A380 - Commonality
While benefitting from Airbus’ industry-leading cockpit design, the A380’s flight deck has been further evolved to incorporate modern advances in technology for displays, flight management systems and navigation.
The A380 cockpit’s main instrument panel has eight identical large interactive displays, with cursor control provided through a track-ball. These displays provide a much wider panoramic view with clearer presentations, augmented by a HUD (head-up display) that increases pilot situational awareness – particularly during the approach and landing phases.
The A380's Cross Crew Qualification and Mixed Fleet Flying capabilities are highlighted in this diagram.
The A380 leverages Airbus’ expertise in aircraft design, sharing a large degree of commonality in systems, flight deck, procedures, and maintainability with the fly-by-wire A320 and A330/A340 and A350 XWB Families. Benefits of this unique approach include unmatched flexibility, highly-efficient operations and reduced costs.
Pilots do not need extensive amounts of training to transfer from one aircraft type to another, increasing their productivity and reducing the training costs associated with the Airbus fly-by-wire families’ Cross Crew Qualification and Mixed Fleet Flying concepts.
Airbus commonality extends from the flight deck into the passenger cabin as well, with a maximum use of similar systems, control panels and procedures within the various aircraft families. As a result, cabin personnel also benefit from familiarity of aspects on various Airbus types, while aircraft maintenance is streamlined by the high inter-changeability of systems and parts.
...sidestick control: The A380 may be the largest airliner ever built, but a pilot who has flown an aircraft of the A320, A330/A340 and A350 XWB Families will feel right at home in its cockpit. For example, the A380's sidestick control – introduced with full fly-by-wire by Airbus on the A320 – is the same distance from the throttle as on other Airbus passenger aircraft.
...braking: The Brake-to-Vacate system, designed by a multinational Airbus team, helps ease airport congestion and reduce the amount of time an aircraft remains on the runway. Enabling pilots to select a runway exit while the aircraft is making its landing approach, Brake-to-Vacate uses the auto-flight, flight controls, and auto-brake systems to regulate deceleration after touchdown. This allows the aircraft to reach a specified exit at the correct speed under optimum conditions.
