Superjumbo takes off for maiden flight

The Airbus’ A380, the world’s largest passenger plane, took off successfully on its maiden flight today, a milestone for aviation and for the European aircraft-maker’s battle with American rival Boeing.

The giant plane’s four engines hauled its double-decked fuselage aloft from a runway in Blagnac, southwest France.

The flight was watched by thousands of spectators.

Weather conditions were nearly ideal – with sunny skies and a gentle breeze blowing across the tarmac – as ground crews smoothly pushed back the “superjumbo” from a hangar.

Airbus had warned the A380’s first flight – already about a month behind schedule – could be delayed had the weather been poor.

Airbus pilots were to power the aircraft’s four engines on the test model of the 555-seat jet to lift its 308-tonne frame aloft.

Police estimated about 50,000 onlookers would converge near the airport in the town of Blagnac, north of Toulouse, for what some are calling the biggest aviation event since the Concorde’s first flight in 1969.

Before the flight, thousands of visitors poured onto grassy verges along the runways. TV news channels in France and Germany carried continuous live pictures from Blagnac, a suburb of the city of Toulouse in southwest France where Airbus is headquartered.

The first A380 flight could last for much of the day as the plane circles the region, beaming back real-time measurements of 150,000 parameters to Airbus headquarters from its 22 tonne) of on-board test instruments.

Industry analysts are keeping a close watch on Airbus, which hopes to woo customers away from rival Boeing Co. with the A380. But it has yet to prove that it can turn a profit on its superjumbo investment, a third of which came from came from European governments.

As Airbus and Boeing spar over what each calls unfair government subsidies for the other, the rival aircraft manufacturers have staked their success on competing visions of the future of commercial air travel.

The A380, with a catalogue price of €216m, represents a huge bet that international airlines will need bigger aircraft to transport passengers between ever-busier hub airports. But some analysts say signs of a boom in the market for smaller wide-body planes, such as Boeing’s long-range 787 “Dreamliner,” show Airbus was wrong to focus so much time and money on its superjumbo.

Just this week, Air Canada said it had firm orders for 32 new Boeing jets, including 14 787s, with a list value of about six billion dollars and Air India announced plans to order 50 Boeing jets worth 6.8 billion dollars. Air India wants 27 of the 787s, which will carry up to 257 passengers and have a list price of 120 million dollars, boosting total orders and commitments for the plane to 237. The 787, which was launched a year ago, is scheduled to enter service in 2008.

“If the A380 costs Airbus the mid-market then it’s the biggest misinvestment in aerospace history since Concorde,” said Richard Aboulafia of the US consultancy Teal Group. “The way the market’s changing makes this look more like a science fair project every day.”

Airbus, a unit of European Aeronautic Defence and Space Co., is also planning to bring its own mid-sized jetliner, the A350, into service in 2010 – two years after the Boeing 787, but the US government is demanding that no European government launch aid be extended for the A350.

So far, Airbus has booked 154 orders for the A380, which it says will carry passengers 5% farther than Boeing’s longest-range 747 jumbo at a per-passenger cost up to one-fifth below its rival’s.

Aviation experts say risks remain very slim on the maiden test flight since a plane’s aerodynamic characteristics are already well known before it takes off, thanks to years of computer modelling and wind-tunnel tests.

Problems are more likely, but still very rare, later in the test-flight programme, when the pilots deliberately take the plane to its limits. An Airbus A330 prototype crashed here in July 1994, killing chief test pilot Nick Warner and six others as they conducted a simulated engine failure exercise.

Airbus chief test pilot Jacques Rosay, flight captain Claude Lelaie and four fellow crew members will take no chances. They will wear parachutes during the first flight, in accordance with Airbus policy. A handrail leads from the cockpit to an escape door that can be jettisoned if the pilots lose control of the plane.

The test-flight programme is likely to finish soon before the A380 enters service for Singapore Airlines in mid-2006, Airbus said – about three months behind the previous schedule.

Part of the delay is down to the superjumbo’s struggle with a weight problem that consumed months of engineering time and most of the programme’s 1.88 billion dollars in cost overruns. Competitive pressure on airlines to offer plusher business-class seating tightened the squeeze – compounded by the A380’s sheer scale.