We’ve tested out the flight experience on an A380 and compared the offerings from different airlines. But we’ve never seen how an A380 is maintained — until now. Here’s what happens inside Qantas’ Sydney Jetbase, and why cushion maintenance is disturbingly important.
At the time of our visit, the bulk of the sprawling installation was filled up by a single Airbus A380. Standing over 24 metres high and boasting a wingspan of nearly 80 metres, it truly is a monster of a machine. Here are the photos.
A A380 turbofan engine ready for service and installation.
The aircraft comes with four engines in all which provide 1800 horsepower. They are also surprisingly quiet with a 50 per cent noise reduction compared to the smaller 747-400 during takeoff.
We were a bit leery of getting too close to the engine’s fan blades. Partly because of that famous death scene in Lost, but mainly because they cost a cool $80,000 each. The entire plane, meanwhile, costs somewhere in the region of $375 million. (You break, you buy!)
Here’s one of the engines attached to the wing.
Parking this thing must have been a nightmare for the pilot — the tail barely cleared the top of the hangar. Indeed, some airports have been forced to modify their runways to accommodate the new class of superjumbo.
Seriously though, look at the size of this thing! It shouldn’t be in the air. Black magic has to be involved somewhere.
When you take the A380’s size into account, its wheels are curiously petite things. They’re barely any bigger than the tyres on a monster truck.
The A380’s wings are constructed from a range of reinfroced plastics including carbon-fibre, glass-fibre and quartz-fibre. They are sized for a maximum take-off weight of over 650 tonnes. The wings also house additional fuel, which can make them look a bit bent during long flights due to the extra weight they are carrying.
The cockpit is pretty industrial looking when you consider the aircraft’s astronomical price tag. We’re not sure what we were expecting, mind. A martini shaker perhaps?
The pilots’ sleeping quarters are also pretty Spartan.
The A380 control stick has a distinct PC joystick circa-1980’s vibe. We like to think that the designers were trying to appeal to pilots’ childhoods — which were doubtless spent playing Microsoft Flight Simulator.
Strategically placed cameras keep the pilots abreast of what’s happening below and behind their aircraft.
…And here’s what the pilot sees from their cockpit displays.
Pilots can access a foldout keyboard from their chairs with which to communicate with crew. Text messages are generally preferred to radio commands, which have the potential to be misheard.
A less glamorous part of the job is replacing the passenger cushions that have accumulated icky stains. Ew.
Comments
2 responses to “How To Maintain A Qantas Airbus A380”
The engines cost just a little more than $80,000 each – think tens of millions! Also, you might want to run the spell checker through this article next time.
it’s each fan blade costs $80k… think you may have misinterpreted the sentence
Per blade, not per engine. Reads clearly to me.
I think Chris means the individual fan blades cost $80 000 each, not the whole engine.
It’s not just a matter of buying another either, they are balanced sets..
Chris is pretty right on the cost. If you actually read what he wrote:
Every one of those alloy blades are incredibly expensive, and birds; well birds and turbine blades are well known combatants – sometimes the bird wins, sometimes it loses.
A bird has never won in a competition with an airplane, true SOMETIMES the airplane falls out of the sky, but the bird ALWAYS does 🙂
Seat cushion, tray tables, bathroom fixtures, even various stickers and other items. The aim is to make sure the aircraft is as close to perfect as possible.
A lot of people working very hard.
The apu produces 1800hp the engines themselves produce thrust in the order of 320KN each
More like 383kN on the latest models of the 900 series RR engine. That would be about 320,000 HP for all four at TO thrust, wouldn’t it?
The quoted 1800, horse power is actually the steady load horse power for the APU (small engine in the tail) to provide electrical and air conditioner power on the ground.
That would not quite be enough power to get a 569,000 kg aircraft into the air. Actually the tug that pushes back the aircraft would have more power than 1,800 hp.
The 4 Jet engines for Qantas produce around 82,000 lbs of thrust each. Now it is very hard to convert this into horse power for a lot of physics type reasons, but the equivalent power would be just over 540,000 hp combined at max takeoff power.
One other thing… the price of each engine is around $27 million each. With a life engineering contract for the engine worth another $27 million or so. RR values each engine it produces at around $54 million over the life of the engine.
Big figures! Expensive to throw a flock of birds down the guts!
Big maintenance aside. EVERYONE should have an A380.
They are just the best thing ever!