Baroque
in service - 2 years
Posts: 3,991
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Post by Baroque on Mar 20, 2018 19:33:41 GMT 1
It can be done I suppose. The super-guppies had a very long service life too. So the old belugas can do some limited outsized cargo transport for a while.
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sciing
in service - 1 year
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Posts: 2,502
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Post by sciing on Mar 20, 2018 21:21:16 GMT 1
Would it have the range to bring, say, pre-assembled satellites from mainland France to Kourou? I guess not, acc. wikipedia max. range is 2500nm, but for example TLS-CAY is 3700nm.
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kronus
in service - 1 year
Posts: 3,178
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Post by kronus on Mar 21, 2018 13:12:55 GMT 1
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Baroque
in service - 2 years
Posts: 3,991
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Post by Baroque on Mar 21, 2018 13:44:38 GMT 1
Can't wait to see the old and new side by side for comparison. And I found this quite funny...
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mjoelnir
in service - 2 years
Posts: 4,089
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Post by mjoelnir on Mar 22, 2018 13:33:38 GMT 1
Would it have the range to bring, say, pre-assembled satellites from mainland France to Kourou? I guess not, acc. wikipedia max. range is 2500nm, but for example TLS-CAY is 3700nm. But RAI - CAY is only 1,812 nm.
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Baroque
in service - 2 years
Posts: 3,991
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Post by Baroque on Mar 22, 2018 14:15:57 GMT 1
I believe the reason why we haven't seen too many services offered to third parties by Airbus's Beluga fleet is that they obviously prioritise their own needs first and its been quite a busy production schedule. With the arrival of the more efficient XL fleet, the existing Belugas can be relieved to serve the role as an outsized cargo transporter for third parties more often now. It could serve as a nice PR machine for Airbus as well, in the way that the AN-225 has been doing for Antonov for years with its special missions.
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philidor
in service - 6 years
Posts: 8,950
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Post by philidor on Mar 22, 2018 17:51:04 GMT 1
It remains to be seen whether the revenue from services to third parties would at least offset the cost of keeping these old aircraft airworthy. Airbus may however intend to use these frames occasionally to address peaks in its own transport needs..
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Baroque
in service - 2 years
Posts: 3,991
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Post by Baroque on Mar 22, 2018 22:28:12 GMT 1
It remains to be seen whether the revenue from services to third parties would at least offset the cost of keeping these old aircraft airworthy. Antonov have been doing it with their lone 30 year old AN-225. It even received upgrades recently to extend its service life to another 20 years. I see even less of a problem keeping the Belugas alive for longer given how several components such as the engines and the avionics are derived from A330s which are still in production and have a large spares pool.
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Post by FabienA380 on Mar 24, 2018 18:24:54 GMT 1
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Post by stealthmanbob on Apr 13, 2018 13:18:09 GMT 1
This tweet shows how much AB need the XLs for the extra volume, they are sending some A320 wings by road !
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