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Home | Update | Latest Issue | Gallery | FR Profile | Datafiles | FR 10/97 AIRBUS A330-200 STARTS ITS TEST PROGRAMME by Heiko Reuter At 11.30 on 13 August, the new A330-200 lifted of for its first flight into the skies of southern France. Four hours and ten minutes later, the new twin-jet touched down again in Toulouse. The crew of five, lead by test pilots William Wainwright and Bernd Schäfer, reported a flawless flight. Airbus Industrie's chief test pilot Wainwright assessed the airliner, which is powered by two General-Electric CF6-80E1 engines, of having flawless flight characteristics: "We have tested the aircraft today in its entire performance envelope, flying at both, minimum and maximum speeds." The Airbus strategists are hoping for a similar performance in aircraft sales. The A330-200 is joining the market to push the Boeing 767-300ER and the still under development 767-400 off the throne. The aircraft from Seattle are acknowledged worldwide for being able to be cost-efficiently operated on long routes with relatively low passenger quantities. The carriers are profiting from this advantage mainly on the transatlantic routes: the 767 is said to be the "queen of the North Atlantic". Airbus Industrie's goal is to gain land in this territory. According to the publication "Aircraft Economics", the A330-200 has the potential and efficiency to seriously compete against the 767 in the transatlantic and long-range charter market, saying at the same time that the new Airbus airliner is joining the market too late. Airbus has missed several procurement rounds of carriers that were looking for replacements of their McDonnell Douglas DC-10s and Lockheed L1011 TriStars. The A330-200 is a classic long-range derivative. While the basic A330-300 suits 295 passengers in a three-class configuration, flying routes up to 5500 nm, the -200 carries 253 passengers of distances of up to 6450 nm. Due to modified fuel tanks, the -200 can carry up to 41000 liters more kerosene. This allows nonstop connections from Paris to Los Angeles, Rio de Janeiro, Johannesburg or Seoul. As compared to the -300, the fuselage was shortened by ten frames (4,66 meter). Vertical and horizontal fins had to be enlarged, increasing the height by one meter. Airbus vice president sales, John Leahy, states the entire development costs for the new version to be approximately $450 million. According to the list, the A330-200 costs approximately $110 million. AI has reportedly logged 86 commitments for the new aircraft, 49 of which are fixed orders, along with 46 options from twelve different customers. Three of the customers, among them "at least one US airline", don't want to be named yet. Some more time will be required before the aircraft and all three engine options have received certification. The entire flight test program is scheduled for 16 months and 630 flight hours. If everything goes accordingly, the US leasing company ILFC will take over the first long-range A330 in April of next year. The Americans already have a customer: the Canadian charter carrier Canada 3000 will supposedly be the first airline to operate the -200. From page 34 of FLUG REVUE 10/97 Home | Update | Latest Issue | Gallery | FR Profile | Datafiles | FR 10/97 Copyright 1997 by Motor-Presse Stuttgart. All rights reserved. Last updated September 5, 1997 FLUG REVUE, Ubierstr. 83, 53173 Bonn, Germany