Airbus stumbles as it tries to transition from A380 Wave 1 to Wave 2 design

The latest delivery delays have arisen as Airbus's effort to bring the
first "Wave 2" A380 (MSN026) with redesigned wiring harnesses to
"power-on" status has taken around three-and-a-half months longer than
expected. This aircraft should have reached this milestone in December,
but it did not occur until late April.

Airbus executive vice-president of programmes Tom Williams attributes
the slip to the "learning-curve effect" and the need to mobilise a team
of 600 personnel - of whom 400 have been sourced externally - to handle
the new digital mock-up and design techniques being employed on the
aircraft. A380 programme chief Mario Heinen says that the problem was
compounded by the fact that the rewiring of the "Wave 1" aircraft took
longer than expected when the recovery plan was drawn up in 2006, which
prevented expertise from being transferred to the Wave 2 effort. "We
burnt up our contingencies," he says.

Heinen says there are 17 assembled A380s in Toulouse and Hamburg in
various stages of testing. Sections for the next A380 (for Singapore
Airlines) recently entered the assembly jig and subassemblies for the
following aircraft are being worked on in Toulouse.

On 20 May 2008 22:47:27 +1000, GB kickindanuts.threefiddy.com>
wrote:

Plenty more current distractions besides that one too -
http://tinyurl.com/5pl8ef

Ned

"Rob." mine.com.> wrote in message
news:48328f97_3@news.peopletelecom.com.au...

There was a dead Singapore Airlines A380 parked out in the scrub at Mascot
yesterday. Presumably waiting for parts as I can't think of any other
reason for having so much money doing nothing.

RT wrote:

Thats has happened a few times around the place and had to transfer
passengers to a 747 flight.

or as it arrives in syd at 6am and departs 3.30pm would they leave it
at the gate all that time??

"Rob" mine.com> wrote in message
news:4837cc16$1_2@news.peopletelecom.com.au...

That might explain it.