Airbus A310 - путь к совершенству

Video from the channel SkyShips about Airbus A310, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 5:55. Video type: Documentary.

Russian-language version of a video by the Skyships channel about the A310, the second installment in its series on Airbus. It explains what the model brought compared to the A300 and how its commercial career unfolded.

The A300 had bet on two engines to cut fuel consumption, at the cost of a range of around 7,500 km, lower than the 9,000–10,000 km of American trijets. The A300B10 variant, shorter and lighter, still carried the original model's wing. The United Kingdom, which after creating British Aerospace was going through an economic crisis, risked having British Airways buy the future Boeing 767 instead. In 1978 it rejoined the consortium, and that same year Airbus announced the A310, with a slightly shorter fuselage, a new, more efficient wing, carbon brakes and winglets.

The first orders came from Lufthansa and Swissair, followed by Air France and Iberia. A regional -100 version and a transcontinental -200 were planned, with General Electric CF6 or Pratt & Whitney JT9D engines; Rolls-Royce was again left out. Its systems brought it close to the A300-600R, the starting point for commonality across the range. It first flew in 1982, with 181 orders from 15 airlines. The -100 was dropped in favor of the longer-range -300, and there were freighter versions as well as the military MRT and MRTT variants. According to the video, 255 units were delivered, and the A330 took over in that category.