Super-jumbo or super-dumbo?

It's Fleet Week in San Francisco, and we have a nice view "backstage" - out where the planes regroup and make some of their turns setting up for another stunt. I noticed a few planes from the early part of the airshow go by today while working at home this afternoon, so I was keeping an eye and an ear out for the Blue Angels and had my camera out just in case it got interesting. I noticed a fairly large plane coming around, and initially thought it was a cargo plane. Then I got a better look:

An Airbus A380 (MSN 009) is in town for a "fitting" at SFO as part of a "function and reliability" flight tour. It's in town for several days, and did a few passes in today's airshow. I managed to capture a few shots as it was setting up for it's first pass. Unfortunately, nothing to provide scale, but it's definitely big and seemed relatively quiet (at least at low speed). Of course, the interesting questions will be how it performs in actual service, and if it ever becomes commercially viable or becomes another Concorde.

Here are a few more photos "backstage" of the A380 and the Blue Angels' performance in today's show:

SF Fleet Week Airshow, Friday 10/5/2007