AirUtopia : AIRBUS A380 THE FIRST YEARS 'Super Jumbo Rising' Video DVD-(Airport, airliner, plane, airplane, aircraft FILM)

I love A380 but I don't like this DVD. This DVD contains unique footage that you can't find elsewhere, but it's pretty boring. Editing is quite primitive. Camera work so primitive (like a home movie beginner), too, that it makes you feel dizzy when watching some scenes. I don't think it's worth $25.

If you are going to follow an aircraft around the world, the least you could do is use a tripod when you film it and also use professional recording equipment instead of a cheap noise reduction filter that results in a pinging sound through some parts of the audio. Amateur job.

What a great book about a great plane.

My father is an aviation nut, so the video made a great gift. Process of ordering the item and the customer service were sensational!

The Airbus A380 jetliner, as of this writing in late December 2006, has not yet entered commercial revenue service with any airline. And yet here we have a DVD that features nothing but this enormous "Super Jumbo" in action. That's somewhat remarkable right there.But David Maxwell, who is the producer of this "Amazing Planes" DVD series (and many other aviation-related programs as well for "Aviation Data Corporation"/"AirUtopia"), has managed to place on the market "Airbus A380: The First Year", which can be considered kind of a "Video Yearbook" featuring some of the very first test flights (and air show exhibitions) of the new Airbus twin-deck behemoth.This 113-minute DVD is divided into 13 chapters and follows the A380 from its French birthplace in Toulouse, to Paris, to Frankfurt, and then to Singapore. The program then provides footage of the A380 in Sydney, Kuala Lumpur, and Dubai....and then we go to Colombia in South America, Canada in North America, and finally to Asia.It's an around-the-globe tour with the Airbus A380. The North American segment of the DVD features "deep freeze" testing, with the Super Jumbo being exposed to outside temperatures of 48 degrees below zero.Some excellent landing and takeoff footage is shown during this program, as well as several low-altitude "fly-bys" of the A380 prototypes during appearances at various air shows. And some nicely-done voice-over narration and occasional on-screen text messages provide many facts about this amazing airplane. We also get to see the A380 performing some touch-and-gos and a go-around.I was especially impressed by the seemingly-effortless way the A380 manages to lift itself off the ground during takeoff. The main landing gear comes off the ground at almost the same time as the nose wheel at the point of rotation (Vr).This "effortless takeoff" can be noted very easily on this DVD at the 1:09:35 (elapsed time) mark, when we see an A380 in the "Emirates" livery gracefully becoming airborne at Dubai International Airport. Every wheel of the airplane seems to float off the runway at just about the same time. Once the pilot "rotates" that baby, the whole thing's ready to fly! And it does!Perhaps this is due to the humongous wing area of the A380 (9,095 square feet of wing space, which is significantly more than the 5,650 square feet of wing on the Boeing 747-400).The DVD has Full-Frame video (1.33:1 aspect ratio) and crisp Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo audio. (The disc advertises "Dolby 5.1" audio, which is in error.)A FEW STATS.......The Airbus A380-800 first took to the skies on its maiden test flight at 10:29 AM on the sunny morning of April 27, 2005, when "F-WWOW" (cn 001) lifted off the Toulouse runway.When the massive double-decker enters revenue service, the A380 will surpass the mighty Boeing 747 as the largest commercial passenger aircraft ever put into service.The A380 has an amazingly-impressive wingspan that measures almost 262 feet*, with a fuselage length of more than 238 feet (which is more than 2.5 times the length of a Boeing 737-100).The tail of the A380 rises 79 feet into the sky; and the plane's MTOW (maximum takeoff weight) is more than 1.2-million pounds. Those are eyebrow-raising statistics, to say the least.* = The captioning text on this DVD is in error when it shows the A380 wingspan to be "216 feet, 10 inches". Whoever wrote those captions accidentally reversed the "6" and the "1", because the actual wingspan is 261 feet, 10 inches.When comparing the A380's physical dimensions to those of the 747, you can get a good sense of how huge this new Airbus is -- with the A380's wingspan easily surpassing the 747's wingspan (by more than 66 feet, when comparing the span to the earliest models of the 747!); while the length of the A380's fuselage outdistances the total length of Boeing's 747 by about 7 feet. And as far as tail height, the A380 stretches 16 feet higher than its Boeing Jumbo counterpart.The A380 also will have the lowest "fuel burn per passenger" of any passenger aircraft in the world, resulting in low engine emissions. In addition, it is one of the quietest aircraft ever built and complies with the world's toughest noise restrictions at London's Heathrow Airport.The A380 can accommodate 555 passengers in a standard configuration, and can seat up to 853 people in a high-density "economy" layout.-------------------------On the related subject of aviation DVD programs in general.....I've spoken by e-mail with David Maxwell, the founder and producer of the company that put out this DVD (Aviation Data Corporation/AirUtopia), and in those conversations I've been impressed by the like-mindedness that exists between Mr. Maxwell and myself when it comes to the topic of aviation programs.I have a large collection of aviation-related DVDs and VHS videos, and the ones that I tend to enjoy the most are those that have a "vintage" or "classic" flavor to them. And, as it turns out, Mr. Maxwell of AirUtopia shares this love of "old-time airliners".David has also told me that in the future he plans on releasing a series of DVD programs focusing on the 100-plus-year history of aviation, featuring quite a bit of older "vintage" film footage of airlines, airports, and airplanes of the past. This writer is looking forward to those programs very much.To quote DVD Producer David Maxwell himself on this subject:"On the 'Classic' {topic} -- well, you will be happy. I have spent 3 years and over $100,000 buying films from the 1920s to 1980s. Our company {AirUtopia} will probably have one of the biggest old aviation footage archives in the world very soon.I love the old airliners -- the history behind what and why, and seeing an old AA Boeing 720 or the first Convair 880s or 727s...or BOAC and BEA Comets to the Imperial Airways flying boats...we got all that and more.I have spent a lot of time researching the world to find these. So it will be fun for the next few years as we begin to release them step by step.We have started to test our 'Aircraft' series out with the A380 -- since it only has recent footage, it is a good starter. We will progress with the entire series of all major aircraft, covering the planes from hopefully birth to present or final flights.So you will be very happy to know your taste and my agenda will be similar -- as it has always been a dream of mine to cover aviation...covering it the entire 100 years if possible." -- David Maxwell; December 13, 2006~~~~~~I'm anxious to see some of that classic airplane footage from an earlier era of aviation history that is now long gone, but should never be forgotten. And, hopefully, it never will be....thanks to companies like "AirUtopia".David has told me it's going to take quite a while to produce all of the programs that he eventually wants to distribute on the DVD format. But he is obviously committed to putting out quality products that deal with various aspects of aviation, both old and new. And for that level of dedication to the aviation industry, I salute Mr. Maxwell proudly.-------------------------"Airbus A380: The First Year" will probably become a collectible DVD (and possibly a "classic" in its own right), due to its unique subject matter of chronicling the brand-new Super Jumbo A380 during the very first year of its existence. I know that I enjoyed this program very much and would recommend it to anyone who collects aviation-related videos and DVDs.David Von PeinDecember 2006

I ordered this DVD from "Airutopia" a while ago and the whole thing has been filmed in a very professional way. The narration part section also adds a lot of amazing information and any aviation aficionado or anybody curious about how this huge plane is being prepared from a technical point of view for it's future missions will be delighted by "Airbus A-380 "The first year" !