OOOPPPSSS

To be fair its not often loaded upto its wieght capacity but just deals with large components, like flammable battery packs :p FFRR MY06 facelift With TDV8 Alloys Zeros/ATR's
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Another sad day

http://www.engadget.com/2013/11/23/flying-singapore-21/ FFRR MY06 facelift With TDV8 Alloys Zeros/ATR's
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Hmm, don't know. It's bloody stupid to fly such long distances and have a 300+ seat plane with only 100 seats.

Love the A340-500 though, one of the most elegant modern airliners. I flew in an A340-600 and it was the quietest plane I've been in. I was waiting for the engines to spool up on take off, but they were so quiet the plane just surged forward with no roar. Completely unlike the A340-300 with it's 4 CFM56 hair dryers. Rolls Royce Trents - every time!

Thing is some long trips are really needed. London to Sydney would be the first one I can think of.

They did seen to be making enough money off the route for the seat config as I could never do cattle class for more than 7hrs is too much for me.

A nice converted a380 with some tanks in the belly would make for a nice long haul to oz and back  FFRR MY06 facelift With TDV8 Alloys Zeros/ATR's
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They're not making money on it. I heard they need 120 percent load factors because of the high cost of fuel.

7 hours cattle class thats luxury compared to 11/2 to Limoges with ryanair in does no one else fly's this route class.
Those yellow headrests give me a headache! and it's funny watching people trying to store the carry on bags because it's a million euros each way to put it in the hold. Mine was a blue one!

Last edited by Andy3681 on 25th Nov 2013 2:57pm. Edited 1 time in total

It was quite profitable for a while but raises have pushed it out of there.

I suppose they could have done an engine swap on it but it was just much easier to take the buy back from Airbus and lose the route really. Such a shame though

And Ryanair is a hellish airline full stop! FFRR MY06 facelift With TDV8 Alloys Zeros/ATR's
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Yes it used to make money but those A340's are proving uneconomic.

Engine swap? What other engine is certificated/available?

Ryan Air - I'd rather walk!

They could swap other engines into them and get it re-certed but the expense isnt a small sum of money.

Personally I'd love to see some GE90 high output motors put on them but thats never going to happen, and i have wondered how much more load a A225 could take with 6 GE90's fitted.... FFRR MY06 facelift With TDV8 Alloys Zeros/ATR's
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I wonder if the engineer that wa sent to asses it just wrote down 'it's well fooked!' Lo FFRR MY06 facelift With TDV8 Alloys Zeros/ATR's
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kingpleb wrote:

They could swap other engines into them and get it re-certed but the expense isnt a small sum of money.

Personally I'd love to see some GE90 high output motors put on them but thats never going to happen, and i have wondered how much more load a A225 could take with 6 GE90's fitted....

They're just not.

The aeroplane is out of production and they're not going to re-start as it's effectively been replaced by the A350.

That leaves certifying a new engine for only the 360 still flying, but that fleet is split into two quite distinct sub fleets.

Of those 360 approx 2/3 are the old CFM56 powered planes. These planes are mostly 10-20 years old which means their working lives are limited. The economics simply don't add up to re-certify a new engine for a fleet of this size and age.

The rest are powered by Rolls Royce Trent 500's, quite a modern engine, and there's not a more modern engine in that thrust class. And for a 120 odd planes, even 4 engined ones, there's no point in building one, and certifying it.

Airbus is in a bit of a pickle. Many of the Trent powered planes are coming back off lease and Airbus has a buy back obligation at a price significantly above market rates. Consequently it's trying to make the plane more marketable by re-certifying it for more seats, while Rolls is trying to make the existing engine slightly more fuel efficient and cheaper to maintain.

By the way, you can't just go sticking GE90's on things. It's a huge and hugely powerful engine. This is a 747 with one when they were testing it. The pilot had the other 3 engines practically at idle and used massive rudder to try and keep the things straight.

Click image to enlarge

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True but during testing they also powered down the other three engines and were perfectly able to fly in that single unit alone

It's a big engine but could replace the Trent's as even the smallest variant produces more thrust than the Trent's

http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Electric_GE90 FFRR MY06 facelift With TDV8 Alloys Zeros/ATR's
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KurtVerbose wrote:

The pilot had the other 3 engines practically at idle

kingpleb wrote:

but during testing they also powered down the other three engines and were perfectly able to fly in that single unit alone

Will, why would they ditch the 57,000lb thrust Trents for 120,000lb thrust GE90's? What would the advantage be?