F-WWOW: A380 MSN 1, the first superjumbo
The prototype that first flew in 2005 and is still owned by Airbus as a test aircraft in Toulouse.
Where it is right now
Loading live data…- F-WWOW…
Positions come from volunteer ADS-B receivers, so an aircraft over the ocean or away from receivers can be flying and still show as not heard.
Airbus has built 251 A380s, and the one it kept is the first. F-WWOW, manufacturer's serial number 1, was unveiled in Toulouse on January 18, 2005 before an audience of European heads of state and flew for the first time on April 27 that year with a crew of six led by chief test pilot Jacques Rosay, who said handling it was "like riding a bicycle." It was never delivered. Twenty years on it is still an Airbus aircraft, flown occasionally from Toulouse-Blagnac for tests and airshow appearances, and chosen as the platform for Airbus's hydrogen-engine demonstrator. It flies rarely, and when it does the registration W-W-O-W is the one everyone notices.
At a glance
- What it is
- Airbus A380-841, MSN 1, with Rolls-Royce Trent 900 engines
- Unveiled
- January 18, 2005, Toulouse
- First flight
- April 27, 2005, from Toulouse-Blagnac, crew of six
- Role
- Airbus flight-test aircraft; planned ZEROe hydrogen-engine demonstrator
- Registration
- F-WWOW, a French test registration; "WOW" was deliberate
- Transponder address
- 383E7A
The airplane that proved the A380
Airbus launched the A380 in December 2000 to take on the 747 at the top of the market, and MSN 1 was the first of five test aircraft built to certify it. Its first flight on April 27, 2005 lasted just under four hours and was watched by tens of thousands around Toulouse. Over the next eighteen months it flew the hardest parts of the test program, including the minimum-unstick tests that scrape the tail on the runway, cold-weather trials in Canada and the hot-and-high tests in Colombia and Ethiopia, and in October 2006 it set a record for the heaviest aircraft to fly out of the UK when it visited Farnborough. The type was certified in December 2006 and entered service with Singapore Airlines in October 2007.
The other test aircraft were refurbished and sold to airlines or retired; MSN 1 stayed with Airbus. It never carried an airline cabin and still has the water ballast tanks and instrumentation of a test airplane inside.
Twenty years of test work
Since certification MSN 1 has been Airbus's A380 for anything new: engine and systems upgrades, the trials that led to the A380's wing-rib repair program, demonstrations at the Paris Air Show in 2015 and 2017, and sustainable-fuel flights. In February 2022 Airbus announced it would be the flying testbed for ZEROe, its hydrogen-combustion engine program, with a GE Passport engine modified to burn liquid hydrogen mounted on a stub pylon at the rear fuselage and hydrogen tanks in the cabin; Airbus later slowed the hydrogen program and the demonstrator's timing has moved, so what MSN 1 flies next is not fixed. It remains airworthy and based at Toulouse, and most of its recent flights have been short test or positioning sorties from Blagnac.
How to recognize it
An A380 in Airbus's house colors, white with the blue tail and "A380" titles rather than any airline's livery, and the registration F-WWOW on the rear fuselage. Inside, there are no passenger windows blocked but also no cabin, and the aircraft sits light on its gear when it taxis. On the tracker it broadcasts F-WWOW with Airbus test callsigns beginning AIB, almost always departing and returning to Toulouse-Blagnac.
Questions
Is F-WWOW still flying?
Yes, occasionally. It is an Airbus-owned test aircraft based in Toulouse and flies for trials and demonstrations rather than on a schedule. The live panel on this page shows its last sighting.
Why is it registered F-WWOW?
F-W registrations are French test and delivery marks used by Airbus before an aircraft gets its airline registration. Airbus chose the letters WOW for the first A380 on purpose, and since the aircraft was never delivered it has kept them.
Will MSN 1 fly on hydrogen?
Airbus announced in 2022 that it would carry a hydrogen-combustion engine on a rear pylon as the ZEROe demonstrator. The program's schedule has since been pushed back, so the demonstrator's timing is uncertain.
Sources
- Airbus: A380 first flight, April 27, 2005; ZEROe demonstrator announcement, February 2022
- Wikipedia: Airbus A380 (development and testing)
- EASA type certificate A.110