A plane, a trade feud and the world's latest engine. Pierre Loza takes flight The Airbus 380, the world's largest ever passenger plane, is scheduled to hit airports by 2006. Its first test flight having proved a success last April, the plane holds up to 555 passengers in three classes and boasts such unprecedented perks as a children's playground, showers and shops, a mini-casino and a gym. So impressive are the qualities of the plane that it has been argued that the twin-deck monster will revolutionise the airline industry. Airports are already adjusting their infrastructure to it. To make room for the Airbus 380's 79-metre wing span, London's Heathrow airport will demolish a tier in Terminal 3. Indeed the capacity to cover 15,000km before refuelling combined with a maximum weight load of 560 tonnes has driven Airbus to promote their plane is rather more fuel efficient than many cars. Part of the Airbus's appeal is that it is powered by four Trent 900 (Rolls Royce) engines. Used in Qatar's Dolphin project to transfer 3.2 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day from the Qatari peninsula to the United Arab Emirates, these weight 6,350kg each and produce up to 375 KN per thrust. By industry standards this is a light gas turbine engine with incredible power; and the force behind it just happens to be an Egyptian Canadian, Ashraf Mustafa. According to him "the new titanium swept fan design not only reduces weight, lowers noise and improves performance, but also gives a unique beauty to the engine". Responsible for its testing and certification from start to finish, Mustafa is now at the Instituto Nacional de Tecnica Aerospacial, Spain's answer to NASA, where more tests will be undertaken. To be completed by the end of the year, endurance tests include 3,000 consecutive engine cycles that emulate takeoff, cruising and landing. Mustafa also took part in temperature tests, in which a special paint changes colour to reflect temperature changes during operation, and cold start tests, in which the engine is placed in a giant freezer to test its start-up performance. Despite the lengthy engine standardisation process and a trade row, Mustafa believes the plane's debut at the Paris air presaged its astounding success: "Recently I witnessed the flight of the A380 at the Paris air show with 150,000 spectators who were completely awestruck by the size and quietness of the aeroplane. I take pride in being part of this project and I'm very excited to see the A380 planes in airports next year." Mustafa was involved in the initial testing of the Trent 900 even before it was incorporated into the A380 under the supervision of the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). It passed not only tests that gauge out engine performance under normal and extreme flight conditions, such as rain, hail, bird ingestion, fan blade off, but altitude tests as well. Mustafa believes the A380 is unique in that it represents effective inter-European industrial cooperation: "For instance, the fuselage and vertical tail plane were made in Germany, the central wing box, centre fuselage and nose in France, the tail planes and central belly fairing in Spain, and the engines and wings in the UK." The Airbus 380 is challenging the Boeing 747's former dominance. With 50 per cent more floor space, 35 per cent more passengers and 15- 20 per cent less cost per seat than the 747, it is already one obvious step ahead. After previously dismissing the A380 as too large a project for too small a market, Boeing International's vice- president announced last month that Boeing plans to re-launch a larger version of the 747, to counter the A380. Ahead of last month's Paris air show, indeed, Boeing received 100 more orders than Airbus, bringing its share prices to a four- year surge. Competition between the global heavyweights reached a climax last May, when they quarrelled over World Trade Organisation (WTO) subsidies. Although the US was the first to turn to the WTO, the EU followed suit 24 hours later with a case against the US's illegal subsidies to Boeing, in the form of military contracts and tax breaks. US trade representative Rob Portman said "the EU's insistence on moving forward with new launch aid is forcing our hand". An offer by the EU to cut aid to Airbus and continue negotiations started last January was rebuffed by US trade officials who felt "the offer did not go far enough, especially since the EU was planning to commit $1.7 billion in new launch aid to Airbus". A more concrete EU offer to cut aid to the Airbus 350, a mid-size competitor to Boeing's new 787 Dreamliner, by 30 per-cent was also rejected. Grabbing 90 orders at the Paris air show, the A350 has more than enough orders for its makers to go ahead with the project. The WTO's probe of the transatlantic trade battle will likely be among the most complex and costly in history. And after Airbus's announcement at the Paris air show that it had "overtaken Boeing in terms of new orders", one can only expect the row to continue. Many believe that the mammoth A380 and Airbus's increasing competitiveness have a lot to do with Boeing's WTO pursuits. The American camp believes that the A380 alone has received as much as $6.7 billion of subsidies. Despite the fact that the A380 is running $1.9 billion over budget and has yet to undertake tests for its certification, its order books look like they will be filling up fast. With a catalogue price of 218 million euros, Singapore airlines will be among the first companies to purchase the giant plane.
