From: Adam Flinton 

Steve Ewing wrote:
> On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 13:11:37 -0500, George Sherwood
>  wrote:
>
>> On Thu, 20 Jan 2005 17:26:21 +0000, Adam Flinton wrote:
>>
>>>>  Well guess I will be more amazed once I
>>>> see it fly.   Still yet to see if the bet pays
off and the world
>>>> really
>>>> wants an airliner of this size.
>>>
>>>
>>> People said that about the 747.
>>>
>>> Again....same as the 747
>>
>>
>> If you believe the airline industry is the same now as in 1970 then the
>> arguements made against the 747 will apply to the A-380.  I don't belive
>> the industry is any where near the same.  That is why I am not as sure as
>> you that the comparisions apply in this case.
>>
>>
>>> So far.....
>>
>> Time will tell.  I know when I fly international now, it just doesn't
>> seem that I see as many 747's as I did in the 80 and 90's.  Could be
>> the airports I use and the destinations I fly now or the industry has
>> moved away from this sort of jumbo.
>>
>> George
>
>
>
> "Ask The Pilot" on Salon.com gives his take (non-subscribers may have
> to  sit through an ad):
>
> http://www.salon.com/tech/col/smith/2005/01/21/askthepilot120/index.html
> =====
> Regulars to these pages know of my ambivalence toward the A380, and the
> much-awaited uncurtaining ceremony was something I'd anticipated with
> equal measures of excitement and clenched teeth. First and foremost the
> plane is ugly -- a ponderous giant with none of the elegance of the
> Boeing  747, the airliner it will soon supplant as world's biggest after
> a 35-year  reign. And while the A380's assorted superlatives and
> technological  innovations are certainly worthy of marvel -- it will be
> the first civil  transport with a gross maximum takeoff weight exceeding
> a million pounds  -- accolades like "milestone" and
"revolutionary" are
> undue.
>
>
> When the 747 debuted with Pan Am in 1970, it was over twice the size of
> its largest existing competitors, the single-aisle Douglas DC-8 and
> Boeing  707, and was able to carry three times the number of passengers.
> By  comparison the A380 will outlift the 747-400, its closest rival, by
> only  about 30 percent, over roughly equal distances. It has ƒ œa tail as
> tall as  a seven-story building," gushed an Associated Press reporter
> from the  party in Toulouse. Incredible, yes. And but one story taller
> than the  64-foot fin of the 747. Unlike the venerable Boeing, or for
> that matter  the Concorde, there's nothing so fundamentally radical
> about the A380...
> =====
>

There was little which was radical about the 747 given it was simply a
scaled up 707 with the cockpit moved up into a bubble so the nose could
lift for freight.

Adam

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