the Airbus a380 the world's biggest passenger plane as tall as a seven story building it can carry more than 850 passengers nothing bigger has been attempted ever by any aircraft manufacturer on this planet it was designed to take on the world beating Boeing 747 a high-stakes gamble we're talking billions in terms of developments you're betting the future of the company the planes shear size brought logistical challenges on a scale never seen before it's real the problem is just its size I mean it is gargantuan nobody knew if a plane this big would be safe what happens if you have an emergency and you need to evacuate or how it will respond in a crisis I've never seen damaged like this before on an aircraft this is the story of the world's only super jumbo Singapore November 4th 2010 Qantas flight 32 takes off from Shanghai Airport on an eight-hour flight to Sydney Australia the a380 superjumbo is the biggest jetliner ever built it has been flying for 3 years without serious incident and is the pride of the Qantas fleet in command captain Richard de creville II about three and a half minutes after takeoff we were passing through 7,000 feet something there was this enormous bang the alarm was sounding continuously the top panel became a/c at red lights we knew that something was seriously wrong an engine has exploded sending shrapnel ripping through the wing damaging the plane's hydraulics and engine controls I've never seen damage like this before on an aircraft the plane systems are barely responding and decrepit II has no idea if he can get it down safely the story of the Airbus a380 begins in 1988 in Toulouse France jean-pierre song president of Airbus is intent on shaking up the aviation world he wants to establish Europe as a major player in aviation construction a business dominated by America when Airbus first entered the market in the early 1970s the US airlines basically didn't pay attention to them they didn't take European airplanes seriously at this time Airbus is already producing small and mid-sized planes but only has fifteen percent of the global market in order to grow Airbus must challenge the biggest name in aviation Boeing in 1988 the American giant makes nearly two-thirds of all commercial planes including the mighty 747 job here song didn't like the fact that if you wanted to buy a bit an aircraft with 400 seats there's only one place you could go for it which was Seattle and Boeing and Pearson known by his colleagues as the bear of the Pyrenees rarely backs down this is an interesting nickname the bear the Pyrenees he was a very forthright chief executive he was a very strong personality could be very tough Pearson is going to go for the jugular by targeting the jewel in the Boeing Crown the mighty 747 launched in 1970 the 747 is the world's biggest airliner the undisputed queen of the skies this 747 has been a legendary aircraft there's no question about it the seven four seven made aviation available to the masses they've transformed airline economics dubbed the jumbo jet the 747 size allowed Airlines to fly more passengers at a lower cost and make huge profits here two bigger aircraft on the per seat basis you get a better economy and as the only company producing a jumbo jet boeing has reaped the rewards boeing had enjoyed 30 years of monopoly with the 747 Boeing 4 by far the market leaders and they controlled almost the entire market Pearson's dream takes a step forward when his head of aircraft development shows him a plan for an audacious new aircraft he presented this idea to drop your song showing a concept very large commercial airplane even bigger than the 747 there was no law in airline market that the largest aircraft would forever be reserved for 7 he saw reasons that an Airbus superjumbo would be a game-changer by carrying 25% more passengers than the 747 the airline's will be coming to Airbus instead of Boeing but building the world's first super jumbo is no small undertaking failure could spell the end of Airbus we're talking billions in terms of developments so you could say you're betting the future of the company Pearson decides it's worth the enormous risk and orders his team to make it happen but Airbus is a consortium of four manufacturers from France Germany Britain and Spain and Pearson has to convince all of them to back the colossal project was really a massive undertaking and a big risk for the company but also it was a strategic move which was essential it took eight years for the project to get started in earnest in 1996 Pearson picks a crack team to develop the superjumbo it's headed by one of his most experienced engineers Jurgen Thomas I was nominated as the head of C of a new division to be created which we called a large aircraft division the need for discretion means that the biggest and costly civil aviation project of its time starts life in an abandoned office block we were in a let me call it the relatively modest building absolutely no facilities no accommodation we had no car bolts no nothing just a table chairs maybe a telephone we noticed the windows in open and so the running joke was that of course they did that in order for us not to commit suicide one one evening of despair working hard on something that we never happened but Jurgen steam is not discouraged nobody complained her Oh all the people which I started was over so motivated and didn't care their secret superjumbo will eventually become known as the a380 but for now the project is given the working name a3 xx it was a kind of start pub atmosphere and they were looking at lots of solutions trade-offs where should be the size of the aircraft big debate at that time their first big challenge is to work out how the plane can carry a record-breaking number of passengers soon we realized that if we wanted to have more than family people on board the only solution was to put the two cabins on top of each other so that was really different two lines on windows you know all through the fuselage from nose to tail a fully double deck jetliner has never been attempted before jet liners have traditionally been built with a single deck inside a round fuselage the optimum shape of the fuselage in terms of cross sections or was a circle but in a circular fuselage the number of seats able to fit onto the top deck would be restricted by the curvature of the cabin they need an alternative so very very different concept by our French friends by the term friend but it was good because we could put all on the table and compare and say what is good or water what is not so good in which direction we should go eventually Jurgen steam selects a revolutionary new fuselage shape the ovoid the genius of the ovoid concept is that it will allow to full-width decks and with the ovoid design there superjumbo will carry up to 193 more passengers than the 747 so the whole shoes dodge concept was basically around optimizing the shape for efficiency and fuel efficiency but giving maximum comfort inside so that the pants area that Y fact my god this is great I've got lots of space and this is a great aircraft but the joy is short-lived they soon discover that boeing has started work on a super jumbo of their own by 1996 plans to build the world's largest passenger airliner are well underway at Airbus but Boeing gets wind of the European superjumbo and in September they announced their counter-strike supersizing the 747 into a competitor to the a380 the 747 next generation to new design called a 747 favela decks and very large 600 X the race to build a super jumbo is on and Boeing already has a head start unlike Airbus they have a loyal customer base and plenty of experience building big planes a masses of people under some pressure because we were freed said our competitor could launch their project we were working under this menace of having going again in front of us so that was very tense the first months were very very tense the news adds to the design pressures the team faces of which the biggest is weight aircraft day the building volume is 3d so every time you increase the size the weight increases even more than the size Airbus had to work out ways of producing a big aeroplane a giant aeroplane without having giant weights to go with it the team has to look at every element of the designs to see where weight can be cut we had extra teams before weight racing that means to look at each element now his point once said we even do gets a better reorder if you can make it lighter so each kilo each kilo then the team has a breakthrough discovering a lightweight material called glare a new composite of glass fibre and aluminium but it's never been used for the main body of an aircraft before extensive tests show that not only will glare reduce weight by up to 30 percent but it's also strong enough to be used on the plane yet even with this weight saving their calculations show the a380 will still weigh 600 tonnes at takeoff 40% more than the 747 and it will require bigger wings than any previous jetliner to lift all this mass you'll have to size the wing accordingly and so you go through a lot of design loops in order to find the the best intersection of all the parameters that will make your Accra feasible the wings will need a surface area of almost 850 square meters 54 percent more than the wings of the 747 they will also be some of the most technologically advanced wings ever produced these wings almost come apart with all the flaps and the slats on it it's a very good wing the best level swing ever in aerodynamic tonsure still has a little bit high weight but from el dinero point of view is by far the best wing the huge wings should create enough lift but their size creates another problem as planes move through the sky they create spinning pockets of air these unseen wall wings or vortices unknown as wake turbulence wake turbulence is usually linked to the weight of the aircraft so small aircraft light aircraft has small turbulence and big aircraft bigger big turbulence a very large plane could produce vortices powerful enough to rip the roofs off buildings if you have enormous weak turbulence and you fly off for residential areas who can do big damage nobody knows exactly how big the wake turbulence for the a380 will be so the team turns to a brand-new aeronautical laboratory in lille france an accurate scale model of the superjumbo will be launched through a curtain of smoke lit by lasers the idea is to make the invisible turbulence visible the test reveals that in the crowded skies above busy airports the wake turbulence created by the giant a380 could be lethal smaller planes caught in its wake could be sent spiraling out of control to ensure the a380 will enter service Jurgens team spends months reviewing the testator VC's tests of course we learn some trances we should do this we should not do and be took very much care to do to minimize sweet turbulence the team focuses on the wing tips this is where the vortices are created when low-pressure air streams from above the wing and high-pressure air streams from beneath it collide eventually they realize by adding a device called a wingtip fence they can stop the two air streams meeting and ensure the superjumbo will create wake turbulence no bigger than that of a 747 by December 1996 the designs for the a380 are nearing completion the team create a graphic showing the world what it will look like in flight Airbus is convinced their super jumbo will rival Boeing super-sized 747 but in January 1997 Boeing makes a shock an ounce maneuver jumbo race we learn that Boeing had decided to discontinue all activities on the very large a planned discontinue seven for 7x problem it should be good news for Airbus but Boeing Springs another surprise they release research which says the world doesn't need super jumbo the super jumbo business model depends on hub-and-spoke air travel it's when large capacity planes fly between big hub airports and then smaller planes take passengers on to their final destination now Boeing has declared the entire concept redundant Boeing decided they're not that many routes that are so heavily tracked and so highly traveled consistently that will require an airplane size an a380 instead Boeing believes the future of air travel will be on mid-sized aircraft flying directly between smaller airports bypassing the major hubs entirely and when Boeing speaks the aviation industry listens people tend to believe that whatever Boeing said is right and even within errors we had lots of people the majority of the ervice people did not believe that going for a very large airplane was the way to go nearly a decade of effort and millions of dollars may have been spent on a plane that the world doesn't need jean-pierre son president of Airbus wants to build the biggest passenger airliner in history but his rivals at Boeing have declared the world has no need for a super jumbo there's been a lot of naysayers and a big one is called Boeing I think being they say is the Boeing Company is listened by most of the people in the industry and so when they learn that Boeing was discontinuing its project they said you see guys there is no market over there but the so-called bear of the Pyrenees remains determined listen I don't care for that the decision to continue regardless was taken they bashed heads together he said to be single-handedly drove that program and drove the people that were going to make it into reality former aerodynamics engineer Charles champion is appointed to oversee the project's toughest stage building the play the clock started ticking the real big challenge of the being was to create the right team to create you know the dream team that would take the largest civil aircraft they were manufactured to the life and to our customs but before the a380 can be built Airbus must create new factory space in four different countries I mean it is gargantuan and then to build something that large in parts all over Europe and then assembling them in one location it's a logistical nightmare the wings will be built in the UK the fuselage in Germany and northern France and the tail in Spain champion will have to arrange for all the parts of the superjumbo to travel to the Airbus assembly plant in Toulouse Airbus has shipped aircraft wings and fuselage is before in its very own transport plane a 55 meter long beast known as the airbus beluga but even this monster plane is too small for the job engineers test the idea of strapping parts of the a380 to the backs of other planes but find it simply not practical so Sean pian has to come up with something new it was a huge challenge for the guys to design from scratch a completely new transportation system just for the treaty after 15 months he resorts to the unthinkable a complex convoy of ships barges and massive trucks all converging on southern France it will demand coordination on an epic scale we have to design barges in order to go to Bordeaux the old bridge up to long gone but then afterwards of course the river is too small where to go back trucks so that was a huge project and immediately of course there were many challenges where to place the road and what about the villagers and this and that in the tiny village of levy NOK the massive sections of fuselage almost touch the walls of the houses as they pass they literally put the wings or fuselage on tractor trailers and they drive into these very narrow streets in these little French towns I arson on how I do it but they managed after a combined journey of more than 5,000 kilometers the largest airplane components in civil aviation history finally arrived in Toulouse here Charles champion will oversee the construction of the biggest civilian airliner ever built January 18 2005 the first prototype of the Airbus Super Jumbo is revealed to the world in a glittering ceremony you see all the stakeholders coming in the head of the customers the head of states also European premiers who have invested billions of dollars of public money in the project gather for the event in front of the world's media this is the most exciting new aircraft in the world it is European cooperation working and it's best your heart tells you oh my god this is the best inventor and will ever probably ten because I'm the one who was leading the program but the star of the show is the plane itself the Airbus a380 it's one of those emotional moments where suddenly we realize the size of what you're doing the level of ambition you're the largest aircraft ever in the world but behind the smiles there is just one piece of unfinished business the superjumbo is yet to fly that test arrives three months later on April 27th 2005 a huge crowd gathers in Toulouse to see if the world's first super jumbo will successfully take to the skies huh April 2005 bright day in Toulouse 40,000 people around the fences of the airport to see this quite an event for us the first flight of the a380 it's the moment of truth for the test pilots who all wear parachutes in case disaster strikes flight test engineer Fernando Alonso knows how dangerous this moment can be when you fly an airplane for the first time things can go wrong there's no time to think what to do when you're up in the air so you better have thought about what you're going to be doing before you actually take off paseo de velasco pinara cosas de Cresci cake on vacations gdb pipe every stop fish OPI at 10:29 a.m. under a cloudless sky the a380 accelerates down the runway the huge machine lifts effortlessly into the sky before you got a chunk of carbon aluminium and sitting on the ground and then suddenly when she flies I mean she's alive 8u incredibly well I feel beautifully from I would say from one minute after liftoff we had imagined this moment for years and years and years and suddenly it happens wonderful day that I will remember all my life after four trouble-free hours the a380 touches down and enters the record books as the heaviest flight in commercial aviation history over the next 19 months the plane undergoes 2,500 hours of flight tests these are an essential part of aircraft certification but for the a380 they also serve another purpose convincing the public that flying on such a huge plane is safe there was a public perception of isn't it going to be dangerous all those many people on the airplane and yes this airplane was big and it was just another airplane and it had to be handled and could be operated like any other airplane it just happened to be bigger that's one the test pilots pushed the a380 to its limits we went to very hot climates going to very cold climates we brought Europe into structural limits we brought European to our aerodynamic limits in one test in order to identify the minimum takeoff speed pilots deliberately drag the tail along the runway the a380 passes every test with flying colors they're being behaved marvelous I'm just so proud of deserving I'm just so proud of those wings I'm just so proud of these systems but the planes toughest test is yet to come airbus has built the largest airliner in history and so far it has passed every flight test now there's only one thing that stands between the plane and it being certified to fly Airbus must prove that in an emergency a full plane load of 873 passengers and crew can be evacuated in less than 90 seconds the same length of time as an ordinary airliner the authorities were not prepared to say ok to big aircraft we give you 120 seconds not 90 seconds as a rule you get some out in 90 seconds on March 26 2006 in Hamburg Germany Airbus prepares for the largest evacuation test in aviation history to pass everyone on board must be evacuated from half the exits in less than 90 seconds and it was all be done in complete darkness it was a big challenge it was a big challenge and there was a fair amount of risk because we had failed with this then would have been trouble the fate of the superjumbo project is on the line it's a success all 873 people on board are evacuated in just 78 seconds a comfortable 12 seconds under the limit with the a380 certified for passenger service orders are flowing in but with a complex build split across four countries full-scale production quickly falls behind schedule it became apparent that the airplanes weren't going to be able to be built anywhere it is quickly as airbus a thud to make matters worse engineers installing the cabling discover a major problem many of the wires are too short to countries France and Germany have been responsible for creating the a380s wiring systems but each had insisted on using their own computer programs the French designers use one type of computer the German designers stayed with one they were more familiar with and the computers didn't talk to one another and they all use the same computer that problem would have been spotted long before became critical realities that we had five different cultures the French the German the Spanish the British but also the epicenter with a different view and different mindset with more than 500 kilometers of cables for each a380 this small oversight has a colossal impact we're having to move people from other parts of the Airbus empire into Toulouse to rewire the airplane these caused a significant delay in the delivery also cost as you can imagine because the first airplane had to be dismantled and the cabling had to be revised completely from nose to tail the clash of cultures has left the entire project on the brink of collapse it's already a year behind schedule and a staggering two billion dollars over budget this latest delay leads to the cancellation of the entire cargo version of the a380 contracts lost with freight Giants FedEx and UPS cost Airbus a further five point 1 billion dollars in lost revenue it was extremely extremely painful that was a very tough lesson very very tough lesson everything now depends on the passenger version of the a380 Singapore Airlines and the dubai-based Emirates have orders totaling 20 billion dollars but with a plane so far behind schedule no one knows if they will lose faith and pull out the management team goes into overdrive to keep them on board you can lose the confidence within a matter of days so you have to explain you have to make people understand what what has happened even if you are not very proud of what what you have done incorrectly so that was very tensed luckily the Airbus charm offensive on the passenger airlines pays off not one customer cancelled a single a380 order despite delays of between 18 months and to two and a half years it is nearly 20 years since the superjumbo project was conceived airbus have faced unprecedented technical and logistical challenges but now jean-pierre sans vision has become reality the a380 is ready to enter commercial service October 25th 2007 boy hundreds of passengers board a Singapore Airlines a380 for its very first commercial flight the biggest airliner ever built stands as tall as a seven story building and can carry up to 30% more passengers than a 747 its wings are the biggest ever created on a jetliner the swings amaze me even today I cannot I cannot get tired of looking at the words when i-5 is opening commercial I always ask for a window seat and preferably near the wing I just keep staring the passengers on the maiden flight share the same excitement of applause when the plane took off and when the plane landed and and all of that it was really an incredible atmosphere not like a normal flight I can assure you the cool thing is it's just a fantastic plane and you know I mean I'm ashamed I'm not on the return flight as well from a passenger standpoint the a380 is a remarkable airplane you can walk onboard and the first thing you see is this beautiful staircase the experience is very nice inside the superjumbo passengers are offered a level of luxury never before seen on an airliner the 550 square meters of floor space allow for entire bedrooms with double beds and even showers just looks different to every other aircraft it's the flagship of every airline so the airlines will tell you that you're on an a380 and are very proud of that fact the next three years see orders take off 15 international airlines have ordered 223 a380s in contracts worth an estimated 77 billion dollars among the airlines queuing up to receive the superjumbo is German flag carrier Lufthansa lufthansa starts its a380 service in 2010 and today operates a fleet of 12 planes helmet vogner is one of its pilots it's a very astonishing that the a380 is more adult and before it's a very very big FN but you don't feel the big airplane when you do it in 2009 Airbus passes a major milestone for the first time more a380s than 747s are delivered to the Airlines Airbus is belief in the hub and spoke model of air travel has paid off one of the former CEOs of being actually said people don't buy 747s anymore you know just if people were buying a treatise instead and it appears Jean Pearson's dream of surpassing Boeing has finally been realized but a year later a catastrophic event will put the entire superjumbo project in doubt November 4th 2010 Qantas flight 32 takes off from Singapore on its 6,000 kilometer journey to Sydney with 469 passengers and crew on board as Captain Richard decrepit climbs the a380 through 2,100 meters passenger Mike took watches a live feed from a camera mounted in the plane's tail I say this up of white smoke come out the left-hand side of the aircraft and there was this enormous bang and can see a big rectangular hole and when one of the planes rolls-royce engines has exploded and it's created a whole catalogue of problems for captain de crepin II to deal with half the networks on the aircraft failed we have holes in the wing we have half our ailerons not providing lift we have half our builders faulty we have lost half our brakes this is beyond any certification standard at any aircraft is designed to endure decrepit II needs to get the crippled plane back on the ground but it's too heavy and he needs to dump fuel first trouble is some of the fuel systems aren't responding in the cabin passengers fear the worst why haven't we got down on the ground sooner why are we still circling our Foreman this time there was perhaps something wrong that was preventing us from landing Dec revenue has no choice other than to land the plane 40 tons over its maximum safe landing weight it's another thing to add to the growing list of problems he has to deal with to get the broken airliner down safely now flying the right approach speed is critical we discovered that if we slow down one norm from 166 knots of our approach speed we will get speed warnings if we sped up three knots we would run off the runway the copilot calculates that on the four kilometer runway they will only have a hundred meters to spare decrepit uihlein's up the aircraft for its final approach it almost felt as if the floor underneath our feet was rippling because we seem to be coming in very fast decrepit his actions will now decide whether the world's biggest airliner will land or crash be as we were passing 500 and 300 feet the aircraft alerted us with two speed warnings which said the speed is dangerously slow the plane touches down but it's overweight and only around half the brakes work there was no feeling plane was slowing down at all they're rapidly running out of tarmac we just kept hurtling along the runway it seemed like been entire Airport terminal had gone past us a 150 miles now finally the plane begins to slow we did manage a stock for the end of the runway we have a hundred metres spare eight five trucks would now protect us and protect the passengers it's only now that the scale of the damage can be seen an entire section of the massive engine has been ripped to shreds the crews safe landing of the plane was an extraordinary feat the Qantas crew did a remarkable job they identified the problem they handled the emergency incredibly professionally and they were actually able to land the airplane safely back in Singapore with nobody injured de crepin II also credits the design of the giant plane people often query the resilience of the a380 the largest aircraft in the sky after qf32 no one questions the resilience of the a380 anymore immediately the engines manufacturers rolls-royce investigate what caused the explosion they discover that oil from a small leak had dripped into the burning hot engine causing a fire that triggered the blast the firm takes responsibility for the problem and act to prevent it happening again it was the a380s first major incident but the superjumbo had proven it was strong enough to withstand it unfortunately accidents happen and almost every aircraft type fly if not all aircraft types flies have suffered at some point in their in their career his engines do fail engines do explode your plane was so well designed that even you know operating as crippled as it was it got down in one piece and everybody on board was fine 25 years ago Airbus boss Jean Pierson took one of the biggest Gamble's in aviation history determined to challenge the dominance of Boeing he states the future of his company on a super jumbo there's always an aspect if you like initially of betting the farm on one big aircraft program this one certainly beats all the rules in that respect nothing bigger has been attempted ever by any aircraft manufacturer on this planet today the a380 is a common sight at the world's leading airports it regularly out sells the Boeing 747 and has helped Airbus raise its market share from 15 to 50 percent the arrival of the a380 I think marked Airbus is coming of age in the industry in the market above 150 seats there are just two players Airbus and Boeing but the a380 is also transforming the way we fly without the a380 the airliner would have to fly it more frequently smaller airplanes which means more movement more cost and a busier sky those behind the a318 haven't just made a plane they've made history now when I go to London and you know when you actually stand along the Thames close to the Tower Bridge you see one HP 80 after the other coming in I will say my god we did it it's great
