Comments by "Doncarlo" (@doujinflip) on "Simple Flying" channel.

  1. Also quickly checking for seatbelts during taxi, approach, and mid-cruise naps
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  2. There's a significant difference in thrust profiles with mismatched engines, you'd have to be extremely careful to ensure the flight computers compensate for it correctly at every throttle setting.
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  3. Airbus seems to practice planned obsolescence, decertifying airframes at 30~35 years regardless of maintenance record. Boeing meanwhile will work with airlines to keep its planes aloft, hence 747s pushing 50 hauling freight. It's like an Apple vs Android philosophy.
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  4. They're still useful for the newest 777s whose unfolded wingspan would require an A380-sized gate. Considering this and the flying wing concepts we keep seeing, I'd imagine width of long-haul aircraft to generally grow bigger instead of smaller
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  5. Thing is it’s cargo that gives an airframe a long life, after needy human passengers stop being profitable to carry. The A380 is poorly suited to take pallets and oversized loads due to its human-focused structural design. This is why old 747s and tri-jets are still in the air, while the A380 doesn’t have a second wind to look forward to.
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  6. As COVID showed, being dedicated to transporting humans is a liability when said humans stop flying for whatever reason. Goods however need to keep moving, even moreso when passengers aren’t coming to its origins. It’s clear the next major model must prioritize pallets — it’s way easier to please people with the open space it offers through a retrofit. This is why the iconic 747 continues to take off as an airfreighter conversion (or rather reversion) half a century later, while the cruise ship A380 likely won’t enjoy such a second wind.
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  7. Or KAL would like the revenue and savings to help complete its upcoming buyout of Asiana
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  8. Boeing engineers back then had the foresight to design the 747 as a cargo plane with seats bolted on. The mistake Airbus made was centering the design around human occupants -- it's way easier to turn a warehouse into an apartment complex than the other way around.
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  9. The second deck makes up part of the structural integrity of the fuselage, so sadly it cannot be so easily removed. Plus it's weight capacity is only 28% more than a 747 despite having 60% more space, and used 747s for conversions are easy to come by. It would be interesting though if the main deck could be converted to ULD cargo (passengers on top deck only), effectively making an A380 into combi. That way there's less pressure to fill a jumbo's worth of passengers on each trip.
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  10. They might be able to restripe the remote pads if they need a few more spots, but wouldn't be worth rebuilding the terminal building for an extra gate or two. Most likely there will be some need for Code F gates especially if a 777X size airframe proves successful with the depreciation of the A380.
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  11. South Asia is the biggest passenger market for Gulf carriers, so any improvement by Air India threatens ticket sales through Dubai and Doha. Air India doesn't even need to come close to the lavishness of Emirates and Qatar, just offer direct flights.
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  12. I did DXB-GIG-EZE round trip in economy. Besides the enormous length, I remember the IFE being pretty old, and the wifi losing connection over much of the Atlantic. This was in 2018, so not sure if any upgrades to the experience have happened since then.
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  13. The old airport now just serves private, charter, and military flights, so there wouldn't be any confusion anyway
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  14. The why would be even more disturbing. China is already seeing an alarming surge of "rage against society" mass casualty incidents.
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  15. There are boneyard airports full of retired planes to pull parts from. The 747 was common enough to give quite long wings for the ones still flying.
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  16. It'd be an expensive modification, seeing how the old airport was clearly not in the master plan with a major expressway and business parks splitting the two. More likely the old airport grounds were planned to eventually close, redevelop, and become a new expansion of the city proper.
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  17. The 747 was built fundamentally as a cargo plane because Boeing had the foresight that passengers alone might not keep the model aloft. Turns out it's much easier to make storage space habitable than it is to turn a human-centered design into storage -- it's like asking a cruise liner to take on shipping containers.
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  18. The 747 IS a cargo plane, airlines just bolted down some seats for us
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  19. Length for a 737 is pretty much maxed out now, the -10 is already at high risk of tail strikes
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  20. Desire, not necessarily demand. Airfare sales trends favor direct flights wherever offered regardless of plane type.
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  21. That's really the point of EK buying up every A380 somebody doesn't want anymore.
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  22. 737 Max was a cheap way for airline bean counters to do what they really need a smaller 787 for. Unfortunately they got what they paid for.
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  23. A lot more people have to fly between the same few cities to keep the A380 aloft... as if we already complain enough about overpriced overcrowded travel destinations. I doubt there will be another such human-centered airliner after the 380, the way it's designed means there's no real second life hauling freight (and thus continued parts and service sales) -- it's far easier to turn a warehouse into apartments or a container carrier into a cruise liner than the other way around (which is why the 747 was genius). So enjoy the superjumbo while they last.
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  24.  @jayg6434  Most likely decommission and part them out until the last A380 lands. It doesn't have much of a future hauling freight due to its strictly human-centered design that's ill-suited to modify for pallets, unlike the 747 that is fundamentally a cargo plane with seats bolted on.
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  25. That would destroy their advertising reach though. Younger folks and their future patrons can smell corporate curation from a mile away, and don’t react favorably to anything short of personal authenticity.
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  26. You also had to pay what today would be business class airfare just to be on the flight. Before deregulation, every plane carried premium seats -- economy passengers had to do with surface travel if they traveled at all. There was a time afterward when the back of the plane got more than a barebones experience (especially with so much supply in a 747), but that has since deteriorated as passengers proved as a whole they'll tolerate degraded service for cheaper tickets and getting back on the ground where they ultimately wanted to be as quickly as the routes allow.
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  27. COVID supply shocks reintroduced scarcity into our psyche -- notice how decluttered FIRE has given way to YOLO side-hustling. Economy passengers are maximizing their time on any upgrade they get because there's such little hope of scoring that experience again by any method going forward.
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  28. That and the full length double deck
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  29. It's too expensive to operate and its maximum takeoff weight is too low for the space it offers. It might do as a combi (passengers on top and cargo on the two decks below), but only if they cut open a door for full-size pallets without harming the integrity of the plane (the top deck forms an integral part of the structural stability) and beefed up the in-cabin fire extinguishing capabilities.
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  30. The wing itself is a major drag though, it was designed for a longer version that ultimately never happened. Turns out that people prefer point-to-point no matter how nice the hubs are.
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  31. Russian airspace advantage doesn't explain why it's so much cheaper to connect through HK and Mainland China as much as desperation for the wallets of foreign passengers.
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  32. Far more cost per hour for so few passengers at such short distances.
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  33. It's still prohibitively expensive though, considering the costs of maintaining and operating the base airframe, and the demand for it would collapse in within two years. Plus its maximum take-off weight is too low for the space it would offer. The design is fundamentally flawed for the demand going forward, not only for cargo -- it's akin to asking a cruise liner to take on shipping containers -- but even for passengers who've made clear they prefer simpler point-to-point itineraries even if it means smaller, less comfortable planes.
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  34. Airbus already achieved that reality with their chronic tardiness in deliveries.
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  35. ​US government agencies aren't nearly so proactive using that data beyond what it was originally gathered for. US for-profit corporations on the other hand...
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  36. The A380 is fundamentally a passenger plane and has some major flaws for handling cargo: 1) the MTOW is too low for the space it offers; 2) the flight deck is on the main deck so a door can't just be cut out of the nose like on a 747; 3) the top deck forms an integral part of the fuselage structure so the internal space is further split; and 4) specialized pallet loaders would have to be developed to get cargo up to the top deck
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  37. The problem with rear loaded freight is the cargo can be much more dense than passengers, but the laws of physics favor a center of gravity forward of the main gear and wing box. This means there's a weight limit which defeats the usefulness of all that space.
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  38. They're not so much for flights as they are for parts.
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  39. Airports want to maximize the amount of space reserved to it, because the surrounding community will grow right up to the fence line and that will make it much more difficult to take it back in case a new runway is wanted. The space in between can also be used for future expansions, like a new terminal or support facilities.
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  40. The Soviets did successfully reverse engineer the AIM-9 Sidewinder missile after at least one dud got stuck in a Chinese fighter. It was such a direct copy that when the USAF got their hands on some of those knockoffs (dubbed the AA-2 Atoll), they found practically every single internal part was interchangeable between the two. Though it also helped it was a simple design to begin with, needing little more than the tools commonly found in a hobbyist machinist's garage workshop.
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  41. Asian carriers also enjoy plenty of state supports as they're surrounded by international competition, and pulling from an ethnostate labor pool that's actually excited about experiencing the world beyond. Notice how the top tier airlines have immigrants on work visas as a considerable share of their cabin crew, including the Japanese and Taiwanese carriers.
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  42. Lightweight bulky cargo flights are in demand now, but that won't be the case within three years. Those air waybills won't be enough to justify the costs of conversion and maintenance
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  43. It's also the greed of the passengers constantly wanting cheaper tickets. Plunging airfares mean little to spare for all but what's legally required in civil aviation. Remember after operational costs, a full flight only profits like $5~10 from each economy seat.
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  44. Airbus is like Apple, they top-down prescribe what they think the pilots want. Meanwhile Boeing installs small handles low on the dashboard for the pilots to literally put their feet up on during cruise.
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  45. Passengers generally prefer direct flights, and airlines want to reduce the costs of fuel and maintenance. The A380 has a limited range of itineraries it economically satisfies.
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  46. They're still in that "aspirational" stage, since they probably have to hustle for those nights. Platinum on up stay so often that they no longer feel the need to YOLO every hour on the property.
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  47.  @Cvzar07  Now stack that with everyone else thinking the same and blocking the aisle as they reach for their bags, and you could quickly run past the 90 second window to gtfo. Notice how long it takes to get off normally at the jetbridge. Now make them all panic as they also try to decide whether the nearest open exit is in front or behind… with half of them having their bags in the other direction.
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  48. PE has been the trend lately. It's often the most profitable seat on the plane for an airline, as they don't take up as much space and amenities as Business Class.
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  49. For most airlines and their routes yes. It's really only viable for Gulf hubs that doesn't have so much point-to-point competition.
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  50. Batik is an upscale version, closer to what you'd get on Garuda in both amenities and price
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  51. Airlines can afford it only if you pay PE prices. Passenger trends since deregulation prove that people would rather have cheaper tickets and direct flights over better in-cabin experiences. That's why PE is really still an experiment, and not a trend that's actually taking over the back of the plane.
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  52. 380 fanboys be like 🙉
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  53. The biggest issue would be holding them down, since there's not that much footprint to install brakes or locks for how high the load could be on a person-sized pallet. This would make any of the fastening devices prohibitively beefy -- it's already hard enough keeping a food cart from rolling down the aisle.
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  54.  @shrimpflea  Right, it'd be like turning a cruise liner into a container ship. The math just doesn't work out.
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  55. Previous hijackers have bought premium seats, not only because if raises less concern over intent and how much stuff they bring aboard, but also because it's closer to the flight deck in front.
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  56. The middle deck is more suited for cargo loads. Pallet loaders that can reach the top decks would have to still be invented, plus I don't think passengers would be all that comfortable sitting underneath all that weight
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  57. "Middle class" is both aspirational and tenuous. They have to hustle upwards or risk falling back to poor conditions, hence the demand to maximize and YOLO because the experience really might be once in their life.
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  58. Mostly because the 777X has yet to deliver, so the more A380s they can snag the longer they'll have parts to keep the superjumbo in the air until they're ultimately replaced.
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  59. They'd have to be humbly and wholly truthful to begin with, which is something the safety-first civil aviation industry absolutely requires (hence why so much material for plane crash documentaries despite the relative rarity of incidents) but which Communist China can't get itself to act in its struggle for genuine global attraction.
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  60. Same reason why passengers love cruise ships: it’s designed for humans. Sadly that means it won’t get a second wind ferrying airfreight once its rising costs from age means passengers become unprofitable.
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  61. High-density 777s are great and all, but I'm more amazed at how this TTS-sounding narrator manages to pronounce many of the names correctly 💬😮
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  62. It balances out all the other privileges tall people get elsewhere. Being bigger in any dimension is a disadvantage when riding in any machine since meatspace creates compromises, but tall people don't have the excuse of requiring medical accommodation because it's always seen so favorably.
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  63. Dan didn’t film anyone though. He kept the door closed and focused on the experience within his suite, but the purser still overreacted.
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  64. The big weakness of the A380 is that it wasn't built for pure cargo -- the flight deck was placed too low for a nose door and it's too weak to have a good MTOW for its size -- unlike the 747 which is essentially an airfreighter with seats bolted on. While it's great for people, repurposing it for a post-passenger life would be like trying to load containers onto a cruise ship~ it simply doesn't work. Then there's the costs of operating four engines when two are just as powerful and reliable nowadays.
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  65. ​ @hollygrace6814 That's where a PE cash upgrade makes the most sense. But most times the upsell to Business is only like 2x, with more seats available up front too.
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  66.  @brianloomis9351  Cell radios regularly retransmit data in case of interference. A faulty reading from a radio altimeter might not provide a second chance.
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  67. Some already were with 737s and 777s, but those are already certified for cargo so it was just a matter of unbolting the seats. The A380 was not designed for freight at all (it's too weak for the space it offers), so certifying it for even net-down loads by section and max weight took some work.
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  68. Leaving the flight deck presents a security risk, requiring coordination with the cabin crew, and not only to guard the front of the plane -- nowadays a flight attendant has to be inside the flight deck to prevent a suicidal pilot from locking everyone else out while he deliberately crashes the plane.
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  69. Beijing will never confirm the truth, because it would be a huge discredit to the Party's "New China". That's why they refuse to release their report for "national security and social stability" reasons.
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  70. The empty space provides potential for a new terminal or support facilities, perhaps a runway realignment. If the airport doesn't secure that space, the surrounding community will, and that makes it way more difficult for the airport to take back if it needs to expand its capabilities.
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  71. It's a worldwide problem. Some Airbus and Embrear models were discovered to also be affected.
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  72. Problem is the MTOW is too low for the space it offers, and I'm not sure strapping on some beefier engines alone would be enough
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