For 54 years,
the American-based Boeing company enjoyed a monopoly of the skies.
That all ended in 1970, though,
when several European manufacturers
came together to form a corporation
that would not only rival Boeing's jet production
but, as of 2019,
would establish itself
as the number-one supplier of large commercial aircraft worldwide.
We've already explored Boeing's history,
so it's only fair we pay the same respects
to its closest competitor.
This is the evolution of Airbus.
The foundation of Airbus can be traced back
to a meeting between ministers of France, Britain and Germany
in July 1967.
At a time when Boeing was planning its new, long-range 747 “jumbo” aircraft,
there were fears that European manufacturers would become too dependent
on the United States,
putting hundreds of thousands of European aviation jobs at risk.
Britain had already built aircraft such as the comet,
the BAC1-11,
and the Trident,
while France had produced the Caravelle,
Both countries had collaborated on Concorde,
the world's first supersonic airliner.
However, none of those aircraft were viewed as viable long-term options
to deal with a growing demand for public air travel,
let alone to compete with Boeing's far more popular jets.
Throughout the 1960s,
the British and French began developing newer aircraft
to cater to frequent travelers.
The problem was they were still largely competing against each other,
and the Americans held more than 80% of the world market.
Europe needed to work together to stay in the game,
hence the meeting in 1967.
Within days of that meeting,
a French engineer by the name of Roger Béteille
was appointed technical director of the A300 programme,
a project aimed at developing and manufacturing a 300-seat Airbus.
Henry Ziegler,
then president of France's Sud Aviation,
was later brought on as general manager,
and a German politician named Franz-Josef Strauss
was named chairman of the supervisory board.
Along with a young German engineer named Felix Kracht,
these men would come to be known as the "fathers" of Airbus.
In May 1969,
the A300 launch agreement was officially signed
between France and West Germany.
Britain was initially going to provide engines
for the A300 aircraft via Rolls-Royce;
however, due to concerns over mounting costs
and still hurting from the failure of Concorde,
the British withdrew from the project.
Seeing the opportunity to rebuild its civil aviation industry,
which had been devastated by World War II,
Germany stepped up to provide 50% of the overall costs,
with France committed to doing the same.
British aviation company,
Hawker Siddeley,
did remain to develop and produce the wings for the A300 aircraft,
thanks in part to a 35-million-pound loan
from the West German government.
Meanwhile, it was proposed by technical director, Roger Béteille,
that the French would make the cockpit,
control systems,
and the lower center section of the A300’s fuselage
while the Germans would make the forward and rear fuselage sections,
plus the upper part of the center section.
The Dutch would be called upon to make the moving parts of the wing,
such as flaps and spoilers,
and in later years,
the Spanish would be responsible for the horizontal tailplane.
Béteille would later recall that he “wanted to use all the available talents and capacities
to their utmost without worrying about the color of the flag
or what language was spoken,”
The technical director also realized partway through development
that a 300-seat aircraft
may be too big for the projected market.
He, therefore, began working in secret
on a scaled-down version of the aircraft,
one that would seat 250 passengers
and have a range of 1,380 miles.
This smaller aircraft, once revealed, would become known as the A300B,
and it had a major benefit
in that it could be flown with less-powerful engines
that were already available at the time.
Seeing as how the A300 was without an engine
after the withdrawal of Rolls-Royce,
this was a very welcome result!
The twin-engine A300B would also be smaller,
lighter, and more economical than its three engined American counterparts,
namely the McDonnell Douglas, DC-10
and the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar.
The A300B's fuselage was reduced from 6.4 meters to 5.6 meters in diameter,
and its length was shortened from 53.9 meters to 48.3 meters.
Consequently, it was 25 tons lighter than the original A300.
Raising the cabin floor
allowed for enough space in the hold
to accommodate standard LD3 freight containers side by side,
meaning airlines could carry more cargo,
and specially designed wings provided greater lift
and improved the aircraft's overall performance.
The A300B was touted as being able to climb faster
and attain a level cruise altitude sooner than any other passenger aircraft,
giving the cabin crew more time for the in-flight service.
The engines selected for the A300
were the American-made GE CF6-50As,
but a deal was struck for the engines to be made
with the assistance of a French firm called Snecma.
The engines could produce up to 49,000 pounds of thrust,
as powerful as anything else on the market,
yet they were more economical.
On 3rd September 1970,
Air France signed a letter of intent to buy six A300s;
the first-ever order won by Airbus.
The A300 was a new type of aircraft,
and Air France was the first airline to believe in its potential.
Fun fact:
Airbus uses a unique numbering system for its aircraft,
which makes it much easier for both organizations
and individuals to identify its planes.
Each aircraft is given an alphanumeric string for its model number,
for example, A310.
This is followed by a dash
and then a three number code representing the aircraft series,
engine manufacturer,
and engine number, respectively.
So let's use an A310-300
with Pratt & Whitney engines as an example.
The code is 3 for series 300;
then, for the engine codes,
there is a list for the different manufacturing companies.
Here we can see that Pratt & Whitney engines would be code 2.
The engine version is 1;
thus, the aircraft number is A310-321
While work on the A300 had already been underway for years,
the founding of Airbus as a partnership didn't actually take place
until December 1970,
when it was officially established as an Economic interest Group.
France's Aerospatiale and Germany's Deutsche Airbus
each took a 50% stake,
and the headquarters were established in Paris
before moving to Toulouse 4 years later.
The first official test flight occurred on 28th October 1972,
one month ahead of schedule,
despite many delays due to bad weather.
It lasted one hour and 23 minutes.
Having already reduced the size of the original A300,
Airbus realized that 250 seats weren't enough for Air France.
So, the fuselage was stretched to accommodate 270 passengers,
and the A300B1 became the A300 B2,
which entered service on the 23rd of May, 1974.
While testing out the A300B2,
Airbus began talking to Korean Airlines
about producing a longer range version, the B4.
It would have a larger, central fuel tank
and a Maximum Take-Off Weight
or ‘MTOW’ of 157.5 tons
compared to the 137 tons of the B2.
In September 1974,
Korean Airlines signed a deal for four A300B4s,
becoming Airbus’ first non-European customer.
The A300B4 would soon be known as the B4-100,
and a B4-200 model
with an additional optional fuel tank in the rear cargo hold,
plus a raised MTOW of 165 tons
would be certified in April 1979.
In total, 561 Airbus A-300s were produced
between 1971 and 2007,
with airlines such as South African Airways,
Scandinavian Airlines, and German Air
among the first customers for different variants.
Fun fact:
To test its planes, Airbus set up an international team of test pilots,
with the German Airbus team given lead responsibility
for conducting the actual flight test.
Bernard Ziegler,
the son of Airbus co-founder,
Henry Ziegler,
was a test pilot tasked with organizing the A300 flight
“on the basis that it was a European organization,”
and he set about recruiting top veterans from France, Britain, and Spain.
catering to the demand of aircraft smaller than the A300,
Airbus launched the A310
on the 7th of July 1978.
Both Swissair and Lufthansa placed initial orders for the smaller plane,
which performed its maiden flight on the 3rd of April 1982.
The A310 was 7 meters shorter than the original A300 variants
and featured a smaller 219 meters-squared wing.
Notably, it was during the production of the A310
that Britain re-committed itself to Airbus.
There were talks of the smaller wing being produced elsewhere,
so Britain put up a 50-million-pound loan towards development costs,
and from January 1979,
British Aerospace took up a 20% stake in Airbus Industrie.
France and Germany's shares were reduced to 37.9% each,
with the rest owned by Spain.
The A310 could seat 218 passengers
in a two-class configuration
and could travel a longer distance of up to 5,000 miles.
This was very impressive compared to the Boeing 737,
its closest competitor.
Even the Boeing 737 Max didn't come close
with a range of 3,300 miles,
meaning the A310 could go 1,700 miles further!
The A310 made use of a lighter-weight carbon fiber-reinforced plastic
on secondary structures such as spoilers,
airbrakes,
and the rudder,
with the A310-300 later using composites on primary structures too.
It also employed drag-reducing wing-tip devices to improve fuel efficiency.
The cockpit of the A310 introduced a two-crew glass design,
using six computer-driven cathode ray tube displays to provide the captain
and co-pilot with centralized flight and navigation information
as well as monitoring and warning data.
Electronic flight instrument displays replaced many of the traditional analog dials
on the main instrument panel.
These changes were later adopted
and developed in the A300 models,
as well as all subsequent Airbus planes,
to provide commonality and improved safety for pilots
who were able to familiarize themselves easily with all Airbus aircraft.
There have also been several accidents with the A310,
including Thai Airways International Flight 311 in July 1992.
It became the first hull loss
and the first fatal accident involving the Airbus A310.
Sadly, all 99 passengers and 14 crew did not survive the crash.
In June 2009,
Yemeni Air Flight 626 crashed into the Indian Ocean
after the crew's inappropriate flight control inputs,
which led to a stall of the aircraft.
Out of the 153 people on board,
just one survived,
a 12-year-old girl.
The sole survivor had been floating in the ocean
for 13 hours before being rescued.
It was her loving mother who had helped her to hold on to plane debris,
but sadly she could not survive the crash herself...
Fun Fact:
An Airbus A310 appeared in the 2013 movie World War Z.
After the plane is infested with zombies.
Gerry Lane, who is played by Brad Pitt,
throws a hand grenade
leading to the crash of the airplane.
Funnily enough,
some airlines removed the plane crash scene
for people watching World War Z onboard their aircraft.
Mayday, mayday, mayday. Problem was because
The A310 paved the way for the A300-600,
officially designated as the A300B4-600,
which was slightly longer than the earlier B2 and B4 variants
with an increased interior space that allowed for two extra rows of seats.
The A300-600 was improved in many ways,
including an improved wing design,
simpler single-slotted Flowler flaps,
and several other improvements resulting in
“8% lower operating costs per seat than its nearest competitor.”
The A300-600 made its first flight on the 8th of July 1983
and entered service in June 1984.
The 177 ft or 54-meter aircraft had seats for up to 345 passengers
and a range of up to 4,660 miles.
Several freighter versions and a long range version of the A300-600 were made.
In total,
313 of these airplanes were built.
Even though it is almost 50 years
since the first A300 entered service,
the aircraft is still used today.
In fact,
as of June 2022,
229 A300 family aircraft are in commercial service,
of which the largest operator is FedEx Express,
with 70 A300 airplanes.
Sadly, as of June 2021,
the A300 has been involved in 77 accidents and incidents,
resulting in over 1133 fatalities.
On April 26, 1994,
China Airlines Flight 140 was attempting to land at an Airport in Japan.
However, the takeoff setting was accidentally triggered.
While the pilots attempted to pitch the aircraft down while in autopilot,
the aircraft kept pitching up.
Ultimately the A300 stalled and crashed into the ground,
resulting in 264 fatalities,
with just 7 people able to survive...
It became the deadliest accident in the history of China Airlines.
Another terrible accident happened
with American Airlines Flight 587 on November 12, 2001,
just two months after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center.
Shortly after takeoff,
the airplane crashed in the neighborhood of Belle Harbor, New York.
Sadly, all 260 people aboard the plane lost their lives,
as well as five people on the ground.
It became the second deadliest aviation accident in U.S. history.
The fact that the crash happened in New York
and so shortly after the September 11 attacks
spawned fears of another terrorist attack.
However, the National Transportation Safety Board
attributed the disaster to the first officer's overuse of the rudder controllers
during turbulence.
Besides these terrible accidents,
the A300 has also been involved in 36 criminal occurrences and hijackings,
resulting in over 300 fatalities.
On October 26, 1986,
Thai Airways Flight 602 was flying from Bangkok to Osaka
when there was an explosion while in mid-flight.
The cause was a hand grenade brought onto the plane
by a gangster from a Yakuza organization.
The plane descended rapidly and was able to land safely.
62 people were injured,
but luckily all 239 people on board survived.
A far more tragic story was with Iran Air Flight 655 on July 3rd, 1988.
The airplane was mistaken for an Iranian F-14 Tomcat by the United States Navy
and was shot down.
Sadly, all 290 people aboard the plane were killed.
President Ronald Reagan issued a note to the Iranian government,
expressing deep regret.
However, the U.S. continued to insist that the Navy ship was acting in
“self-defense.”
On December 24th, 1994, Air France Flight 8969
was hijacked by four terrorists of the Armed Islamic group.
The terrorist intended to crash the plane over the Eiffel Tower.
Luckily, before the terrorists managed to get the aircraft on the ground,
they were shot down during intense gunfire by the French Special Forces.
In 2010 a French movie named The Assault was made about the SWAT team
tasked to save the passengers from the hijacked Air France plane.
Fun Fact:
before the Airbus developed,
the A300 wide-body airplanes had three or four engines,
such as the enormous Boeing 747,
which has four engines.
Airbus took a risk to develop the A300,
the world's first two-engine widebody aircraft.
After Airbus improved the A300 further to fly long-distance routes to increase sales,
Boeing also decided to develop a widebody twinjet,
the Boeing 767.
This was just the start of the intense competition
between two massive airplane manufacturers.
Despite calls to focus on the longer-range A330 or A340 models,
Airbus stuck with the A320 for their next project.
The series of narrow-body airliners first took flight in February 1987
and was introduced among Air France's fleet in April 1988.
With multiple variants offering a maximum take-off weight
between 68 and 93.5 tons,
plus a capable range of 3,670 to 4,315 miles.
the A320 measures 37.6 meters long
and can accommodate 150 to 186 passengers.
It was the first commercial airplane
to feature a fly-by-wire control system,
meaning that the cockpit has an electronic control system
rather than a manual or mechanical one.
Airbus was the first manufacture to introduce this
and has since used the technology on all its aircraft,
with Boeing slowly following suit
but preferring to maintain more manual overrides
as opposed to electronic ones.
Fun fact:
In October 2019, the A32 family surpassed the Boeing 737
to become the highest-selling airliner.
As of August 2022,
a total of 16,622 A320s had been ordered
and were in service with more than 340 operators.
More than 157 million flights have been completed around the globe
using the A320.
We've barely scratched the surface when it comes to Airbus,
so click the video onscreen to watch part 2.
Thanks for watching!