Colossal Airbus A380 shows off unexpectedly nimble maneuverability for its size

The Airbus A380 is a behemoth, but don’t be fooled.

It’s an agile aircraft when it takes to the sky, as demonstrated in this video.

The footage was filmed during the Paris Airshow Le Bourget in 2011.

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The Airbus A380 in action

Uploaded to YouTube by the channel TheChangeInTime, the video shows the A380 moving around the sky with ease.

Despite being the biggest civil airplane in the world, the plane demonstrates its maneuverability gracefully.

After circling the sky a few times at different angles, the plane comes in to land on the runway.

It does sound smoothly and remarkable restraint, barely making any noise.

Viewers were impressed by the footage and applauded the team behind the aircraft.

One wrote: “The thing that impresses me the most is that French engineers didn’t even built prototypes or what ever, they built it with mathematical functions and resolving equations, built the model that the calculator gave them and it worked like crazy.

“Best plane ever made. Great engineering!”

Another wrote: “Just scary to watch…how a big heavy thing like that can be so maneuverable. Impressive to see!”

One fan likened the demonstration to ‘ballet with wings and poetry in the air’.

A brief history of the Airbus A380

The Airbus A380 was announced in 1990 to compete with the Boeing 747, which was dominating the market at the time.

Airbus would launch the $10.7 billion project ten years later, with the first prototype being unveiled in Toulouse, France in 2005.

It obtained its certificate from the European Aviation Safety Agency and the US Federal Aviation Administration the following year.

In October 2007, it began service under Singapore Airlines.

Although production would peak at 30 per year in 2012 and 2014, Airbus ended production of the aircraft in 2021.