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Airbus A380 vs. North American XB-70 Valkyrie -...
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Airbus A380 vs North American XB-70 Valkyrie - Comparison

Airbus A380
North American XB-70 Valkyrie
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Airbus A380

Airbus A380

The Airbus A380 is a wide-body aircraft manufactured by Airbus. It's the world's largest passenger airliner. Airbus studies began in 1988 and the project was declared to challenge the dominance of the Boeing 747. The A3XX project was introduced in 1994; Airbus launched the $9.5 billion ($10.7 billion) A380 programme on 19 December 2000. The prototype was unveiled in Toulouse on 18 January 2005, Using its first flight on 27 April 2005. Difficulties in electrical wiring caused a delay and the development cost ballooned to $18 billion. It obtained its type certificate from the European Aviation Safety Agency (EASA) and the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on 12 December 2006. It was first delivered to Singapore Airlines on 15 October 2007 and entered service on 25.



Production peaked in 2012 and 2014 at 30 each year. However, Airbus admits that its $25 billion investment for the aircraft can't be recouped. On 14 after Emirates reduced its orders that were in favour of the A330neo and the A350, Airbus announced that A380 production would end by 2021. The aircraft nicknamed the superjumbo, has a normal seating capacity of 525, though it is certified for up to 853 passengers. It's powered by four Engine Alliance GP7200 or Rolls-Royce Trent 900 turbofans providing a range of 8,000 nmi (14,800 km). As of December 2019, Airbus has received 251 company orders and delivered 242 aircraft; Emirates is the largest customer with 123 of.

Source: Wikipedia
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North American XB-70 Valkyrie

North American XB-70 Valkyrie

The North American Aviation XB-70 Valkyrie was the prototype version of the planned B-70 nuclear-armed, deep-penetration supersonic strategic bomber for the United States Air Force Strategic Air Command. Designed in the late 1950s by North American Aviation (NAA), the six-engined Valkyrie was capable of cruising for thousands of miles at Mach 3+ while flying at 70,000 feet (21,000 m). At these speeds, it was expected that the B-70 would be practically immune to interceptor aircraft, the only effective weapon against bomber aircraft at the time. The bomber would spend only a brief time over a particular radar station, flying out of its range before the controllers could position their fighters in a suitable location for an interception. High speed also made the aircraft difficult to see on radar displays and its high-altitude and high-speed capacity could not be matched by any contemporaneous Soviet interceptor or fighter aircraft. The introduction of the first Soviet surface-to-air missiles in the late 1950s put the near-invulnerability of the B-70 in doubt. In response, the United States Air Force (USAF) began flying its missions at low level, where the missile radar's line of sight was limited by terrain.



In this low-level penetration role, the B-70 offered little additional performance over the B-52 it was meant to replace, while being far more expensive with shorter range. Other alternate missions were proposed, but these were of limited scope. With the advent of intercontinental ballistic missiles (ICBMs) during the late 1950s, manned bombers were increasingly seen as obsolete. The USAF eventually gave up fighting for its production and the B-70 program was canceled in 1961. Development was then turned over to a research program to study the effects of long-duration high-speed flight. As such, two prototype aircraft, designated XB-70A, were built; these aircraft were used for supersonic test-flights during 1964–69. In 1966, one prototype crashed after colliding with a smaller aircraft while flying in close formation; the remaining Valkyrie bomber is in the National Museum of the United States Air Force near Dayton, Ohio.

Source: Wikipedia

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