As the world's largest passenger aircraft, the Airbus A380 had to deal with a fair few design hurdles to meet regulations. One such hurdle was making sure the three-floor tall emergency slides could inflate in just six seconds as required. Here's the secret of how Airbus made this task possible.

New ideas, only technology

Clearing out 853 passengers in 90 seconds using only half the exits. This was the challenge facing Airbus, one it had to complete to achieve regulatory approval. While this is usually not a problem for most aircraft, the A380s sheer size means that it can hold double the usual passengers and is extremely tall when measured from the ground up.

Most planes use a combination of compressed gas and aspirators (funnels) to fill up the slides. This allows them to inflate quickly and enables passengers to evacuate. However, the situation wasn't so simple for the A380.

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The A380 was a first-of-its-kind aircraft, meaning many new changes to meet strict regulations. Photo: Getty Images

Airbus had to design new evacuation slides that could inflate in six seconds and reach over 75 feet. According to Richard Hammond's Engineering Connections show, the European giant relied on a mix of old technology and new ideas to make this possible. Hint: think rockets and funnels.

Special tool

To ensure the slides could meet the six-second mark, Airbus added a secret ingredient to the usual formula for slides. In particular, this was a rocket-powered disperser. The exhaust from the rocket is funneled into the slide to increase the speed of inflation.

The rocket-powered disperser is combined with several aspirators, a kind of funnel. The aspirators draw in air from the outside with the gas exhaust, providing the amount of air needed to fill up the massive inflatable slides from the upper deck of the A380. This turned out to be the winning formula for Airbus.

Any aircraft with doors six feet above the ground needs an evacuation slide, an easy bar for the A380. Photo: Getty Images

The A380s slides can actually fill up in four seconds, two seconds ahead of the regulatory requirement. This ensured that all 853 passengers (assuming an all-economy maximized layout) could clear out in less than 90 seconds using only slides on one side.

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End of an era

While the A380 has many unique features, manufacturers have likely made the last of the superjumbo's unique slides. This is because the last A380 was handed over to Emirates on 22nd December, marking the end of the program. The event was marked by a special ceremony, which included the first A380, F-WWOW, and the last A380, A6-EVS, exchanging some ideas.

Airbus, Emirates, Final A380
The last two A380s shared some thoughts before A6-EVS made its way to its new home in Dubai. Photo: Airbus - Lutz Borck

Despite the end of the A380 program, the type will be in the skies for over a decade, largely thanks to Emirates' massive 121-aircraft fleet. Let's just hope there are no safety incidents that need passengers to test the four-second slide inflation feature.