Evacuation Plan Qualifies For Disney Ride Certification

ANN 04.01.07 SPECIAL EDITION: Watch out Walt... a new Disney ride is flying its way to an airport near you.

While most of the the spotlight on Airbus recently has been focused on the plight of the planemaker's German and French operations and employees, work behind the scenes has focused on the development of a new triple-deck A380 option that would seat 1,023 people in an all-economy class configuration.

Airbus has already received EASA and FAA certification for its 1,023-seat A380D, which is very novel, aviation wise, for its third deck evacuation plan.

The latest A380 variant features 24 emergency door exits, 10 on the main deck, six on the second deck, and eight on the third deck, with three separate and independent evacuations.

Wanna have some fun? Be sure to have a third-deck seat when the plane makes an emergency evacuation. As you make your way to one of the eight emergency doors, you will jump onto what is being certified by Disney as one of the quickest, highest, most thrilling rides available today down the evacuation slide.

You'll twist and turn (to avoid the other deck evacuation slides) and scream with delight during the 5.3 seconds from "jump off" to hitting the padded ground.

"It was an awesome experience, man," said 20-year old Matt Riss, a college student lucky enough to have the opportunity to test Airbus' A380 third-deck evacuation slide out. "When you jump onto the slide, you can't even see where you're going, man. I don't think there's a a thrill like it any where in the world. Like, I'd pay money to do this!"

Said Rolf Lundgren, Airbus manufacturing director responsible for the Disney ride -- oops, third deck evacuation slide, "Using the latest technology and accumulated industry experience has allowed us to be the first in providing this safe new evacuation method. Everyone who has worked on it is very proud -- and we test it out every opportunity we can."

Airbus SAS is the aircraft manufacturing subsidiary of EADS N.V., a pan-European aerospace concern, based at Toulouse, France with significant operations in other European states.

FMI: www.airbus.com/A380D, www.disney.go.wheeee!.com