Harish Palaniappan's

Popularly called the super jumbo.. it is tall as a 7-storey building.. holding three floors/3 classes of spacious passenger seating... and much much more things that aviation juggernauts everywhere have-been and still are drooling over... including vijay mallaya's kingfisher airlines and air india which have ordered a few of this multi-billion dollay plane for india.

The first commercial flight of the super jumbo, operated by singapore airlines, happened thursday(news link).. from Toulouse, Australia -> Changi, Singapore. And you know what, the seats were sold on ebay months before.. I heard the highest amount was a few hundred thousand dollars for two seats on the plane.. because people felt it is part of history to fly in the worlds biggest plane first.

I have been following the stories on this plane, ever since 3 years i think. There was politics from boeing the rival, to internal politics in France, to do all sorts of things to stop it or delay it, right from acquiring most core employees of the project, to stopping access to some core components or testing facilities.. .and what not. Airbus stuck through everything, even at the cost of losing money.. they lose money if they delay delivery of the aircraft to a customer, the contracts are like that since its such a high-value product and a customer would have huge plans based on his delivery date.

My follow-on links:
What happened to the Super Jumbo?
Airbus A380 - The Super Jumbo

If you are excited to know the details of this huge boy(with photos) - here you go:
How A380 works?
A380 seating arrangement - How spacious

Kudos to Airbus... for thinking big.. so BIG.
And the picture above.. courtesy airbus website.. (click image to see bigger size) Isn't he cute ? :o)