New Airbus A30x Planes Look Straight Out Of Coruscant Skies
While Boeing is struggling to get the Dreamliner into the skies, Airbus is already planning their A30X next generation aircraft, which include really cool stuff like forward swept wings, u-tails and lower-placement engines. Their five-decker A380 replacement is even crazier.
These won’t come for another 15 years, but they represent a significant change in philosophy from current models, including that Sonic Cruiser model that looks—in technical terms—absofrikkinlutely damn cool. [Airliners via Flight Global]
- Next Post: The Truth Part II, Dear Readers »
- « Previous Post: Nissan’s Next Electric Car Will Sound Like Bladerunner
Comments (AU Comments | US Comments)
Nice 3D renderings but that’s all they are. Don’t discount Boeing – why do you think they skipped the 380 class aircraft? work the numbers…
To break even Airbus say they need to sell 416 Airbus 380s.
Production rate as it stands now is 14 per year with a ramp up to 20 per year. So even at the expanded production rate it will take over 20 years TO BREAK EVEN. To date orders are 200..10 years production. So who read the market better?
Keep an eye on Boeings plans – sure the 787 has its problems but so did the B-17, B-29, B707 and the B747.
Ned
These are great designs. Most don’t come to fruition though. Whilst Boeing is still struggeling with their 787 they will make it work.- They have no choice. As for the knockers who think Airbus cannot build anything like these design ideas – think again. Europe build the Concorde – the US never managed to build the Boeing 2707 . Boeing laughed when Airbus build the A300. Today they don’t laugh anymore.
Competition has given us better Airplanes. Boeing needs Airbus as much as Airbus needs Boeing.
You’re right. EUROPE, built the A-300 and every other Airbus. As the World Trade Organization just reported, the French, German, British and Spanish governments have illegally underwritten every Airbus commercial airliner from the A-300 on. The U.S. taxpayer doesn’t give Boeing “launch aid” that they don’t have to pay back if the plane doesn’t make a profit (did someone mention the A-380?).
As for the Concorde, it was obsolescent the day it entered service, because from Day One, British Airways and Air France couldn’t charge the Concorde customer enough to pay the fuel bill. So all their other customers ended up subsidizing the high rollers who took the Concorde. Boeing–not the U.S.–shelved the SST, because of economics, not technology. But the British and the French, having sunk billions into the joint Concorde venture, had to fly the plane to save face. And so on it flew, day after day, year after year, losing tons of money on every flight, until the tragic crash at Charles DeGaulle provided an opportunity to withdraw the plane from service.
And oh, by the way, Europeans built the Comet, the Hindenburg and the Titanic too.
The one gets money by loans and the other one by the Department of Defense. What is the difference for the tax payer?
It is good that there is competition and technology advances! Otherwise we would still fly 50 year old air-planes. By the way, Boeing air-planes have many parts from Europe, and Airbus uses many parts from the US.
easaman–The difference is that the European subsidies, thinly disguised as “launch aid,” have been ruled illegal by the WTO. And let us not forget that Airbus is a subsidiary of EADS–the “DS” standing for “Defense Systems.” EADS does beaucoup business with the military also (remember the A400M, among other things?). The launch aid has undoubtedly permitted Airbus to undercut Boeing on price (at least until the recent devaluation of the dollar vis-a-vis the Euro). The prospect of launch aid undoubtedly permitted Airbus, which was itself financially-strapped from the A-380 debacle, to not only get the A-350 project underway, but also to advance $250 million to U.S. Airways in order to essentially buy them as a launch customer for the A-350 in the U.S.