Widebody Aircraft Parade

Airbus A310

The Airbus A310 is a widebody twin-engined aircraft for short and medium-range flights, seating about 200-220 passengers. It was the second aircraft type developed by Airbus. After the slow sales start of the A300, 1978 became a good year for Airbus. It sold many more A300s, the British government decided to re-enter the Airbus-undertaking as a risk-sharing partner and in the same year the A310 was launched.

From the beginning Airbus was well aware that it could not survive in the long run on only one aircraft type. In the early design stage the new aircraft was referred to as A300B10. The A310 is 13 frames shorter than the A300B4 and has a smaller wing. This wing is structurally similar to that of the A300, but aerodynamically it is a completely new design. It has a higher aspect ratio, but less span and less area. The tailplane is also smaller than on the A300. The main landing gear was revised and the engine pylons were renewed. On later aircraft small winglets were introduced.

Competing with the 767

The A310 competed head-on with the Boeing 767. The main difference between the two aircraft is the fuselage diameter. The A310 has the same diameter as the A300 allowing eight-a-breast seating. The narrower 767 offers seven-a-breast seating. Thanks to the wider fuselage the A310 can accommodate standard LD3 containers in its belly in a more efficient way than the 767 can. These containers are also used in the DC-10, 747 and TriStar. Some of the early A310 customers like Lufthansa and KLM chose this aircraft because of the better LD3 accommodation.

A major innovation incorporated with the Airbus A310 is the digitised two-crew flightdeck. This resulted in discussions about safety, because not everyone was convinced that the disappearance of the flight engineer from the cockpit was an improvement. Because of a conflict about this matter with its cockpit personnel, KLM couldn't operate its newly delivered A310s for some time.

First flight

The first flight oft the A310 was on 3 April 1982 and one year later Lufthansa and Swissair introduced the new aircraft on their route systems. Airbus delivered a total of 255 A310s. The production has stopped, although there was still an order in the books for five A310s for Iraqi Airways, which where never built. The final assembly of the A310 took place on the same production line as the A300. Today many Airbus A310 aircraft are converted to freighters. The German Luftwaffe flies a number of aircraft converted to aerial tanker/transports. The tankers are referred to as A310MRTT (Multi Role Tanker Transport).



Of the Airbus A310 two main versions exist:

A310-200

The standard version is the A310-200. It was available with General Electric CF6 and Pratt & Whitney JT9D engines. A proposed Rolls-Royce version was never built. Airbus built one A310-200C (Convertible) and delivered it to the Dutch charter airline Martinair.

A310-300

The Airbus A310-300 is a long-range version with higher weights and increased fuel capacity. The overall dimensions are the same as of the A310-200. To find additional fuel capacity, the tailplane interior is used as kerosene tank. The A310 was the first airliner to have this feature. The fuel transfer system makes it possible to change the centre of gravity position during the flight to decrease drag.

The A310-100 was a proposed short-range version, which was never built.

   Technical Specifications  

Airbus A310

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