Big bird takes wing, can carry up to 840

The world?s largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380, completed its maiden flight on Wednesday, a milestone for aviation and the European aircraft maker?s battle with American rival Boeing.

The world’s largest passenger plane, the Airbus A380, completed its maiden flight on Wednesday, a milestone for aviation and the European aircraft maker’s battle with American rival Boeing.

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The plane is a long-haul, four-engine superjumbo that can carry between 550 and 840 passengers and fly 15,000 kilometres non-stop.

The giant plane touched down to applause at 2.22 pm (1222 GMT) after a flight of just under four hours. Nearly 30,000 spectators watched the behemoth take off and land.

The white jet with a blue tail carried a crew of six and 20 metric tons of on-board test instruments. During the flight, the crew checked the plane’s handling characteristics while the on-board equipment recorded measurements for 150,000 separate parameters and beamed real-time data back to computers on the ground.

Airbus says that the A380 test-flight programme is likely to take over a year and finish soon before the plane enters service for Singapore Airlines in mid-2006.

The A380 has a catalogue price of US$282 million. So far, Airbus has booked 154 orders for the A380.