A pilots point of view of the Airbus A380

Gulf News

Emirates Captain Hesham Essawy talks about his experience as one of the first to pilot the Airbus A380 aircraft. See more at: http://gulfnews.com/gntv

Transcript

00:00When I fly the 380, I feel safe because of the excellent and reliability of the aircraft.

00:15I feel comfortable because of the design of the layout of the cockpit systems procedures

00:21and I feel amazed with the smooth performance and maneuverability of the aircraft.

00:28My first flight on the 380 was from Dubai to JFK.

00:34I felt very privileged to be among the first few to fly the 380.

00:38I can remember the excitement, the joy and the curiosity of the crew, staff and the passengers.

00:48I'll give you an example of some of the systems that we have in the aircraft like the autopilot

00:55traffic collision avoiding system, which interrogates the airplanes around the aircraft and then

01:04see if there is any possible collision course between us and the other traffic.

01:09It gives us some sort of alert system to raise our awareness about this intruder and then

01:16when we get to a certain proximity, the aircraft itself will react to this proximity and climb

01:23or descend to avoid a possible collision with the traffic.

01:28This you couldn't see it in other types or models, which is a great significant improvement.

01:35The second thing, we have very nice smart landing equipped on the 380.

01:40Because of the high rate and high density of traffic in most all over the world, all

01:49the airports now they are requiring what they call minimum runway occupancy.

01:54So they want you to land, spend less time on the runway, exit the runway.

01:59This smart landing system enable us to select where we're going to leave the runway and

02:05it decelerate the aircraft at the proper rate to get you at the proper speed to vacate the runway.

02:12We have very sophisticated weather radar system, which collect the data in front of

02:19the aircraft, get the weather cells and then generate a 3D model, where we can get access

02:25to this 3D model and make analysis of whether we can proceed on our route or we have to

02:32avoid the weather for the safety of the aircraft.

02:35We provide like free Wi-Fi internet service for the passengers.

02:39We have a worldwide winning in-flight entertainment system, where we can have the chance to choose

02:48between on-demand 2000 channels, let's blockbuster movies, TV episodes, radio, music, which satisfy

02:57the needs of most passengers and nationalities that they fly with Emirates.

03:08All these advanced aircraft, what we do, we program the flight from A to B on the ground.

03:14Everything, the route, the performance, every aspect of the flight, it is stored in the computer.

03:23After airborne, of course, the take-off, the taxi is manually flown.

03:28After airborne, we want to relieve the pilot so he can concentrate on other things like

03:34air traffic control, communication, surrounding traffic in the vicinity to raise his awareness.

03:42So we give the auto flight system the responsibility to follow what we have programmed, but we

03:49are there to monitor how it is performing and to intervene if needed.

03:54The footprint of the 380 on the greenhouse is reduced significantly.

04:01You can say that the 380 burns 20% less fuel per seat compared to the next largest aircraft

04:11in the market, which is a significant milestone in fuel reduction and fuel emission.

04:17The composite material that they built the aircraft with, the new wing design and the

04:23efficient and advanced engines, this brought down the fuel consumption to a significant level.

04:33I'll tell you something which is really amazing.

04:35I flew the 320 on my previous company before joining Emirates, and in Emirates I flew the 330, 340, and the 380.

04:43I can tell you that flying the 380 is the most enjoyable aircraft for me.

04:49The maneuverability and the smoothness of the response of the aircraft is way ahead

04:57of my previous types, so no, it doesn't really matter how big and how large the aircraft

05:04is, it's how the aircraft reacts to your input, which is really amazing.

05:10It's every pilot's dream to fly the 380.

05:13I was very excited, very eager, very privileged to be on the 380, so I'm quite satisfied

05:18and happy with me being able to fly the 380.

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