Airbus 380: the new Concorde

"Clark W. Griswold, Jr." wrote:

"Stretch" is a figure of speech. The most likely expansion of a 747 is to extend
the upper deck further back. Seems to me I saw some aero studies that showed
that improved the performance of the aircraft, so the hit from the extra weight
may not be that bad.

One of the reasons that the upper level of a 747 ends just before the
wings is the area rule effect. It allows the 747 to efficiently cruise
at a slightly higher speed than most other airliners. If the upper deck
were to be extended farther back, that aerodynamic advantage would be
lost, making the aircraft slower, and affecting its efficiency.

nobody wrote in
news:1108543913.2b94fa23172ee220c87e64bb5c3648c0@t eranews:
In fact, Heathrow sees the 380 as the cheapest option to grow passenger
numbers with the least amount of infrastructure development.

A quick google led me to:

http://www.dft.gov.uk/stellent/group...page/dft_aviat
ion_022743-02.hcsp#P50_6962

In round numbers, a summer day in 2002 saw 1200+ movements, 70% of which
were short haul. As a point of discussion, it's interesting how there's so
many short hauls that potentially could be larger aircraft, which would
increase capacity without costing anything in infrastructure development.

AJC wrote in
:
There seems to be quite an industry over there in churning out stories
that the 380 must be a failure because Buffalo dung, Idaho,
International Airport isn't going to upgrade it's facilities to cater
for the aircraft!

Is that the EU complaint for today?

I thought the EU complaint of the day was that the USA was busy sabotaging
the A380 because it wouldn't upgrade Buffalo Dung to cater to the A380,
just like it sabotaged Concorde.