I know the A380 is coming to Dulles today, and really want to go get a first hand look at this monster. I tried pulling up track info by plane type and route…but am unable to locate an eta at Dulles. Does anyone have any information or a link where I can find this information?
Thanks
Kim
Manassas, VA
Finally found it. Sadly, it will be landing during darkness. I am going to hope to catch it during it’s test flight tomorrow.
Information About A380 Visit to Dulles (Updated Friday, March 23)
Lufthansa Airline and Airbus are bringing the A380 to Dulles Airport for a route-proving flight. The aircraft is expected to arrive at Dulles some time after 9 p.m. on Sunday, March 25 and depart some time after 9 p.m. on Monday, March 26. A demonstration flight is scheduled for Monday, March 26 between the hours of 11 a.m. and 1 p.m. However, the organizers of this event have not made arrangements for the general public to view the aircraft. Public areas of the airport do not offer a good view of the A380 when it is parked on the airfield. Views of the take-off and landing of the demonstration flight from public areas of the airport are also limited due to the configuration of the airfield. Dulles Airport will be operating normally throughout this event. If you come to the airport, please be mindful of passengers who will be traveling those days. Do not park in unauthorized areas, which will be patrolled by Airports Authority Police.
This was discussed here a month ago. I don’t think there’s any more info than what you just dug up, though. Hope you get out to see it, and welcome to the discussions board!
(I’m glad to see that the folks at IAD have simply asked spotters to use courtesy to passenger traffic, instead of Chicago’s “Stay Home, We’ll take pictures!!” public service announcement.)
It stinks that they are parking it where the general public will have a hard time seeing it. Not that IAD is the most “spotter friendly” airport to begin with. My guess is that the best view will either be by folks who are actually travelling through IAD, or going to the tower at Udvar-Huazy, which I might do on the way home from work tomorrow if I can find out where they have parked the plane. 
Thanks for the welcome. My dad worked for Pratt and Whitney, and I grew up loving planes. I primarily use this to track my sisters flights as she travels hither and yon…and occasionally to track my favorite NASCAR drivers as they go from track to track. 
Hiya! New to all this. How do you track Nascar flights? Who is your driver? Me? #26. My hubby and son are #48 fans and my daughter is a #9 fan 
Thanks! Nat
Nat: Welcome. Try searching, instead of just posting a random question in the middle of an unrelated topic. Click here to see a whole 5-page discussion filled with NASCAR tail numbers. Enter one of them in the “Flight/Tail #” Box to the left, and you’ll see the most recent (or current) flight for that a/c.
Well, I headed out to Dulles to take a look…and the darned thing was parked on the far side of the D concourse. There were half a dozen spotters who had been camped on top of the Daily 2 garage, and had the chance to watch it during it’s test flights today…they said it was awesome.
Well, as I mentioned in THIS THREAD, I got with my instructor to get me into KIAD for the event. He was concerned about “playing with the big boys in their sandbox”, so he wanted another IFR pilot with him, so we took a 4-place Piper Warrior N20977.
It was a big guessing game as to which FBO we would park at once we arrived. Signature is at the north end of 1R/19L and Landmark is at the North end of 1L/19R. We called the Dulles ATIS on the phone, and they were reporting arrivals on 19L and 19R and departures on 30. We figured our best chance would be to go to Landmark where we could at least see the departure from 2 miles away, and hopefully it would arrive on 19R.
We were ready to depart Winchester, VA (KOKV) at 11:20 EDT and called clearance delivery - they made us wait 10 minutes. We shut the plane down and waited - then called them back - they made us wait another 10 minutes. I was concerned about missing the takeoff. We called again and got our clearance and squak code and were off at about 11:40 EDT.
We got clearance to the COGAN fix and then told to expect vectors in from there. After we were airborne, the controller told us we’d see the Airbus 12 miles to the southwest… Yeah - we missed the takeoff, but we were able to make it out in the distance during arrival. Hopefully we’d get to see it land.
Even though the ATIS was reporting departures on runway 30, we were vectored for landing on the same runway, 12, in the opposite direction! Hey - whatever works for them…
So we taxiied down Q to Z, and then down the entire length of Z down to Landmark (AIRPORT DIAGRAM). As we were taxiing, we noticed a plane approaching on 19R. It just happened to be “The Whale”! We were near the area where it touched down on the parallel taxiway! Just dumb luck! I got video of it, but no pictures. I’ll post the video on YouTube soon, and then post a link to it here. As it turns out, I never actually saw the plane with my eyes - I watched it all through the viewfinder of my camcorder 
(emoticon quota filled for March and April)
EDIT: Thanks again to Planeaholic for providing me with the details of the event!
Here’s a link to a panorama of the plane at the Washington Post website:
washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/co … 00459.html
And here is a panorama of part of the interior:
Sorry for the jerky video quality, but here it is…
Link to my video of A380 at KIAD
Edit:
You can see our plane at 1 minute and 16 seconds at the bottom of this youtube video:
Airbus A380 Landing Dulles IAD - YouTube)
And you can see our tail go behind the UPS jet at the very end of this video:
- YouTube)
Ah yes, the infamous IAD people-movers. 
Nat: Welcome. Try searching, instead of just posting a random question in the middle of an unrelated topic. Click here to see a whole 5-page discussion filled with NASCAR tail numbers. Enter one of them in the “Flight/Tail #” Box to the left, and you’ll see the most recent (or current) flight for that a/c.
Sorry didn’t feel it was unrelated, I was really sending that to “ksrgatorfn” they posted something about Nascar. My mistake I guess was that I didn’t “quote” their post. I am learning.
Either way I did search (and found nascar tail numbers) but found nothing to explain what to do with them once I had them, but your post helped me to learn. Thank you.
Nat
Im sorry I missed the 380. The only pictures I have seen were proving run pics from the website. That thing is a monster! The same day the 380 got to IAD, UAL moved two 747-400’s into position for the start of two new Pacific routes from IAD…
