Aviation News-Cold weather testing for the mighty Airbus A380.

[wonwinglo]

The largest passenger plane in the world arrived in Iqaluit Monday to brave the worst weather imagineable,scores of people watched at the airport as the Airbus A380 landed in the city for five days of cold-weather testing in the area.

All commercial aircraft have to be tested for cold-weather performance before they can be certified, and Iqaluit, with its international airport and climate, is often used for the purpose by the manufacturers.

About 65 engineers, pilots and other Airbus employees from across Europe will be judging how well the engines and the cabin function in temperatures of -25 C or colder. The double-decker jumbo jet can carry 555 passengers, weighs 273 tonnes and has a wing span of 80 metres. It's scheduled to go into service later this year.

This is the very first arrival of the Airbus A380 in North America,and is a great event in itself.

Nunavut's new minister of Economic Development and Transportation, Olayuk Akesuk, was among the people gathered at the airport to greet the crew.

He says Airbus' decision to come to Iqaluit will put Nunavut on the map as a top cold-weather testing site.

"I do believe this will help us out a lot," he says. "Hopefully we'll see some more airplanes that are new, and I think this is great, I think this will be one of the testings that will be successful and if it is successful we'll probably have more planes coming in here."

The A380, built in Toulouse, France, has already been tested for high altitudes in South America and for high temperatures in the Middle East,the future looks great for this iant of the skies.

[Guest]

any ideas on whos buying some yet?

There were outragous ideas for "flying hotesl" with bars, rooms, casions, swimming pools..etc (probably Richard Branson!)

[Guest]

The biggest concern I have with this new aircraft is modern airports abilities to handle them.

We already see daily challenges with security and immigration, particularly in the States, based on not being able to deal with the demands of the numbers airports are now dealing with but this new plane will instantly place further demands on already stretched resources.

I just hope that the relevent bodies are getting themselves ready for dealing with the Airbus and the nuts and bolts of everyday challenges are not being lost in the razamataz of patting each other on the back for developing such a wonderfull machine.

Currently the rate of increase of passenger travel by air (already well past pre 9/11 figures) is outstripping airports abilities to expand to meet the demand and it is inevitably the customer that always seems to be the one that suffers in such circumstances.

[wonwinglo]

You certainly have some valid points there Richard,it seems that aviation technology has overtaken the sheer logistics of handling people,the situation of getting people through the airport as quickly as possible given the security required to do so is getting silly,a few years ago I flew by Dakota to an airshow only 50 miles away from my local airport,when it came to check in for the flight back we went through one of the most intensive searches that I have ever known,we were then shephearded into a small compound with a small fence around it ! someone could have easily passed something over that fence to us in the following one hour wait to board the aircraft,this seems a bit counter productive ?

The question of which airports can handle this big beast is open to question,perhaps Boeing were right when they said that they would rather settle for lower capacity aircraft ?

In answer to RJW's question about who will buy them ?well that is open to speculation,one thing is for sure if most of the top airlines buy them,then the rest will have to follow to keep up,my guess is that many more airlines will go under anyway in the nexty few years,the economical situation of commercial aviation at this time is very precarious.