Since its first test flight in 2005, the Airbus A380 has been the undisputed mastodont of the skies. Of course, Howard Hughes' "Spruce Goose" had longer wing span, the Airbus A340-600 has a longer fuselage and the Antonov An-225 is the worlds heaviest aircraft. But when it comes to moving the biggest numbers of passengers, the A380 is the airliner. A bit on the side here, but the most passengers ever to squeeze together on one flight, was during Operation Solomon in 1991, when Israel evacuated Ethiopian Jews from Ethiopia. 1086 people were airlifted at once in a Boeing 747!
Being a modern airliner, the Airbus A380 is stuffed with technology, the cockpit is literally wall-to-wall carpeted with knobs and screens. In true Airbus tradition, the cockpit shares a lot of commonality with the other airplane models in the Airbus family. Of course, a pilot has to have a special rating to be able to pilot the gigantic A380, but pilots flying one of the smaller Airbus models will be familiar with the general layout of the cockpit.
In the video below you can get a guided tour in the Airbus A380 cockpit, by Lufthansa's chief pilot Juergen Raps. Amazing!
The conventional propeller airplanes has propellers that "pull" the aircraft through the air. Not so with the Italian made Piaggio P180 Avanti. This up to nine passenger plane has engines at the back of the airplane, with propellers that push.
It has a pressurized cabin, enabeling it to operate at 41,000 feet. It is the fastest turboprop in the world, with a speed of 395 knots (about 730 km/h). In addition to the unusual engine arrangement, it has the main wings at the aft of the aircraft, and "canard" wings on the nose.
Check out this video, where you get the P180s cocpit explained!
About the design (from Wikipedia): The Avanti's turboprop engines are placed on a mid-fuselage, high aspect ratio wing, located behind the cabin. The design utilizes both a T-tail and a pair of small, fixed anhedral forward wings that lack control surfaces.
The arrangement of the wing surfaces allows all three to provide lift, as opposed to a conventional configuration, where the horizontal stabilizer creates a downward force to counteract the nose-down moment generated by the center of gravity being forward of the center of lift. This is patented as "Three-Lifting-Surface Configuration" (3LSC).
The Avanti II's forward wing has flaps that move in concert with main wing flaps. The forward wing pitch angle is set so it stalls before the main wing, producing an automatic nose-down effect; its five degree negative dihedral keeps the stream wash interference clear of the engine inlets, the main wing and the horizontal stabilizer
