AIRBUS A340 AIRCRAFT

Airbus A340

The Airbus A340 is a long-range widebody commercial passenger airplane manufactured by Airbus. It is similar in design to its sister, the A330, but uses four engines rather than two. It was initially designed as a smaller replacement for early generation Boeing 747's, but the latest variants now compete with Boeing's 777 series of aircraft on long-haul and ultra long-haul routes.

History

Airbus' new aircraft was launched in 1988, as a long-range complement to the short-range A320 and the medium-range A300. At the time the newest long-range widebody, the twinjet Boeing 767, was at a disadvantage against aircraft such as the 747 because of the ETOPS problem: two-engined aircraft have to stay within close range of emergency airfields in case one of their engines malfunctions. The four-engined A340 design was an attempt to make a new-generation competitor for ETOPS-immune aircraft like the Boeing 747.
Airbus' engineers designed the A340 in parallel with the twin-engined A330: both aircraft share the same wing and similar fuselage structure and borrow heavily from the advanced avionics developed for the A320. Original intentions were to use the new superfan engines of IAE (International Aero Engines) on the A340 but IAE decided to stop their development and the CFMI CFM56-5C4 was used instead. When the A340 first flew in 1991, engineers noticed a potentially major design flaw in the first model: the wings were not strong enough to carry the outboard engines at cruising speed without warping and fluttering. To alleviate this an underwing bulge called the plastron was developed to fix airflow problems around the engine pylons. The modified A340 began commercial service in 1993 with Lufthansa and Air France.

Technology

The A340 incorporates many high-technology features such as

-Fully digital fly-by-wire flight control system

-Sidestick controller instead of normal control columns

-Common pilot rating with the two-engined A330

-CRT based glass cockpit displays ; LCD-based on -500 & -600

-Composite primary structures

Variants

Initially there were two models of A340, the A340-200 and A340-300. The 200 is shorter than the 300 and has a smaller capacity but can fly farther. In 1997, Airbus launched two lengthened variants of the A340, the ultra-long-range -500 and high-capacity -600 series. Both of these models entered airline service in 2002.