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Aviation History
1997
1997 - 2917.PDF
A33U/A340 dropped, while the design of the TA9 and TA11 was being refined with, for example, the new flightdeckof die A320 being adopted, including its sidesticks in place of the control columns, plus the fly-by-wire system. "There was much internal debate whether to go with the big twin or the quad, and when Jean Pierson was appointed as Airbus managing director in 1985 he put together a team to focus on the issues," says Adam Brown. The opinion of the world's airlines was divided. "North American operators were clearly in favour of a twin, while the Asians wanted a quad. In Europe, opinion was split between the two," says Brown. "The majority of potential customers were in favour of a quad despite the fact, in certain con ditions, it is more costly to operate than a twin ...they liked that it could be ferried with one engine out, and could 'fly anywhere' - remem ber ETOPS [extended-range twin-engined operations] hadn't begun then," says Brown. Although the TA9 and '11 projects were increasingly becoming the same aircraft, it was the work of the Airbus chief engineerjean Roder which enabled the two to effectively become one. "Roder was able to create a common wing structure, widi the quad's outboard engines pro viding bending relief to counteract to increased weights of the long-range model," says Brown. "The [development] cost savings this presented enabled us to do both aircraft." Interestingly, Brown concedes that when studying the long- range model, Airbus assumed that the competi tion offered by Boeing would be a 767-based derivative, rather than the all-new 777 which eventually evolved. In January' 1986, the TA9 officially became known as the A330, and the TA11 the A340. "Customer interest meant that we planned to do the quad first, and so initially it was dubbed the A330, while the twin became the A340," says Brown. "Then our salesmen came back and said that airlines would never get their brains around a twin having a 'four' in its name and the quad not.. ..so we reversed the designations." In October 1986 Airbus signed an MoU with CFM International to offer a new version of the CFM56-5 as primary powerplant on the A340. At this stage it was rated at 127kN (28,600lb). The GE CF6 was the lead powerplant on the A330, but ultimately the twin would also be offered, and sold, with the R-R RB.211 -derived Trent 700, and P& W PW4000. Towards the end of 1986, IAE approached Airbus with an ultra-high bypass (UIIB) "SuperFan" development of the V2500, which incorporated a gearbox-driven, variable-pitch ducted fan added to the front of the V2 500 core. Airbus immediately adopted this engine for the A340 as it offered the required thrust (134kN- plus (3 0,000lb-plus)), as well as claimed fuel con sumption savings of almost 20% compared to a similar-thrust turbofan. Lufthansa became the first to commit to die A340 in January 1987 when plans were announced to purchase 15 SuperFan-powered The SuperFan engine was offered on the A 340 during 1986/7 before IAE dropped the project A340s, and 15 options. The A330 received its first commitments in March 1987, when Air Inter signed for five orders and 15 options and Thai International for a total of eight orders and options. This was followed at the end of March when Northwest Airlines signed a letter of intent for 20 A340s and options on ten A330s. The following month IAE cancelled the SuperFan saying "...it was felt premature to launch in the light of the technical programme risks of meeting the spring 1992 service entry." This was a blow to the A340 sales team at a crucial time. "There was a certain amount of nail-biting...it is difficult to sell a glider," says Brown. Airbus had to regroup its A340 plans around the less-powerful, and less-efficient, but less-risky CFM56-5. While CFM developed more thrust from the engine to boost the A340 performance towards that of the SuperFan- equipped version, Airbus increased wingspan by around 3m and adopted winglets in place of the A310 wing-tip fence originally proposed. Full go-ahead for the programme was A330-200 announced on 5 June, 1987, just before die Paris air show, at which stage total commitments for the A3 30 and A340 had reached 98, of which 38 were for the A3 30 from three customers and the other 60 for the A340 from four customers. Two versions of the A3 40 were offered, die 260-seat - 200and295-seat-300,whiIeonlyoneA330ver- sion was available, the-300, which was similar in size to the larger A340. Before the launch of the 777, Airbus' main rival in the long haul market was McDonnell Douglas' (MDC) DC-10-derived MD-11. Although ultimately the initial versions of the MD-11 failed to realise MDC's impressive per formance claims, there was a time when its sales success made it a serious threat to the A330/A340. In 1988 Airbus and MDC serious ly discussed a co-operative venture, which paint ed various scenarios such as an MD-1 1 equipped with the A340 wing, and the A320 family being adopted by MDC to replace the MD-80 family- According to an Airbus source the talks ulti mately failed because MDC was not prepared to give up anything on the marketing side. MDC secured an important coup in 1990 when it beat Airbus to an order from Singapore Airlines for 20 MD-1 Is. A year later SIA dropped the MD-11 when it became clear that it would not meet its exacting performance requirements - and signed for a similar number of A340-300s instead.' "The SIA switch was a marker in the MDC/Airbus battle - it was effectively the end of the MD-11," says Brown. Airbus strength ened the A340's wing structure and increased weights to boost the range to 13,900km (7,500nm) to meet SIAIs requirements. ^ FLIGHT A FLIGHT INTERNATIONAL SUPPLEMENT
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