All aboard

I have talked about my dislike for all things airborne on here before. Well, all things airborne is perhaps not the right term – I don’t dislike planes particularly, I just don’t like being in them when they’re off the ground. I’m still not that confident in them not crashing when viewing them from the ground either, if I’m being honest, but let’s not dwell on that. For someone with a disliking of flying the news that the Airbus A380 is to fly from Manchester Airport on a daily basis from autumn 2010 should be of little consequence, you might think. It’s not as if I’m ever going to be on it.

I do still find aeroplanes quite fascinating, however, and a quick Google of the A380 took me straight to that wonderful giver of all knowledge – Wikipedia. Many interesting things can be learned from good old Wikipedia about the A380 – it’s the largest passenger airliner in the world, has seating for 525 people if split into three classes (economy, business and first class) or 853 if everyone’s crammed in like cattle. It has a design range of 15,200 km, costs about $320 million to make and...and...and the amount of geek information on that page is quite astounding. I especially like the fact that there are photos of the cockpit (aka the flight deck):


Business class:
The wheels:

A graph detailing net orders since the start of production:


I know – do try to contain yourselves. I happen to have a friend whose husband is a bit of a plane fanatic and he has booked a place on the inaugural flight of the A380 out of Manchester, heading to Dubai. He’s going for the experience of the flight – once he gets to Dubai, he’s going to get on another plane and come back straight away. It’s a shame I can’t get someone like that to do my flying for me.