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Airbus A380 Maiden Flight

Originally published by "dbarker" on 2005-04-27 15:46:00Z

'Superjumbo’ A380 lands safely: Holy cats, it actually flies.

The world’s largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380, has landed safely in Toulouse, France after making its first test flight.

This post, incidentally, is something like 13th on Google for “Airbus A380.”

Comment by "Dave" on 2005-04-27 16:05:00Z
"Holy cats, it actually flies." But will it fly with 800 passengers on board? The maiden flight had only a crew of six on it.
Comment by "Anonymous" on 2005-04-29 14:02:00Z
Yes -- it had water ballests to simulate laden weight [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A380#Maiden_flight](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A380#Maiden_flight) "Taking off with flight crew of six pilots, a full complement of flight test instrumentation, and water ballasts, the weight of the aircraft was 421 tonnes -- the highest ever weight for a civilian aircraft." on that note: ====Weights==== Empty 280,000 kg Maximum takeoff 560,000 kg