A380-800

Philidor a écrit:

Jeannot a écrit:http://www.emirates.com/english/about/news/news_detail.aspx?article=1639080&offset=0

Emirates va mettre en ligne le 380 sur la liaison Dubai Kuwait City ce qui en fera la liaison la plus courte exploitée par un 380.

Je suppose qu'il s'agit de faire voler un avion qui sinon resterait au sol entre deux vols longs courriers. D'autres avantages sont de faire venir une clientèle haut de gamme pour une correspondance à Dubai, et d'améliorer l'image d'Emirates dans un pays où l'on est sensible au standing ...

Jeannot a écrit:L'intérêt de EK pour cette possible version évolué du 380 n'est-elle pas un signe que les 777X ne convainquent pas réellement. On parle en effet, en dehors de ces 25,  dans ce cadre de commandes nouvelles.

Profitability at the commercial airplane unit rose despite it delivering fewer planes in the first three months. The first quarter saw "good progress" on a goal to reach break-even on A380 deliveries next year, company Chief Financial Officer Harald Wilhelm said.

The plane maker plans to deliver 30 A380s this year and a similar number next, he said.

Mr. Wilhelm said in-service reliability of the double-decker, which had trailed expectations, "has been improving significantly." Further steps will be taken to boost reliability to address performance ills he characterized as "normal, in-service issues."

He forecasts that A380s being delivered by 2012 will have MWEs "a minimum of 2t lighter" than today's aircraft, which, combined with reductions in the weight of the airline's operator items (a new generation of lighter seats, for example) means "you've got an aircraft that can fly 15h 45min and can do the West Coast".
He is "optimistic" that this will bring San Francisco into range, but concedes the A380 will always be challenged to get as far as Los Angeles. "She was never designed for that mission," he says.The A380's nominal maximum take-off weight is 560t, with an option of 569t (and further growth available from 2012).

The battle is particularly intense over the A380 market. The Trent 900-powered version has been in service six years and now powers 58 aircraft with six operators. Since 2012, all Trent 900s have been delivered to EP (enhanced performance) Block 1 standard to improve reliability and fuel burn. “We have the best reliability in the A380 fleet, and based on last month's numbers, we reckon we are ahead,” says Peter Johnston, head of customer marketing for civil large engines. Following the introduction of the EP Block 1 package, Airbus has changed its official fuel-burn specification (or “Orange Book” listing) for the Trent 900. “The EP has been better than we said it would be,” says Johnston. “It's around 0.3 percent better than we claimed it to be based on results of Airbus production flight tests, so with around a one percent improvement, that is a better starting point for EP2.”

Block 1, like the other upgrade packages, is based primarily around the introduction of elliptical leading edges in the compressor. Other changes include tighter low-pressure (LP) turbine tip clearances and a new hard coating for the high-pressure (HP) compressor drum. Reliability-driven upgrades include changes to the HP and intermediate-pressure (IP) turbine disc and blades, IP nozzle guide vanes, seal segments, turbine case cooling, an LP location-bearing package, an IP turbine shaft coupling nut and a software upgrade to the electronic engine controller.

"We have now moved into the test phase for the follow-on EP2,” says Johnston. Designed to provide up to a 0.8% fuel-burn improvement, Rolls says that together with the better-than-expected outcome of the production EP1 engines, the overall improvement could net more than 1%. Five EP2 test engines are involved in the evaluation with the third unit currently moving on to core certification testing at Rolls' 57-bed ground-test facility in Derby, England. A fourth engine, built to production standards, will be used for back-to-back testing.

This cannot be retrofitted on to existing engines, but for customers having engines built from 2011 we can talk to them about upgrading to an EP standard