"Shortwave Sportfishing" wrote in message
...
On Mon, 27 Mar 2006 06:36:30 -0500, Harry Krause
wrote:

Shortwave Sportfishing wrote:
On Mon, 27 Mar 2006 05:33:25 -0500, Harry Krause
wrote:

32 Hurt in Airbus Test Evacuation
From Reuters
March, 27 2006

PARIS - European aircraft maker Airbus said Sunday that 32 people were
injured, including one whose leg was broken, in a test evacuation of
its
new A380 double-decker airliner, but it called the test a success.

And they cheated and BARELY made it. They used a normal load, which
is something like 650 people, but the damn thing can carry 850 people
in it's max load configuration.

It's a disaster waiting to happen.


At the very least, and these damned cruise-ship sized planes are going
to be just awful for travelers. Who the hell thought airline
deregulation was a good idea?

Shouldn't take more than 45 minutes to get off the plane at journey's
end, and then what, an hour at the luggage kiosk?

I was listening to an aircraft designer talk about this last week on
CNBC.

It will take an hour and a half to load - under normal conditions, 70
minutes to deplane. In it's max configuration, it will hold 850
passengers - the "normal" configuration is 635-650 I believe.

Most of the orders for this beast are the 635-650 configuration, but
you just know that won't last long.

It's going to be a horror show.

The US manufacturers, primarily Boeing, learned a lesson with the big
aircraft like the 747. They kept stretching it to increase capacity until
their airline customers couldn't fill them anymore and they began flying at
a loss. Instead of bigger, they produced new, fuel efficient smaller
airplanes like the 767 and 757, which, IMO, are the nicest and probably
safest commercial aircraft around from a design standpoint.

I still don't like to fly commercial though. Incidents like the recent
episode at O'Hare scares the bananas out of me and it happens more often
than we hear on the news. Controllers, pilots and airline personal are just
too overloaded with pressure to fly on time and under poor weather
conditions for me to have much confidence. Plus, the cattle-car nature of
flying just completely turns me off. I feel badly for those that have to
fly regularly. I did for many years. Obtaining a private license was an
eye-opening experience. I feel fortunate to be at a point in my life when I
can carve out a week or two and just take a leisurely drive, enjoying the
sights.

RCE