Airbus Beluga XL – Maiden Flight
When planes transport planes’ parts…
One of the biggest challenges was to transport large
plane parts from one facility to the next. Earlier they
were transported by cargo ships. Unitl now…
To be honest: The Beluga XL has an odd shape… like a giant whale.
That’s why the painting of the newest member of big cargo lifters (the older ones are also called Beluga) looks like a whale:
Beluga XL – Number One on it’s maiden Flight from Toulouse July 19th, 2018
Beluga – Number Three on a transportaion flight (undated)
The difference between the 5 original Beluga planes and this new Beluga XL is a slightly larger transport bay which can even transport two wings of the A320 side-by-side instead of only one. And the Beluga XL will be built 5 times in order to replace the original Beluga.
Watch it’s Maiden flight here:
Quite an impressive “bird”
Technical data:
A300-600ST “Beluga” | A330-700L “Beluga XL” | |
Length | 54,16 m | 63,1 m |
Height | 17,24 m | 18,9 m |
Fuselage | 7,71 m | 8,8 m |
Width (Wingspan) | 44,84 m | 60,3 m |
Weight (empty) | 86.500 kg | 125.000 kg |
Wing area | 260 m² | 361.1 m² |
MTOW | 155.000 kg | 227.000 kg |
Max. Payload | 47.000 kg | 53.000 kg |
Max. Speed | 780 km/h | 850 km/h |
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