over were to cut the weight down on the Aflop-380 without jeopardizing the airworthiness of the A-380.

[pissant]

I see Airbus is going to make a plane to compete with the 787. Which is funny because they said they already had models to compete when Boeing launched it!

[sheik yerbouty]

Hopefully Boeing will win out..

[Gator113]

I can't help but wonder about how much "Oil for Food" money went toward building Frances Air Folly!