Emirates Captain Hesham Essawy talks about his experience as one of the first to pilot the Airbus A380 aircraft. See more at: http://gulfnews.com/gntv
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00:00When I fly the 380, I feel safe because of the excellent and reliability of the aircraft.
00:15I feel comfortable because of the design of the layout of the cockpit systems procedures
00:21and I feel amazed with the smooth performance and maneuverability of the aircraft.
00:28My first flight on the 380 was from Dubai to JFK.
00:34I felt very privileged to be among the first few to fly the 380.
00:38I can remember the excitement, the joy and the curiosity of the crew, staff and the passengers.
00:48I'll give you an example of some of the systems that we have in the aircraft like the autopilot
00:55traffic collision avoiding system, which interrogates the airplanes around the aircraft and then
01:04see if there is any possible collision course between us and the other traffic.
01:09It gives us some sort of alert system to raise our awareness about this intruder and then
01:16when we get to a certain proximity, the aircraft itself will react to this proximity and climb
01:23or descend to avoid a possible collision with the traffic.
01:28This you couldn't see it in other types or models, which is a great significant improvement.
01:35The second thing, we have very nice smart landing equipped on the 380.
01:40Because of the high rate and high density of traffic in most all over the world, all
01:49the airports now they are requiring what they call minimum runway occupancy.
01:54So they want you to land, spend less time on the runway, exit the runway.
01:59This smart landing system enable us to select where we're going to leave the runway and
02:05it decelerate the aircraft at the proper rate to get you at the proper speed to vacate the runway.
02:12We have very sophisticated weather radar system, which collect the data in front of
02:19the aircraft, get the weather cells and then generate a 3D model, where we can get access
02:25to this 3D model and make analysis of whether we can proceed on our route or we have to
02:32avoid the weather for the safety of the aircraft.
02:35We provide like free Wi-Fi internet service for the passengers.
02:39We have a worldwide winning in-flight entertainment system, where we can have the chance to choose
02:48between on-demand 2000 channels, let's blockbuster movies, TV episodes, radio, music, which satisfy
02:57the needs of most passengers and nationalities that they fly with Emirates.
03:08All these advanced aircraft, what we do, we program the flight from A to B on the ground.
03:14Everything, the route, the performance, every aspect of the flight, it is stored in the computer.
03:23After airborne, of course, the take-off, the taxi is manually flown.
03:28After airborne, we want to relieve the pilot so he can concentrate on other things like
03:34air traffic control, communication, surrounding traffic in the vicinity to raise his awareness.
03:42So we give the auto flight system the responsibility to follow what we have programmed, but we
03:49are there to monitor how it is performing and to intervene if needed.
03:54The footprint of the 380 on the greenhouse is reduced significantly.
04:01You can say that the 380 burns 20% less fuel per seat compared to the next largest aircraft
04:11in the market, which is a significant milestone in fuel reduction and fuel emission.
04:17The composite material that they built the aircraft with, the new wing design and the
04:23efficient and advanced engines, this brought down the fuel consumption to a significant level.
04:33I'll tell you something which is really amazing.
04:35I flew the 320 on my previous company before joining Emirates, and in Emirates I flew the 330, 340, and the 380.
04:43I can tell you that flying the 380 is the most enjoyable aircraft for me.
04:49The maneuverability and the smoothness of the response of the aircraft is way ahead
04:57of my previous types, so no, it doesn't really matter how big and how large the aircraft
05:04is, it's how the aircraft reacts to your input, which is really amazing.
05:10It's every pilot's dream to fly the 380.
05:13I was very excited, very eager, very privileged to be on the 380, so I'm quite satisfied
05:18and happy with me being able to fly the 380.