FRANCE: The cheers and tears of 30,000 spectators all but drowned out the rumble of jet engines yesterday as the world's largest airliner lumbered smoothly - and remarkably quietly - into the skies for the first time.
The A380 touched down again on runway 32L at Toulouse's Blagnac airport just under four hours later, completing aviation's most keenly awaited maiden flight since the supersonic Concorde landed on the same stretch of tarmac in March 1969.
On a brilliant, cloudless spring day Airbus executives had trouble containing their delight at the plane's performance and predicted a rosy commercial future. One of the A380's test pilots, Jacques Rosay, said flying the doubledecker superjumbo was "like riding a bicycle". But for hundreds of Airbus employees, the moment was emotional.
Christian Raynaud, a metalworker, had to stop filming the 10.29am takeoff because his hands were trembling so much. "Isn't she amazing? High as a seven-storey block of flats, and she climbs into the sky just like that. She works."
The UK's BAE Systems has a 20 per cent stake in Airbus, and the A380's wings, which span almost 80 metres, are built in Filton, southwest England, and Broughton, north Wales. Four Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines generate, at full thrust, the power of 3,500 family cars. The fuselage is German and the tail Spanish, prompting President Jacques Chirac to describe the test flight as a "magnificent result for European industrial co-operation".
Designed to carry 550 passengers but with a maximum load of more than 800, the A380 had only six people - plus 296km of extra wiring and 22 tonnes of sophisticated measuring gear - on board for the flight, which took it out over the Pyrenees mountain range and the Atlantic ocean.
Roughly 30 per cent larger than its only rival, Boeing's 40-year-old 747 jumbo, the A380's advanced technology meant it could fly further, would burn 12 per cent less fuel and be up to 20 per cent cheaper to operate, the company estimated.