Building the Largest Passenger Plane: The Airbus A380 Story | Blueprint
Video from the channel Blueprint about Airbus A380, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 43:27. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.
What it's about
This is an engineering documentary that explains the Airbus A380 through the historical advances that made it possible. It alternates between three types of scene: the maintenance overhaul of an Air France A380 in a Paris hangar built specifically for this aircraft; demonstrations by aerospace engineer Ben Evans of Swansea University; and reviews of the aviation pioneers whose ideas the A380 applies.
Historical background
The journey begins with George Cayley. Around 1804 he studied bird flight and understood how a curved airfoil generates lift. In 1853 he launched a manned glider. Next comes the Wright brothers' first controlled, powered flight in December 1903, which lasted 12 seconds and covered 36 m. Then come Frank Whittle's turbojet, which powered the Gloster Meteor, and Virginius E. Clark's Duramold, a wood-and-resin composite material used in Howard Hughes's Spruce Goose. Also featured are Igor Sikorsky's Ilya Muromets (1913), considered the first airliner, and the winglets Richard Whitcomb proposed at NASA after the 1973 oil crisis. Finally, Concorde's electric fly-by-wire control, explained by its former chief pilot Mike Bannister.
Key facts
Calculations gave an optimal wingspan of 82.5 m, but regulations require fitting within an 80 m box. Specific wingtip fins allowed it to stay under that limit without losing efficiency. The wing has an area of 845 m², and the aircraft carries 11 fuel tanks: five in each wing and one in the tail.
The two decks total 550 m² and hold up to 850 passengers. The four GP7200 engines each produce about 70,000 lbs of thrust, with 24 hollow titanium fan blades. According to the documentary, the aircraft burns 22% less fuel per seat than an average 747.
The GLARE composite material saved 15 tonnes. The sections are manufactured in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Spain, and assembled in Toulouse. Each aircraft has about 4 million parts, its range is around 16,000 km, and its maximum weight is 560 tonnes. Design and development took about 13 years.