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Comment by kylehotchkiss | Hacker News Reader

*came together. The A380 program is nearly over. The most incredible passenger plane in the sky. Comfortable for 16+ hours. I hope they can archive the blueprints for it well enough to consider building it again in the future.

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I’m sure they’ll hold on to all the Cad Data, the issue is making sure all the suppliers have the Cad data for tooling and parts, it’s unlikely coming back after going away.

Just hope that they keep it in the right version of CATIA: https://worldcadaccess.typepad.com/blog/2006/09/a380_delayed... [Kind of annoying that the Bloomberg article is referenced all over the place, but that Bloomberg's site has broken the link]

Edit: More technical link: https://www.airliners.net/forum/viewtopic.php?t=770047

The latest revision of the CAD standard used to exchange designs between different software is going through the final stages. It contains changes to explicitly model the stuff needed for wiring harnesses to avoid the problem seen with the A380.

They're most likely legally required to archive all of that for a few decades.

Do airplane designers really go back to older designs to make next generation planes? I guess the documentation of design decisions could be useful but the design files by themselves seem pretty difficult to re-use.

It’s useful to look at the former design and see the issues there was with it. Check that you’re integrating the “lessons learnt”.

Also you can straight up reuse parts, which avoids the need to qualify them.

Is the comfort really any difference in an A380 vs a 777 vs an A350? Cabin configuration is really the only differentiation between modern wide bodies and that’s mostly on the airline.

In terms of seats, it’s roughly the same (and some airlines have awful A380 configurations), but amenities like showers and bars are much easier on the A380 given the space constraints of other widebodies.

Also IME engine noise is reduced given how far you can be from them versus a normal widebody.

"showers" - for real? Surely not, that's beyond absurd.

'Emirates A380 Shower Spa': https://www.emirates.com/english/experience/our-fleet/a380/

First class passengers get 30 minutes, including 5 minutes of running water. You can see videos of it on YouTube.

Don't planes burn enough fossil fuels without carting around a few extra tons of water quite unnecessarily. Market efficiency, yeah right.

First, your napkin math is shit. They aren’t carrying 6000 pounds of water for the 14 first class seats to get 5 minute showers.

Second, the water they use per person weighs less than the weight of the extra passengers that could be fitted in if the arrangement wasn’t first class cabins but was instead economy. First class passengers are where all of the margin is.

Finally, you don’t seem to understand what “market efficiency” means because it has nothing to do with this.

You're right https://aviation.stackexchange.com/questions/11132/how-much-... it's much less (350 KG). Elsewhere they do say the showers are marble and mirror. So extra weight. I assumed without checking there would be lots of first class passengers, got it wrong.

> you don’t seem to understand what “market efficiency” means

If the fossil fuels were costed appropriately, there'd likely be no flying, certainly nothing like this. So its mispriced, is what I mean.

You listed the 777 which is an older plane. The newer 787 Dreamliner has been in service for almost 10 years. It is more comfortable because it's composite structure allows for higher humidity and higher air pressure. A normal flight has an air pressure equivalent to being at 8,000 feet altitude. The 787 is equivalent to 6,000. The humidity levels are also higher at 15% vs 4% for other planee. Both of these make you feel less tired and more comfortable.

A really informative concise post, shame it can't rise to the top.

That really is the key -- the manufacturers have little to do with actual comfort, which is up to the airline. The larger perceived cabin I suppose is somewhat due to Airbus choices, but that of course is heavily psychological.

Why rebuild it when you can design a better plan?

High cost and the possibility that you design a worse plane.

Imagine what would happen if Toyota tried to relaunch the 1999 Corolla. New designs are more efficient, there’s no way they would design a worse plane.

If you honestly believe that a corporation can not develop a new product inferior to a past product, then we will have to agree to disagree.

There are any number of reasons this can happen, including fewer developmental resources and different timelinelines.

You also ignored my point about cost. The a380 took 15 years and $25 billion to develop. If the existing design met a new need, they would absolutely consider dusing off the design.

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