Don Phillips, Herald Tribune, Ha'aretz, News and Walla!
At the Airbus aircraft garage in Toulouse, France, in front of several leaders of European countries and about 5,000 guests, the largest passenger plane ever built - the Airbus A-380 - was unveiled yesterday. The new Airbus aircraft is much larger than any other aircraft built to date, except for the Russian Antonov 224 transport aircraft. It is also significantly larger than the previous aircraft that held this title - the Boeing 747.
At the same time as the new plane became the talk of the day in Europe, an event, a little less festive, took place at the Boeing factory in Seattle, USA, when a small group of employees and guests examined the first section of the first commercial non-metallic fuselage. The segment belongs to the Boeing 7E7 "Dreamliner", a more modest plane, for which the party in its honor will be held in early 2007.
This is the first time in the history of aviation that the two major aircraft manufacturers bet such large sums on two such different visions.
Airbus saw in its vision, which came true yesterday, a huge plane with a wingspan of 80 meters and a weight of 308 tons; Its tail rises seven stories high and is able to accommodate 555 passengers - 33% more than a Boeing 747; Two-story and quiet. It will be possible to squeeze an even larger number of passengers into the plane, by canceling or reducing some of the halls and wells installed in it.
Boeing envisions a small plane - 250-210 seats - that can fly without intermediate stops between almost any two airports in the world. The fuselage will be made of a material that will allow the installation of larger windows, higher air pressure in the passenger cabin that will prevent pressure in the ears, easier breathing and a sufficient level of humidity in the air that will prevent the throat from drying out on long flights.
The big Airbus bird - whose development price reached 13 billion dollars - is supposed to take off for the first time in the skies of southern France at the end of March.
The delivery of the planes is supposed to begin in the spring of 2006, when the first plane is supposed to be received by "Singapore Airlines" and it will fly on the Singapore-London route. Thirteen other airlines have so far ordered a total of 13 planes, including ten transport planes for Federal Express (FedEx) and another ten for United Parcel Service (UPS).
For Airbus, for two decades the market had developed, and now it was ready for the launch of the A-380. "If you check the predictions that were published 20 years ago," says Richard Carsailt, the model's marketing manager, "we haven't had a significant change." According to him, it was Boeing that suddenly changed its forecasts in 1997, and decided not to build a huge plane. "Not only has Boeing's forecast changed," says Carsailt, "but the plans to build the 7E7 have also changed. It is still called 'Dreamliner' - a weak name by all accounts."
"We have reached the stars," said German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder, "and we have succeeded, as far as the aeronautical industry is concerned, in capturing some of these stars." Schroeder defined the new plane as "a victory for European science and European engineering"; The President of France, Jacques Chirac, said that "the plane is a landmark in the history of aviation"; And the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, Tony Blair, defined the A-380 as "the only commercial aircraft developed with the intention of minimizing the damage to the environment".
The size of the plane is not the only point of contention between Airbus and Boeing. Airbus predicts that in the next 20 years, 1,650 aircraft the size of the A-380 will be sold. Boeing predicts the sale of 535 aircraft, including several 747s. Boeing may eventually change its mind and build an aircraft to challenge the A-380, but now the company is betting its future on the assumption that smaller is better.
Airports all over the world are already investing millions of dollars in extending runways, building gates to handle a plane the size of an A-380 and building double sleeves, on two levels, for each of the plane's decks.
Often passengers are not even aware of what type of plane they are boarding. This will not happen to A-380 and 7E7 passengers. The Airbus plane will look bigger on the inside, especially on the lower floor. The first planes will have several lounges that will serve as meeting places for the passengers. Many skeptics pointed out that even the first 747s had such lounges, which later disappeared.
Boeing claims that its new plane will not look like any other plane either. The use of coal-enriched plastic instead of aluminum to build the fuselage will allow for some innovations. For example, the windows will be 30% larger than those that exist today, a development made possible by the strength of the material. Passengers will feel less pressure in their ears at high altitude and their throats will not be as dry as before. According to Michael Beyer, Vice President and CEO of 7E7, the differences in the way the people felt in the experiments was amazing - almost no differences were recorded in their feelings at sea level and at an altitude of 6,000 meters.
To reassure potential buyers who fear the new material will be brittle or bend, Boeing asked them to try to damage or bend the material with a hammer. According to Boeing, this convinces them.
One of the more interesting changes in the Boeing plane will be in the lighting and shades - the windows will not have shades but glass that will change color. The passengers will be able to block the light coming through the window and the flight attendants will be able to dim the windows on bright days, to avoid the glare of the sun.
The light in the passenger cabin will also be different, says Boeing, and it will turn red during meals. In studies conducted by the company, it was found that this may make the food look tastier. However, according to Beyer, the waiters should be careful - some shades may make the food look horrible.
