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The world’s 13th richest man has set a new standard for billionaire opulence with the first VIP order for the A380 superjumbo.
Saudi prince Alwaleed bin Talal, who topped the Forbes Arabia rich list last year, has invested a small piece of his estimated $20.3 billion fortune in an Airbus “Flying Palace”, which is priced out of most tycoons’ range with a retail price of $310 million.
David Velupillai added that the A380 gave Prince Alwaleed considerably more room than his smaller 747-400.
“He will get 50% more floor space. What a lot of corporate jet customers want is to trade up to something bigger and better. If you already have a 747, then bigger and better is an A380.”
Alwaleed, a cousin of the Saudi King Abdullah, is invested in Citigroup, News Corporation and Time Warner – aside from the stuff under the ground in Saudi Arabia.
Cripes! He beat Paul Allen to it.
Almost all of these we can expect will be bought by dictators or corporate executives. People wasting other people’s money.
Too bad they can’t get the price down to where everyone could have one.
#2: well, what’s better for all of us, having some bloke have 380Mio$ sitting in a bank account or having him pay that same money to a company that employs thousands of normal people?
pj
Makes me mad to see what the exorbenant prices we are paying for oil go to.
#3 – What do you mean. I got a hybrid A380 Prius that smells like french fries when I fly it. It’s only by-product is water so when I fly by everyone thinks it’s raining. I’m still trying to overcome that extension cord thing though. I think if every one brings their own extension cord when they get a ticket we can solve this.
OMFSM — According to the spec sheet for the A380:
* My old Citabria could taxi inside the fuselage upper deck, from the flight deck door to the aft of the plane and gain enough airspeed to lift off
* If the A380 were a high-winger, I could land on the wing (with a 20 kt. headwind at 0C)
* The A380 holds more fuel (94,000 US Gal) for one flight than I’ve burned in 10 years
* If I won the lottery, I couldn’t afford to fly it. I guess a Saudi Prince has all the Jet-A he needs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A380
AA pilot Ernest K. Gann, on looking at the DC-3 for the first time said, “Do you ever think we’ll learn to fly anything this big?” Of course, that was when pilots were required to carry a hammer in their flight bag. Anyone know why? One BRDDA for the correct answer.
Bubba… 9400Gal of fuel a year for a Citabria? that’s 300 hours worth of fuel. Are you really flying that much? For a private, that would be impressive…
pj
on my #9 again… I was obviously confusing USgal and Liters again… the Citabria shouldn’t consume more than 10gal/h? you’d be flying an awful lot in 10 years with that amount…
pj
#8, Bubba,
My guess is the hammer would be for passengers that had a hard time sleeping.
#9, pjakobs, the Citabria was for fun, maybe 250 hrs/yr at 8 -10 gph. That’s only 20 hrs./mo., so I was off a little. It was the C-310R with the Lycoming TIO-540 Vs that sucked the gas. Geez, did it ever.
#11, Mr. Fusion, great guess, and funnier than the truth. 🙂
Pilots on the -3 flightline carried a hammer so they could open a small vent window next to the windscreen (just like 50’s cars), reach out and hammer the windscreen to break up ice.
I’ve been trying to find that great photo of Ernie Gann looking up at that first DC-3, to no avail. But here’s what he saw that 1st day:
http://www.centercomp.com/dc3/gifs/dc3-8-16.gif