Video from cockpit shows fascinating view of pilots taking off in Airbus A380
- This clips shows a POV of an Airbus A380 taking off
- The cockpit looks deceivingly simple
- When you zoom out, things are a bit different
Published on Aug 08, 2024 at 6:49 PM (UTC+4)
by Alessandro Renesis
Last updated on Aug 09, 2024 at 4:55 PM (UTC+4)
Edited by
Tom Wood
This clip reveals the fascinating view of pilots taking off in an Airbus A380.
For such a large plane, the A380 has a relatively simple cockpit.
And the view is spectacular.
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The Airbus A380 is one of the largest commercial planes in the world.
It weighs 560 tons and it is 73 meters long.
You’d expect a futuristic, ultra-complicated cockpit for a plane like this, especially when you compare the cockpit of an Airbus with the cockpit of an equivalent Boeing.
The cockpit here looks definitely a bit less complex than that of Concorde, or even the cockpit in planes that are designed for entirely different purposes, such as the Blackbird.
But there’s a catch.
The cockpit looks ‘uncomplicated’ until you zoom out
In the clip shared by Just Planes on YouTube, you can see the pilot’s point of view.
In front of their eyes, the pilot and co-pilots have got several different displays that monitor different things.
Some of the displays are shared between them, whereas others are exclusive to the pilot and co-pilot.
For example, both the pilot and co-pilot have displays in front of them relaying the same information about altitude, GPS and speed and so on.
The cockpit looks relatively devoid of switches and dials, but that’s simply because most of the switches and dials are on the ceiling, and also on what, in a car, would be known as the center console.
Is the Airbus A380 better than its Boeing rival?
The Airbus A380’s natural rival is probably the Boeing 747.
The 747 is in a class of its own, with well over 1,500 built, 747 of which are still operational as of June 2024.
The problem is the 747 is no longer in production, and Boeing hasn’t really nailed it yet when it comes to its successor.
For now, the A380 is still not selling well enough to compete with the 747.
But when it comes to smaller airplanes, the Boeing 737 vs Airbus A320 race is hotting up, and it seems Airbus is taking the upper hand.
