Jul 16 2008
Airbus A380 at Goodwood
The new super-sized Airbus 380 flew over at Goodwood this weekend. It was one of the first public displays of the aircraft in the UK and did a flyover at the Festival of Speed. This Airbus is the world’s largest passenger airliner and is a joint venture including the French & British (amongst others), with the most part being built in Toulouse by Aerospatiale, and wings being built here in the UK by BAE Systems.
The Airbus A380, can seat up to 853 passengers (depending on seat configuration), with a range of 15,200 kilometres and a cruising speed of Mach 0.85, equating to around 560 mph. The A380 is truly immense, being 73m in length, with a wing span of 79.8m.
At such a phenomenal size, I’m not entirely sure if I fancy a trip on it, you wonder how such a large aircraft ever gets off the ground! The photo was taken at Goodwood by my husband as the plane flew over very slowly.
The plane’s first commercial flight was in October 2007, a Singapore Airlines flight between Singapore & Sydney. The credentials are that the aircraft is much more eco-friendly than most other aircraft - you can read more about that on Airbus’ website. It looks like they’re testing hydrogen fuel cells for future aircraft, so perhaps one day we’ll see aeroplanes running on water instead!
