Product Description

The comprehensive Channel 4 series offering exclusive access to the story of the construction of the world's biggest and heaviest airliner, told through the people who made it happen. The Airbus A380 is more advanced than any airliner that has flown before and can fly non-stop a third of the way around the world. It is three times as long as a blue whale and five times as heavy. The tip of the plane tail is as tall as an eight storey building. The four Rolls Royce engines, built in Derby, cost the same as four tons of solid gold. This absorbing Channel 4 series documents the construction and assembly of the A380 by tens of thousands of people in teams from Britain, France, Germany and Spain. The components are transported thousands of miles by land and sea for final assembly in Toulouse. The multi-million pound wings are manufactured in Broughton, Wales. Their journey to France includes heart-stopping navigation under a bridge, where the water level must be precisely calculated to avoid disaster. There is no margin for error. Dramatic tests are carried out on the engines and landing gear but as delays creep in, the day for revealing the plane to the world has been set and behind-the-scenes tension mounts. Finally, the world's press, Heads of State, major airlines and ten thousand VIPs arrive in Toulouse to witness the historic test flight of the most ambitious plane ever. The test flight was a massive news event around the world. Later this year, Singapore Airlines will be the first carrier to launch commercial A380 flights. THE GIANT OF THE SKIES will have broad appeal as both a celebration of cutting edge technological achievement and as a gripping record of human endeavour under fierce pressure and real jeopardy.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #12820 in DVD
• Released on: 2007-12-03
• Rating: Exempt
• Format: PAL
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 147 minutes

Synopsis
Go behind the scenes of the construction and assembly of the Airbus A380, the world's biggest airliner.

Customer Reviews

Very Comprehensive
This is by far one of the most well made documentary on the A380 that I have ever seen. Though Channel 4 tends to offer a slightly more in-depth view of the Airbus UK factories, the documentary as a whole is solid and covers wide range of issues in building such a prototype. Whether it is from the marketing perspective (e.g. John Leahy trying to please the customers), engineering (interior design, landing gears, destroying engines), logistics (coordinating with mainly four but up to twenty two countries that helped build the A380) and testing, this is a film that'll worth your time and broaden your views on the complexity of the commercial aircraft business.

A Business School Case Study
Not really very entertaining. The storyline reminds one of Business School case study => and for such purpose this DVD will certainly earn 4 STARS. The quality of the footage is very good but the DVD should have rather been "broken up" in more digestible subsections. Far too little interaction with the test pilots are shown and it was disappointing not to see any significant "out of the cockpit" footage of the various test flights and test flights regimes. Certainly not a memorable DVD.