FACTS YOU NEED TO KNOW about AIRBUS A320!

Video from the channel Captain Joe about Airbus A320, linked on its Above Ten Thousand entry. Duration: 6:36. Language: English. Video type: Documentary.

This is the first installment in a series of ten videos about the Airbus A320's systems, filmed in the simulator at the TFC training centre in Essen (Germany). It covers general facts about the family before moving on to the APU, fuel, hydraulics, pneumatics, electrics, air conditioning, flight controls, autoflight and fire protection.

The family consists of the A318, A319, A320 and A321, built by Airbus Industrie, a consortium of companies from Germany, England, Spain and France. Hamburg builds fuselage sections, the tail, the flaps and the spoilers. England manufactures the wing; Spain, the horizontal stabilisers, the elevators, the nose landing gear doors and the forward doors; and France, the cockpit, the forward fuselage and the engine pylons. The A320 is assembled in Toulouse and the other models in Hamburg, as well as on newer lines in China and the United States. Parts travel aboard the Beluga, a former A300-600 converted into an oversized cargo carrier. The programme was launched in March 1984. The maiden flight took place on 22 February 1987, and the first deliveries went to Air France and Lufthansa in March 1988. It pioneered the use of digital fly-by-wire controls and side-stick controllers in commercial aviation.

By January 2017, 7,442 aircraft of the family had been delivered, with American Airlines its largest operator, with 380. The other models were obtained by stretching or shortening the A320's fuselage. The cockpit is designed for two crew members, with seats for two observers and six windows, two of them sliding. In addition, all pushbuttons stay unlit as long as there is no fault. Below the floor there are two cargo holds. The family was conceived to compete with the Boeing 737 and the McDonnell Douglas MD-80/90, and later with the Embraer 195. The A320neo uses 16% less fuel than the original model.