Airbus A340
The Airbus A340 is a long-range, wide-body passenger airliner that was developed and produced by Airbus.
In the mid-1970s, Airbus conceived several derivatives of the A300, its first airliner, and developed the A340 quadjet in parallel with the A330 twinjet. In June 1987, Airbus launched both designs with their first orders, and the A340-300 took its maiden flight on 25 October 1991. It was certified along with the A340-200 on 22 December 1992 and both versions entered service in March 1993 with launch customers Lufthansa and Air France. The larger A340-500/600 were launched on 8 December 1997; the A340-600 flew for the first time on 23 April 2001 and entered service on 1 August 2002.
Keeping the eight-abreast economy cross-section of the A300, the early A340-200/300 has a similar airframe to the A330-200/300. Differences include four CFM56s instead of two high-thrust turbofans to bypass ETOPS restrictions on trans-oceanic routes, and a three-leg main landing gear instead of two for a heavier Maximum Takeoff Weight. Both airliners have fly-by-wire controls, which was first introduced on the A320, as well as a similar glass cockpit. The A340-500/600 are longer, have a larger wing, and are powered by Rolls-Royce Trent 500 for a heavier MTOW.
The shortest A340-200 measured, and had a range with 210–250 seats in a three-class configuration. The most common A340-300 reached to accommodate 250–290 passengers and could cover. The A340-500 was long to seat 270–310 over, the longest-range airliner at the time. The longest A340-600 was stretched to, then the longest airliner, to accommodate 320–370 passengers over.
As improving engine reliability allowed ETOPS operations for almost all routes, more economical twinjets replaced quadjets on many routes.
On 10 November 2011, Airbus announced that the production reached its end, after 380 orders had been placed and 377 delivered from Toulouse, France. The A350 is its successor; the McDonnell Douglas MD-11 and the Boeing 777 were its main competitors. By the end of 2021, the global A340 fleet had completed more than 2.5 million flights over 20 million block hours and carried over 600 million passengers with no fatalities., there were 203 A340 aircraft in service with 45 operators worldwide. Lufthansa is the largest A340 operator with 27 aircraft in its fleet.
Development
Background
When Airbus designed the Airbus A300 during the 1970s it envisaged a broad family of airliners to compete against Boeing and McDonnell Douglas, two established US aerospace manufacturers. From the moment of formation, Airbus had begun studies into derivatives of the Airbus A300B in support of this long-term goal. Prior to the service introduction of the first Airbus airliners, Airbus had identified nine possible variations of the A300 known as A300B1 to B9. A tenth variation, conceived in 1973, later the first to be constructed, was designated the A300B10. It was a smaller aircraft that would be developed into the long-range Airbus A310. Airbus then focused its efforts on the single-aisle market, which resulted in the Airbus A320 family, which was the first digital fly-by-wire commercial aircraft. The decision to work on the A320, instead of a four-engine aircraft proposed by the Germans, created divisions within Airbus. As the SA or "single aisle" studies underwent development to challenge the successful Boeing 737 and Douglas DC-9 in the single-aisle, narrow-body airliner market, Airbus turned its focus back to the wide-body aircraft market.The A300B11, a derivative of the A310, was designed upon the availability of "ten ton" thrust engines. Using four engines, it would seat between 180 and 200 passengers, and have a range of. It was deemed a replacement for the less-efficient Boeing 707s and Douglas DC-8s still in service. The A300B11 was joined by another design, the A300B9, which was a larger derivative of the A300. The B9 was developed by Airbus from the early 1970s at a slow pace until the early 1980s. It was essentially a stretched A300 with the same wing, coupled with the most powerful turbofan engine available at the time. It was targeted at the growing demand for high-capacity, medium-range, transcontinental trunk routes. The B9 offered the same range and payload as the McDonnell Douglas DC-10, but it used between 25% and 38% less fuel. The B9 was therefore considered a replacement for the DC-10 and the Lockheed L-1011 Tristar.
To differentiate the programme from the SA studies, the B9 and B11 were redesignated the TA9 and TA11. In an effort to save development costs, it was decided that the two would share the same wing and airframe; the projected savings were estimated at US$500 million. The adoption of a common wing structure also had one technical advantage: the TA11's outboard engines could counteract the weight of the longer-range model by providing bending relief. Another factor was the split preference of those within Airbus and, more importantly, prospective airliner customers. Airbus vice president for strategic planning, Adam Brown, recalled,
North American operators were clearly in favour of a twin, while Asians wanted a quad. In Europe, opinion was split between the two. The majority of potential customers were in favour of a quad despite the fact, in certain conditions, it is more costly to operate than a twin. They liked that it could be ferried with one engine out, and could fly 'anywhere'— ETOPS hadn't begun then.
Design effort
The first specifications of the TA9 and TA11 were released in 1982. While the TA9 had a range of, the TA11 range was up to. At the same time, Airbus also sketched the TA12, a twin-engine derivative of the TA11, which was optimised for flights of a lesser range. By the time of the Paris Air Show in June 1985, more refinements had been made to the TA9 and TA11, including the adoption of the A320 flight deck, fly-by-wire flight control system and side-stick control. Adopting a common cockpit across the new Airbus series allowed operators to make significant cost savings; flight crews would be able to transition from one to another after one week of training. The TA11 and TA12 would use the front and rear fuselage sections of the A310. Components were modular and also interchangeable with other Airbus aircraft where possible to reduce production, maintenance, and operating costs.Airbus briefly considered a variable camber wing; the concept was that the wing could change its profile to produce the optimum shape for a given phase of flight. Studies were carried out by British Aerospace at Hatfield and Bristol. Airbus estimated this would yield a 2% improvement in aerodynamic efficiency. However, the plan was later abandoned on grounds of cost and difficulty of development.
Airbus had held discussions with McDonnell Douglas to jointly produce the aircraft, which would have been designated as the AM 300. This aeroplane would have combined the wing of the A330 with the fuselage of the McDonnell Douglas MD-11. However, talks were terminated as McDonnell Douglas insisted on the continuation of its trijet heritage. Although from the start it was intended that the A340 would be powered by four CFM56-5 turbofans, each capable of, Airbus had also considered developing the aircraft as a trijet due to the limited power of engines available at the time, namely the Rolls-Royce RB211-535 and Pratt & Whitney JT10D-232.
As refinements in the A340's design proceeded, a radical new engine option, the IAE SuperFan, was offered by International Aero Engines, a group comprising Rolls-Royce, Pratt & Whitney, Japanese Aero Engines Corporation, Fiat and MTU Aero Engines. The engine nacelles of the superfan engine consisted of provisions to allow a large fan near the rear of the engine. As a result of the superfan cancellation by IAE, the CFM56-5C4 was used as the sole engine choice instead of being an alternative option as originally envisioned. The later, longer-range versions, namely the A340-500 and −600, are powered by Rolls-Royce Trent 500 engines.
On 27 January 1986, the Airbus Industrie Supervisory Board held a meeting in Munich, West Germany, after which board chairman Franz Josef Strauß released a statement,
Airbus Industrie is now in a position to finalise the detailed technical definition of the TA9, which is now officially designated the A330, and the TA11, now called the A340, with potential launch customer airlines, and to discuss with them the terms and conditions for launch commitments.The designations were originally reversed and were switched so the quad-jet airliner would have a "4" in its name. On 12 May 1986, Airbus dispatched fresh sale proposals to five prospective airlines including Lufthansa and Swissair.
Production and testing
In preparations for production of the A330/A340, Airbus's partners invested heavily in new facilities. Filton was the site of BAe's £7 million investment in a three-storey technical centre with an extra of floor area. BAe also spent £5 million expanding the Broughton wing production plant by to accommodate a new production line. However, France saw the biggest changes with Aérospatiale starting construction of a new Fr.2.5 billion assembly plant, adjacent to Toulouse-Blagnac Airport, in Colomiers. By November 1988, the first pillars were erected for the new Clément Ader assembly hall. The assembly process, meanwhile, would feature increased automation with holes for the wing-fuselage mating process drilled by eight robots. The use of automation for this particular process saved Airbus 20% on labour costs and 5% on time.British Aerospace accepted £450 million funding from the UK government, short of the £750 million originally requested. Funds from the French and West German governments followed thereafter. Airbus also issued subcontracts to companies in Austria, Australia, Canada, China, Greece, Italy, India, Japan, South Korea, Portugal, the United States, and Yugoslavia. The A330 and A340 programmes were jointly launched on 5 June 1987, just prior to the Paris Air Show. The program cost was $3.5 billion with the A330, in 2001 dollars. The order book then stood at 130 aircraft from 10 customers, apart from the above-mentioned Lufthansa and International Lease Finance Corporation. Eighty-nine of the total orders were A340 models. At McDonnell Douglas, ongoing tests of the MD-11 revealed a significant shortfall in the aircraft's performance. An important carrier, Singapore Airlines, required a fully laden aircraft that could fly from Singapore to Paris, against strong headwinds during mid-winter in the northern hemisphere. The MD-11, according to test results, would experience fuel starvation over the Balkans. Due to the less-than-expected performance figures, SIA cancelled its 20-aircraft MD-11 order on 2 August 1991, and ordered 20 A340-300s instead. A total of 200 MD-11s were sold, versus 380 A340s.
The first flight of the A340 occurred on 21 October 1991, marking the start of a 2,000-hour test flight programme involving six aircraft. From the start, engineers noticed that the wings were not stiff enough to carry the outboard engines at cruising speed without warping and fluttering. To alleviate this, an underwing bulge called a plastron was developed to correct airflow problems around the engine pylons and to add stiffness. European JAA certification was obtained on 22 December 1992; the FAA followed on 27 May 1993.
In 1992, the unit cost of an A340-200 was US$105M and US$110M for an A340-300..