1. Home
  2. Business & Finance
  3. Composites / Plastics

Composites / Plastics Blog

From About.com

Airbus A380 Faces Weight Problems

Sunday July 18, 2004
Just six months from the start of test flights, and less than a year before its first scheduled public flight, the Airbus A380 is still overweight by as much as 4 metric tons. The excess weight would hurt aircraft efficiency, resulting in financial penalties to Airbus. Engineers, however, are still working to shave weight off of the plane. About 25 percent of the A380 is made from composites, including carbon/epoxy and Glare, and fiberglass/aluminum laminate.

Comments

June 19, 2006 at 11:31 am
(1) Don Hart says:

There is a basic formula and that’s you can’t be too light for the air . Airbus wouldn’t even be going through this if they had hired me we I made my formal application . If their that stupid it’s no wonder they never hired me .

June 19, 2006 at 2:12 pm
(2) Wilbur and Orville Wright says:

We want to hire you to make paper airplanes for the mentally challenged.

July 2, 2006 at 6:51 pm
(3) coffill says:

astute blog! www.exmore.gvirginia.com

September 1, 2006 at 11:59 pm
(4) ced40 says:

I thought there are but guidelines in building these aircrafts. How come they have problems such as these? Talk about competent engineers, designers, or whoever.

November 25, 2006 at 10:48 pm
(5) CdnStdnt says:

I’m sure top-level guidelines were followed, but things never pan out exactly as planned. I am surprised by the 4 metric tons though. Yikes. Oh well, weight’s always a problem and usually one that’s fixed. Look at the JSF, too. I have every bit of confidence that Airbus will figure it out.

January 12, 2007 at 9:34 pm
(6) Allan says:

Let us look at some rough weight figures.
747F Max weight 400Tonne Payload 125Tonne
An225 max weight 640Tonne Payload 250Tonne
A380F max weight 590Tonne Payload 150 Tonne.
It looks way too fat to me!

October 15, 2007 at 3:14 pm
(7) James Georgantas says:

Don Hart: Plese, before criticizing chek yur speling & gramer

February 20, 2008 at 8:25 am
(8) Caswell Nofuma says:

i think the airbus crew did a brilliant job, i mean im a student in aerospace and im very much fascinated by vast development of the industry.i think they just need to go back to their original plan and make the necessary changes….well done airbus!!

Leave a Comment

Line and paragraph breaks are automatic. Some HTML allowed: <a href="" title="">, <b>, <i>, <strike>

Explore Composites / Plastics

More from About.com

  1. Home
  2. Business & Finance
  3. Composites / Plastics

©2008 About.com, a part of The New York Times Company.

All rights reserved.