Seeing the pics of the A380 in the Farnborough thread reminded me of some thoughts I had as I watched one flying in to Manchester a little while ago. (Impressively large as well as very impressively quiet, almost doesn't seem right seeing a plane that big just floating in the air barely making a sound!) Obviously from a commercial point of view aircraft like the 747-8 and the A380 (And inevitably the larger still planes that will follow) make a lot of sense. Cheaper to run in the long term leading to cheaper tickets etc etc which we all love. Thing is, that wasn't the thought I had. Unfortunately as we all know, even though air travel is far and away statistically the safest form of travel, occasionally things do go wrong and I have to say, the first thought that went through my head as I watched the A380 was 'What happens when one drops out of the sky?'. Inevitably, sadly, one day it will happen and that thought does make me wonder if we should be packing so many people onto one plane just because we can. Don't get me wrong, thinking about things like that won't stop me getting on one if I ever have the chance but I'm just curious as to other people thoughts on the matter.
I moved this thread to the Club forum. 'Heavy' discussions are best left to sites like Air Liners dot net. JF was developed to talk about their much lighter counterparts. In the embryonic stages of a forum, it's absolutely imperative that threads remain relevant to a website's theme. In this case, we're talking private jets, whether they be corporate or personal. Thanks for understanding!
Well the same thing that happened to all the rest that dropped out the sky basically. Seriously though, it becomes more and more costly (in terms of human lives) when 500+ persons are flying around in one jet if an incident occurs. I mean 1 life lost is too many. It makes maintainence of these A380s and Boeing 747-800s even more and more pertinent as should be on ALL aircraft but we know some airlines cut ALOT of corners. It just isn't related to commercial aircraft. These lovely business jets that we write about all the time could easily drop out the sky in the testing phases or regular service. The G650 test aircraft that crashed in New Mexico is one example.
500+ pax planes has been around for a long time: A regular B-747-100/200 can be configured for high density and when I flew the Haj (Pilgrimage to Mekka) we had 501 pax seats and 21 crew seats. Not too cramped with a 30" pitch. The new Super Jumbos typically has about the same or less seats due to business and first class. As far as accidents, Tenerife in 1978 was the worst in history when a KLM B-747 attempted a Take Off without ATC clearance and collided with a Pan-Am B-747 crossing the runway in the fog.
