Airbus A310-200

The A310-200 is the original A310: the transcontinental version Airbus planned alongside a regional A310-100, and the only one of the two ever built. According to the English Wikipedia, the -100 was meant to fly 2,000 nautical miles (about 3,700 km) with 200 passengers, while the -200 added a higher maximum take-off weight and centre-section fuel to carry the same load a further 1,000 nautical miles (about 1,900 km). In 1979, faced with a lack of demand, Airbus stopped offering the -100 — the lower-gross-weight model originally proposed for Lufthansa — and none was built: the -200 proved the more popular of the two. Airbus had decided to put the A310 into production on 7 July 1978, after Swissair and Lufthansa drew up a joint specification on 9 June that year and announced the launch orders. The type certificate describes it as a short/medium-range wide-body aeroplane powered by two turbofans.

The first A310, the 162nd airframe off the Airbus line, flew on 3 April 1982 with Pratt & Whitney JT9D-7R4D1 engines. By then the type had gathered 181 orders and options from fifteen airlines, a better start than the original A300 had enjoyed. The first European certifications came on 11 March 1983 for the A310-203 and A310-221, and launch customer Swissair became the first operator in April 1983; Lufthansa began flying it the same year, and the Spanish Wikipedia adds Air Algérie among the first operators. In service it competed with the Boeing 767-200, introduced six months earlier.

The EASA type certificate data sheet (TCDS EASA.A.172) groups the series into four models by powerplant: the A310-203 with General Electric CF6-80A3 and the A310-221 with JT9D-7R4D1 (both certified on 11 March 1983), the A310-222 with JT9D-7R4E1 (22 September 1983) and the A310-204 with CF6-80C2A2 (23 April 1986). The same document lists the extended-range twin-engine (ETOPS) approvals: 120 minutes for the -203, -221 and -222 on 10 April 1986 and for the 100-series -204 on 14 September 1987, and 180 minutes for all of them on 27 July 1990.

The -200 did not have a single maximum take-off weight but a ladder of weight variants. The TCDS runs them from 125,000 kg (weight variant WV 03) and 132,000 kg in the basic configuration up to 138,600, 142,000 and 144,000 kg (WV 11), with maximum landing weights of 118,500 to 122,000 kg and maximum zero-fuel weights of 108,500 to 112,000 kg. The 144,000 kg figure is the one the English Wikipedia gives for the version, together with a maximum payload of 32,834 kg and a range of 3,500 nautical miles — about 6,482 km — with JT9D engines and 237 passengers under ISA long-range cruise conditions. Usable fuel is 44,080 kg (55,100 litres), split between the outer (7,490 l), inner (27,950 l) and centre (19,660 l) tanks; the 100-series weight variants hold 54,960 litres. Maximum operating Mach number is 0.84, with a maximum operating speed of 360 or 340 knots indicated depending on the weight variant (about 667 and 630 km/h).

The first three aircraft were fitted with outboard ailerons, removed once testing showed them to be unnecessary. Late-series aircraft adopted wing fences identical to those of the -300, later retrofitted to some earlier -200s as well. Production ended in 1988, by which time the A310-300 — dimensionally identical, with a higher take-off weight and extra centre and horizontal-stabiliser fuel tanks — had become the standard version. The -200 airframe also underpinned the convertible -200C and the -200F freighter, which have entries of their own.

Operators recorded in the sources include Pan Am (an A310-222 photographed in 1989), Cyprus Airways (at Zurich in 1985), Middle East Airlines (an A310-203) and Iberworld. Several airframes survive out of service: A310-222 B-2301, ex-China Eastern Airlines, is preserved at the China Civil Aviation Museum near Beijing Capital International Airport; JY-JAV "Zuhair", ex-Jordan Aviation, is a restaurant in Aydoun, Jordan; HS-PCC "Klamkomol", ex-PC-Air, serves as an instructional airframe at Rajamangala University of Technology Thanyaburi in Thailand; and 5N-AUG, ex-Nigeria Airways, was the All Italia restaurant in Gilly, Belgium, until a fire destroyed it on 17 November 2020.