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Aviation History
1973
1973 - 2783.PDF
808 FLIGHT International, IS November 1973 Iff AIR TRANSPORT Indian Airbus 'Flight" reports on a trip to India The first prototype A300, only recently returned from demonstrations in South and North America, flew back to Toulouse last week after a nine-day tour calling at Athens, Tehran, Karachi, Delhi, Bombay, Amsterdam and Belgrade. Andy Hofton was on board for most of the tour and was able to watch the Airbus team at work and judge airline reactions. IT TAKES a certain amount of confidence to undertake a series of major overseas tours with a completely new aircraft within a year of the first flight. Airbus Industrie has done just this with the first prototype A300* and the result has been a warm reception from potential customer airlines and a favourable reaction from the pilots who have flown the aircraft. The multi-national sales team is promoting the A300 as the product of an international company—the word consortium is most definitely out. The A300 took off from Toulouse at the start of its second major tour on October 31. Apart from an un scheduled call at Karachi at the request of the Pakistani authorities the tour was without incident. The aircraft operated like a scheduled airliner—as was the intention. The ride of the aircraft at all altitudes was good, with none of the low-frequency oscillations sometimes present in large transport aircraft. Cabin noise levels were low and will be even better on production aircraft. The aircraft is fitted with a single inertial navigation system which proved to be useful for the en route flights east of Tehran. Navigation of the aircraft was under the watchful eye of M Pierre Caneill, deputy director of flight-test. He also had the task of monitoring the aircraft performance. The demonstration flights were being used by Airbus Industrie for route proving with a total of about 200hr flying necessary before certification. Airbus Industrie test pilot M Jacques Grangette captained the aircraft for the tour. He told Flight that flying time with three A300s had already exceeded l,000hr and that full certification was expected after some l,300hr to l,400hr of flying rather than the l,650hr that had been planned. A further 150hr to 200hr will be required to certificate the longer-range B4. He has been responsible * Airbus Industrie has now dropped the suffix B from the designation A300, reserving it as a prefix for the model type -B2 or -B4. Airbus is offering freighter and convertible passenger-freighter versions of the aircraft—known as the A300F and A300C. They are based on the longer-range A300B4. for much of the development work associated with the automatic flying control system and the investigation of stability characteristics. Capt Philipp Davies is Air France project pilot for the A300 and he acted as co-pilot for most of the tour. He said the aircraft had proved simple to fly and easy to handle on the ground. He anticipated no problems for the Air France crews—some of whom will come from the 707 as well as the 727 and Caravelle. Aeroformation (the joint company set up at Toulouse by Airbus Industrie and Flight Safety Inc) has established a training programme which he said is as professional as any provided by American airframe manufacturers. Three crews for each aircraft will be trained free by Aeroformation. The cock pits of all Atlas A300s will be standardised for three-crew operation and will be very similar to those of the DC-10-30. Capt Davies commented on the low level of aerodynamic noise in the cockpit and pointed to two big advantages for the A300—it will be certificated for Category III opera tion when it enters service next March and its high installed thrust allows it to climb straight to a cruise altitude of up to 37,000ft without the steps required by the 727. A number of Airbus Industrie directors accompanied the aircraft on the tour and the 3hr Toulouse-Athens leg provided the opportunity to discuss the production pro gramme with technical director M Roger Beteille. The manufacture of 32 production A300s has been sanctioned in addition to the four development aircraft. Long-lead items for a further 16 aircraft are in the pipe line. M Beteille told Flight that present plans call for six B2s and two B4s to be manufactured next year. Deliveries could be made during 1974 to airlines not included in the Heading, the A300 was presented to Air-India and Indian Airlines at Bombay. Engine cowlings were open within 3min of coming to a halt, allowing complete inspection of the CF6-S0s. General Electric claims that a quick engine change can be carried out within 120 man hours
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