BA A380

[DaveB]

Indeed mate.. Fly to Serve

ATB
DaveB

[guym-p]

To me, the best looking feature of the 747 are the extravagantly swept wings and tail plane. I miss the 707 and all those rakish aircraft from the 1960s. Actually, I will be different and say I prefer the fuselage of the A380 — as far as double-deckers go, that is.

I got a fright the first time I saw an A380. I was walking over Hammersmith Bridge at the time. It must be said that people living in this neck of the woods are always a little anxious about "what would happen if", and the local anxiety was not helped by the BA038 incident. On this particular occasion, the A380 emerged in complete silence from an opaque cloud base. I was looking at the side elevation, and in that first blink-of-an-eye moment I didn't "read" four engines; instead, the stubby fuselage proportions made it resemble something like an A318 travelling very, very low. It was only with a second glance that I realised it was, in fact, at the right hight, but very, very big. The whole thought process probably took less than a second, but my heart was beating faster for the next few paces ...

[Garry Russell]

The first time I ever saw a 747 was at LHR and I wondered if it was going to get off as it was going too slow, much to slow to be that far down the runway...then it rotated.

After initial climb it tuned almost 180 to go Westbound and it looked like it was about to stall.

First view of a large aeroplane and it did need some adjustment.

Not seen an A.380 close up but I can imagine it and seeing it on vids it does seem to sail by at no great impression of speed

Especially when they throw them around at demo time

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8lf8FQc ... re=related

[Vc Ten]

!2 months into serving my time at Broughton, the powers that be were in discussions at Hatfield, on Joining forces with French and German counterparts and building a wide bodied airliner between them The Comet track at Broughton was soon to be avalable as the Nimrod was nearing the end of its production run at the site. It was decided then to build the wings there and hopefully for the series of aircraft that would follow. Brave and farsighted men they were. The year was 1969 Concorde had flown and the future was SST well it may have been if Boeing had got their attempt off the drawing board.
With little Govt. backing and little interest from the national airline the project was underway. And the rest is history so to speak. The consortium has become the World leader in airline production and the ex Hawker Siddeley plant ( I dont go back far enough for De Havs) had become a Centre of Exellence, beating the Americans at there own game. The 380 being the pinnicle of their achievment.
Dont knock it. its one of the few successes of British industry and its kept 3000+ in work for the past 40 years
ATB
Dale

[TSR2]

Clever engineering yes, but its but ugly

Its a shame that what's pleasing to the eye and pleasing to function are seldom the same.

[speedbird591]

The first time I ever saw a 747 was at LHR...

I remember riding up to LHR on my Bonneville to see the demonstrator on its first visit to the UK. When was that? 1969/70? I went to the top of a car park but it was parked so far away I could only see the fin. I had a good ride, though

I never dreamed I'd spend half my working life trapped inside the bastards, though

I might just have gone to The Ace cafe instead

Ian

[Garry Russell]

Yep about 1969 for the FV to LHR

The first time I saw one though was 1974

[Dev One]

Relative speed/size is very interesting, I remember at Winsdor under the flight path seeing a Jumbo then a 125, both going at the same speed, the 125 seemed much faster.....
Keith

[Garry Russell]

You get the same effect with something even smallish like a 737 taxiing to stand seeming to be going quite slowly paced from behind by a ground vehicle going like a bat out of hell