FS2004 - Flying the Airbus A380 "Super Jumbo" - The Titanic of the Skies

in a380 •  7 years ago  (edited)

Airbus_A380_blue_sky.jpg

First a brief history. For over 30 years, the Boeing 747 was the undisputed "Queen of the Skies". The largest commercial passenger jet ever flown, and nicknamed "the jumbo jet", she carried this title since 1970. That crown has now gone to Airbus with the Airbus A380 aircraft. The Airbus A380 is 238 feet 6.9 inches long and 79 feet 0.4 inches wide from wing tip to wing tip. She weighs in at 1,272,000 maximum ramp weight and has a maximum takeoff weight of 1,268,000 lbs. She can carry up to 801 passengers for up to 9450 miles. To put that into perspective, the A380 can fly non-stop from Dallas, TX to Brisbane, Australia!

The A380 comes in two engine configurations, the Rolls Royce Trent 900 with a maximum thrust of 81,500 lbf and the GP7200 series engines producing up to 84,000 lbf of thrust. The Rolls Royce equipped model is designated the A380-841 while the GP7200 series is designated the A380-861. Equipped with state of the art avionics and fly-by-wire technology, this is the most technologically advanced aircraft flying today. Built mostly of carbon fiber composite material, the A380 has a maximum flying altitude of 43,000, but rarely exceeds 40,000 feet. With a cruise speed of mach 0.85 (or 85% the speed of sound) and a maximum speed of mach 0.89 in dive, the A380 matches the 747 in speed.

Although the A380 has the lowest landing speed of any wide body jet, she can only land at certain airports because of her wingspan and height. Runways must be wide enough to accommodate her and there cannot be any obstacles near the runway that might come into contact with the wings. Many larger airports had to build special terminals and widen their runways and taxiways to accommodate her immense size.

I have been flying the A380 in Microsoft Flight Simulator for quite a while, and she is one of my favorite commercial airliners to fly. The simulator's flight dynamics, which I modified from the original, match the flight specifications exactly and the cockpit views were created by me. The dashboard is not my work, but I have modified it a bit from the original.

I recently flew an Air France A380-861 from Los Angeles International to Toronto Pearson International airport in Toronto, Canada. Below are videos of the takeoff and landing of my flight. I've included some voice over comments to explain some aspects of the flight.

Takeoff from Los Angeles (KLAX):

Landing at Toronto Pearson International (CYYZ):

I hope you enjoy these videos as much as I've enjoyed creating them. If you have any questions, feel free to ask.

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hi @technerd.
So at the end, this is just a simulation flight, not a real flight impression of the real A380 ?

Flight simulator is literally what they uae to train pilots. Its as close as youll get the real deal!

  ·  7 years ago (edited)

The simulation takes into account weight, fuel onboard, rate at which fuel is burned, engine thrust, drag, yaw, pitch, center of gravity, angle of attack, and contact points of the actual A380. I don't think you can get much closer to the real deal. In fact, the cockpit views and cabin views are taken from the actual aircraft.