October 28, 1972: The Airbus A300, the world’s first twin-engined, widebody airliner, completes its first test flight.The A300F is used extensively a cargo aircraft. A derivative of the A300 is the Beluga. After 335 hours of test flying, restricted certification was awarded in October 1995 and the A300-600ST Beluga entered service. Four more Belugas were constructed, at a rate of roughly one per year, and all five remain in regular service. Their primary task is to carry Airbus components ready for final assembly across Europe between Toulouse, Hamburg and 9 other sites, and they do so 60 times per week. They are also available for charter work, and have been used to carry a variety of special loads, including space station components, large, very delicate artwork, industrial machinery, and entire helicopters. One Beluga was chartered to carry two complete NHI NH90s and a Eurocopter Tiger from Europe to Australia and back. The A300-600STs freight compartment is 7.4 m (24 ft) in diameter and 37.7 m (124 ft) long; maximum payload is 47 tons. At 155 tons its maximum take-off weight is comparable to a normal A300, showing that the Beluga was intended for large but relatively light cargo. The main deck cargo volume of the Beluga is greater than that of the C-5 Galaxy or the Antonov An-124 but still smaller than Antonov An-225. However, it is restricted by cargo weight capacity of 47 tons, compared to 122.5 tons for the C-5 Galaxy and 150 tons for the An-124. Despite this width, the Beluga cannot carry most fuselage parts of the A380, which are normally transported by ship and road. The Beluga has been used to transport a few A380 components. In 1999, a Beluga carried a large painting Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix which had hung in the Louvre in Paris since 1874. It was flown from Paris to Tokyovia Bahrain and Calcutta in about 20 hours. The large canvas, measuring 2.99 meters (9.81 ft) high by 3.62 meters (11.88 ft) long, was too large to fit into a Boeing 747. It was transported in the vertical position inside a special pressurized container provided with isothermal protection and an anti-vibration device. Airbus could be planning to design a replacement aircraft that would be based on the Airbus A330. Around 2012 the fleet spends about 5,000 flight hours per year, and Airbus expects to fly twice that number by 2017
Posted on: Wed, 29 Oct 2014 13:14:34 +0000