The world's silliest plane

[Gnarly Gnu]

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The World’s Silliest Plane Takes Off for a ‘Once-in-a-Lifetime’ Stunt

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The coolest planes in all of France have flown in formation together, and we couldn’t be happier about it.

 

 

 

 

 

On Friday May 30, fighter jets with the country’s top (only?) aerobatic flying team took to the skies over Toulouse alongside the Airbus Beluga, the funky cargo plane we love more every time we see it.

 

 

 

 

 

Airbus developed the Beluga, known by the more serious among us as the A300-600ST Super Transporter, in the 1990s to carry wings and fuselages between assembly plants. Derived from the A300, the plane looks more like its namesake Cetacean or the alien supervillain Megamind than something that can get off the ground, let alone keep up with eight of the blue, white, and red Alphajets of the Armée de l’Air."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[eightyknots]

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The World’s Silliest Plane Takes Off for a ‘Once-in-a-Lifetime’ Stunt

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

"The coolest planes in all of France have flown in formation together, and we couldn’t be happier about it.

 

 

 

 

 

On Friday May 30, fighter jets with the country’s top (only?) aerobatic flying team took to the skies over Toulouse alongside the Airbus Beluga, the funky cargo plane we love more every time we see it.

 

 

 

 

 

Airbus developed the Beluga, known by the more serious among us as the A300-600ST Super Transporter, in the 1990s to carry wings and fuselages between assembly plants. Derived from the A300, the plane looks more like its namesake Cetacean or the alien supervillain Megamind than something that can get off the ground, let alone keep up with eight of the blue, white, and red Alphajets of the Armée de l’Air."

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I wonder if the crew were doing a stint of recreational flying?

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Bandit12]

Reminds me of the Super Guppy....

 

 

[M61A1]

I don't understand how Boeing and Airbus reckon that it's more economical to make large aircraft components and transport them large distances. Boeing transport fuselages across the country on trains ( some ended up in a river last week), and various other bits are made worldwide and shipped in. Airbus do similarly, with A380 wings made elsewhere ( I think Wales), and barged out. Surely it would be more economical to assemble all the small bits into large bits when facilities are close together.

 

 

[Old Koreelah]

Politics. Every nation wants to have an aerospace industry, and every politician is trying to boost employment in his constituency. When the major purchase deals are being done, concessions are made to the customer. "We'll buy your airliner if you employ some of our people to build the rudder trim tabs in our country..." The US is no different to the EU in subsidising employment in depressed localities for politician reasons.

 

 

[M61A1]

Politics. Every nation wants to have an aerospace industry, and every politician is trying to boost employment in his constituency. When the major purchase deals are being done, concessions are made to the customer. "We'll buy your airline if you employ some of our people to build the rudder trim tanks in our country..." The US is no different to the EU in subsidising employment in depressed localities for politician reasons.

I can understand it when it involves smaller, easily shipped components, but whe you need to build an aircraft specially designed to carry big bits, you've crossed the line to stupidity. Another example is the International Trade in Arms regulations (ITARs), because military stuff is not allowed to be built on civvie production lines, to build an AEW&C or maritime recce aircraft, they have to build a complete civvie aircraft (like a 737), then wheel it into another hanger, then disassemble half of it, and put it together in a different form. The amount of defence money wasted on complying with ridiculous regs is astronomical.

 

 

[Head in the clouds]

I don't understand how Boeing and Airbus reckon that it's more economical to make large aircraft components and transport them large distances. Boeing transport fuselages across the country on trains ( some ended up in a river last week), and various other bits are made worldwide and shipped in. Airbus do similarly, with A380 wings made elsewhere ( I think Wales), and barged out. Surely it would be more economical to assemble all the small bits into large bits when facilities are close together.

In case anyone hasn't seen it before, here is a great video showing the transporting of major components of the A380 from all over Europe and final assembly of them in France -

 

 

 

[eightyknots]

Politics. Every nation wants to have an aerospace industry, and every politician is trying to boost employment in his constituency. When the major purchase deals are being done, concessions are made to the customer. "We'll buy your airline if you employ some of our people to build the rudder trim tabs in our country..." The US is no different to the EU in subsidising employment in depressed localities for politician reasons.

It also happens in other industries too but it just seems far more outrageous in the aerospace industry because of the sheer size of the components.

 

They also transport very large components by truck. I was in Seattle a few years back and the longest load I have ever seen on a road was being transported along a major motorway. It was a Boeing component. The interesting thing is that, because the freeways were five lanes wide at that point, it hardly made an impression on the traffic flow. My hire car from Canada (calibrated in km/h) clocked this load doing nearly 70 km/h.

 

 

[facthunter]

These speciality Silliest planes are only based on some standard model with an additional bulky bit added. I doubt they actually cost a lot. They piggyback the space shuttle. Some of them don't handle or perform that well being a bit of a challenge to handle, but they do a job. Carrying assembled jet engines around is less damaging by air. Nev

 

 

[AVOCET]

I can understand it when it involves smaller, easily shipped components, but whe you need to build an aircraft specially designed to carry big bits, you've crossed the line to stupidity. Another example is the International Trade in Arms regulations (ITARs), because military stuff is not allowed to be built on civvie production lines, to build an AEW&C or maritime recce aircraft, they have to build a complete civvie aircraft (like a 737), then wheel it into another hanger, then disassemble half of it, and put it together in a different form. The amount of defence money wasted on complying with ridiculous regs is astronomical.

You would trust to a contract-freight service to deliver your nice new A380 wing .????

I carn't even get a motor delivered interstate without damage !( last insurance job had to be shipped back again ) . That's the reason they look after the fragile stuff themselves .

 

Mike

 

 

[M61A1]

You would trust to a contract-freight service to deliver your nice new A380 wing .????I carn't even get a motor delivered interstate without damage !( last insurance job had to be shipped back again ) . That's the reason they look after the fragile stuff themselves .

Mike

My point was that, it should be more cost effective to make it in one place, rather than several different places then transport it.

 

 

[Zibi]

My point was that, it should be more cost effective to make it in one place, rather than several different places then transport it.

If you want to talk about silly transportation endeavors check this out:

 

 

And this is the route it took:

 

 

However, the sheer size of the KATRIN main spectrometer was a design disadvantage in one very distinct and very obvious way, which can be visually seen (and watched) in the YouTube video found at the link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dmmVb779NP4. The spectrometer was a challenge to transport. The main spectrometer was assembled in Deggendorf, which is 400 km from Karlsruhe; however, the spectrometer was too large to be transported by any road or canal between the two towns, so a 9000 km journey that circumnavigated what is practically the entirety of Europe was undertaken

More of the story in here http://sites.psu.edu/amh5892edsgn100/2012/09/25/the-karlsruhe-tritium-neutrino-experiment-main-spectrometer/

 

 

[eightyknots]

If you want to talk about silly transportation endeavors check this out:

And this is the route it took:

 

 

More of the story in here http://sites.psu.edu/amh5892edsgn100/2012/09/25/the-karlsruhe-tritium-neutrino-experiment-main-spectrometer/

That's a crazy journey. That begs the question: why didn't they make one of these units slightly closer to the final installation position?

 

 

[eightyknots]

I noticed that they avoided Ukraine!

 

 

[jetjr]

Cost more to have a full container moved 500km inside Australia than the freight from other side of USA to Sydney - no wide load, no DG which are xtras.