The Airbus A-310
Seeking to complement its original, although larger-capacity, A-300 on thinner sectors with a low-cost, minimally redesigned counterpart and thus expand its product range, Airbus Industrie explored a shorter-fuselage version designated “A-310.”
A consortium of European aircraft manufacturers headquartered in Toulouse, France, Airbus Industrie itself had arisen because the design and marketing of an advanced, widebody airliner had exceeded the financial strength of any single, Europe-based company, the principle ones of which had included de Havilland with the DH.106 Comet, Vickers with the VC-10, Hawker Siddeley with the HS.121 Trident, and the British Aircraft Corporation with the BAC-111 in the United Kingdom, and Sud-Aviation with the SE.210 Caravelle and Dassault-Breguet with the Mercure 100 in France.
The A-300, its first joint design, not only signaled its launch as an aircraft manufacturer, but that of the aircraft itself and the concept it represented-a large-capacity, widebody, twin-engined “airbus.” Intended to compete with Boeing, and particularly with its still-envisioned 767, it provided a non-US alternative to continental carriers and a foundation on which a European commercial product range could be built, offering the first serious challenge to both Boeing and McDonnell-Douglas.
Intended for short- to medium-range, relatively high-capacity deployment, the aircraft featured a widebody fuselage mated to two high bypass ratio turbofans whose thrust capability and reliability, coupled with a high-lift wing, had served as the key elements of its design.
Obviating the need for a third powerplant characteristic of the 727, the DC-10, and the L-1011, the twin-engine configuration yielded numerous economic benefits, including the reduction of structural and gross weights, the reduction of maintenance costs, the elimination of the additionally required fuel lines, the introduction of structural simplicity, and the reduction of seat-mile costs.
Aerodynamically, the twin-engine design also resulted in several advantages. The wings, mounted further forward than feasible by a tri-engine configuration, increased the moment-arm between the pylon-slung turbofans/center-of-gravity and its tail, thus requiring smaller horizontal and vertical stabilizers to maintain longitudinal and yaw-axis control and indirectly reducing structural weight and drag, yet maintaining certifiable control during single-engine loss, asymmetrical thrust conditions.
Designed by the Hawker Siddeley team in Hatfield, the 28-degree sweptback, supercritical wing, built up of a forward and rear full and mid half-spar, produced the greater portion of its lift over its aft portion, delaying shock wave formation and reducing drag.
Low-speed lift was augmented by full-span, engine pylon-uninterrupted leading edge slats, which increased the aircraft’s take off weight capability by some 2,000 pounds, and tabbed, trailing edge Fowler flaps, which extended to 70 percent of their travel before rotating into camber-increasing profiles, resulting in a 25-percent larger chord.
Part of the reason for engine reliability had been the auxiliary power unit’s integration into the main electric, air conditioning, and starting systems, providing immediate back-up in the event of engine failure at altitudes as high as 30,000 feet.
The A-300’s widebody fuselage provided the same degree of twin-aisle comfort and loading capability of standard LD3 baggage and cargo containers as featured by the quad-engined 747 and the tri-engined DC-10 and L-1011.
Seeking to build upon these design strengths, yet decrease passenger capacity with a foreshortened fuselage and expand its market application, Airbus Industrie conceptionally studied and proposed nine potential aircraft varying in capacity, range, and powerplant number and designated A-300B1 to -B9 based upon the initial A-300 platform.
It was the tenth, however-designated A-300B10-which most optimally catered to carriers’ needs for a 200-passenger airliner for segments with insufficient demand to support its larger counterpart and for those which merited additional frequencies, such as during off-peak times. Other than the two original prototype A-300B1s and the three-frame longer A-300B2, the aircraft had only offered a single basic fuselage length, whose capacity partially accounted for initially sluggish sales.
Although a low-cost A-300B10MC “Minimal Change” entailed mating a shorter fuselage with the existing wing, powerplants, and tailplane would have provided few engineering obstacles, it would have resulted in an aircraft proportionally too small and heavy for the A-300’s original surfaces. Despite a lower structural weight, it would have offered insufficient internal volume for revenue-generating passenger, cargo, and mail payload to eclipse its direct operating costs (DOC).
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