Singapore Air show 1 - A380, on the road.

The A380, on the road. Top Gear, anyone?

Here are some pictures of the Airbus A380 from the Singapore Air Show on 24th February. What a beautiful bird that is. Its not a powerful beast of a machine, nor is it an out and out stunner. But when you actually see it with your own eyes, the full scope of what Airbus has tried to achieve and accomplished with this bird becomes stunningly clear. And its this feat of engineering wizardry that had so many eyes popping at Changi.

For its flying display, the A380 had to be moved from the static display area to the runway on the Changi Air Base. With no space or logistics to bring another aircraft, the single aircraft had to double up for both roles. This meant that it had to pass through the 6 lane road which separated the static display area from the runway on the Changi air base. This road is special in that it is 6 laned and has no central divider or street lights. It can thus be used as a runway in case of emergencies. So they had to tow the A380 across the road; and thats exactly what they did.

This towing of the A380, closely followed by an F-15, (which wasnt on flying display actually, which makes its towing somewhat of a mystery), caused a 20 minute long traffic jam on the road. Hope you like the pictures. Each of the pictures is around 1.7 MB in size. The images are original size of 2560 x 1920 pixels.

The beginnings of the jam. The sign on the left explains the situation succinctly.

Cars of Singapore vs the Superjumbo. This picture provides probably the clearest indicator that the A380 is on the road, judging by the engines on the starboard wing.

A380 turns into the Changi Air base
The F-15 that followed just behind the giantess - wonder what it was doing there.

Well on its way in- theres that sign again, facing the wrong way!