AF66: explosion of a GP7200 reactor on Airbus A380 over the Atlantic

[Christophe]

Is that so? It does not fit into the hold of the A380?

No, there is no 'cargo' A380.

Uh the whole message was humorous ...

[Gaston]

Uh the whole message was humorous ...

However, this is the reality.

A Cargo version of the A380 (without intermediate bridge) was planned but was soon abandoned at the start of the program.
Suddenly, the engine cannot enter, neither in the hold, nor in the bridges.

[Christophe]

Why was the cargo version so quickly abandoned?

[Did67]

She had no more customers. Only DHL, I believe, took options and then abandoned ...

[I think they are looking for "small airports", well located in relation to the motorway networks, allowing traffic at night, and probably not too taxed; not sure that an A380, which is one of the "pists killers", can land. They thought of making Entzheim one of their base, before the residents protested. Or was it UPS?]

[Gaston]

Why was the cargo version so quickly abandoned?

From what I know, it was no longer of great interest because if the A380 is very large (also in interior volume), its maximum takeoff weight is not much higher than the other existing aircraft.

Compared to a 747 in cargo version, the A380cargo would have offered 60% more volume, but only (less) 30% more transportable mass.

That means A380 freighter would not have made any significant progress for carriers compared to existing aircraft and that they would not have been able to reach the occupancy rates necessary to make an operation profitable.

Hence, as Did67 says the absence of customers (there are only feather pillow carriers who would have found their account )

[Christophe]

I saw I read I understood

Uh Gaston, what is your opinion on the use of the reactor of the Bourget museum for the repatriation of the A380?

There are no emergency backup reactors stored anywhere in the world?

And A380s are being manufactured right now ...

[Gaston]

Uh Gaston, what is your opinion on the use of the reactor of the Bourget museum for the repatriation of the A380?

There are no emergency backup reactors stored anywhere in the world?

And A380s are being manufactured right now ...

Frankly I do not know...

I do not believe that there is a stock of spare parts of this size (and this cost, it would represent a significant financial downtime).

Even if there are some available on the assembly line, why take the risk of damaging it (and delaying a delivery by several weeks or months)?
If we take that of Le Bourget and flank it, they may wait a while for it to be (visually) rehabilitated.

On the other hand, it may not be easy to take it out of the museum

[chatelot16]

maybe even more simply that considering the damage it was not possible to put back into service a new engine without major work on the plane

so no need to walk a new engine just to plug the hole in the plane: the engine of the museum does the trick perfectly and it can take its place at the museum then ... and that avoids transporting a real new engine that would have lost its new engine value with this adventure

doing the work directly to operate a new engine would spoil the possibility of expertise to find the origin of the fault ... mounting an engine only to plug the hole left may be more possibility of expertise then

flying the plane without a passenger on 3 engines will not be a problem

[Gaston]

I think there was never any question of connecting the engine to make the return flight, whether new or coming from the museum.

It's just a matter of having a "normal" weight and aerodynamic setup.

A new engine is absolutely not necessary, but there is also no plethora of "refurbished" engines.

[Christophe]

maybe even more simply that considering the damage it was not possible to put back into service a new engine without major work on the plane

Good suggestion I think this is the good reason because since a big check up of the plane will be necessary, it is useless to real estate a new engine as long as the check up of the rest of the plane is not finished ... and this one will surely take long weeks ... Especially since this will be linked to the progress of the investigation ...

I think there was never any question of connecting the engine to make the return flight, whether new or coming from the museum.

It's just a matter of having a "normal" weight and aerodynamic setup.

Yes that's what the cosmos air article says well