Free Republic

Emirates Airline has retired its last Airbus A330 and A340 widebodies from active service, the carrier announced Thursday. The moves make it the only carrier in the world to operate a fleet of all Airbus A380s and Boeing 777s for its passenger flights. The recent retirement of A330 A6-EAK marked the culmination of Emirates’ plan to shed all 29 of its twin-engine Airbuses. The airplane joined Emirates in 2002 and had flown for more than 60,000 hours, traveling some 24 million nautical miles in 14 and a half years. Emirates also recently retired its last A340 quadjet. Manufactured in 1999,...

The British government is tightening their belts by giving up Prime Minister David Cameron’s private jet charters and shuttling him around in a Voyager A330 mid-air refueling aircraft. The British “Air Force One” equivalent will still be used to fuel up fighters when it’s not transporting VIPs. The BBC says Cameron’s flights were costing over $10,000 per airborne hour on “Royal Squadron planes or long haul charter,” but that figure will drop to just $3,000 on the refitted Voyager. That’s reportedly going to save English taxpayers almost $1.2 million a year. The Royal Air Force says their Voyager A330s have...

Algerian Military Testing An A330 MRTT at Boufarik (Source: Le Matin DZ; published May 13, 2013) (Published in French; unofficial translation by defense-aerospace.com) Just weeks after the C17 evaluation that took place in Boufarik and the air force test center at Tamanrasset, an Airbus A330 MRTT tanker landed last week at the main air transport base in Boufarik. According to the “secret difa3” blog, the Algerian Air Force is in the process of finalizing a contract to acquire three A330 aircraft to reinforce its tanker and long-range transport fleet. Besides their ability to refuel in-flight fighter and attack aircraft, the...

LE BOURGET, France (AP) — A confused cockpit crew without proper training to head off high-altitude disaster flew toward it, instead, with wrong-headed maneuvers, no task-sharing and perhaps unaware their flight was about to end in the Atlantic Ocean. Screeching stall alarms and incoherent speed readings from faulty sensors, bad weather in a darkened sky and growing stress make up the chaotic cockpit scenario in the final moments of the Air France flight from Rio de Janeiro to Paris on June 1, 2009. All 228 people aboard the plane were killed. Friday's third report by France's accident investigation agency, or...

The crew piloting a doomed Air France jet over the Atlantic did not realize the plane was in a stall, were insufficiently trained in flying manually, and never informed the passengers that anything was wrong before they plunged into the sea, according to new findings released Friday. Based on newly discovered cockpit recordings from the 2009 crash, the French air accident investigation agency is recommending mandatory training for all pilots to help them fly planes manually and handle a high-altitude stall.

RAF's giant of skies to be 'christened' by defence chiefs 15 July 2011 |UK The RAF’s largest and newest aircraft - the A330 ‘Voyager’ – was officially christened today. It was making its first official public appearance at RAF Fairford for the Royal International Air Tattoo - an event that every year keeps the capabilities and importance of air power in the minds of the nation. The Defence Secretary Liam Fox and Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Sir Stephen Dalton attended the naming ceremony. Dr Fox said: "I am delighted to see the new Royal Air Force...

Air force to get Airbus transporter planes by year-end Rory Jones Last Updated: Feb 22, 2011 The UAE Air Force will receive the first of three new Airbus military transporter planes by the end of the year. A military version of the Airbus A330 passenger airliner, the Multi Role Tanker Transport (MRTT), is designed as both a transport and an air-to-air refuelling aircraft. Having ordered three MRTT planes in early 2008, the UAE will receive the first of them in December, Didier Vernet, the head of market development at Airbus, said yesterday. The UAE is one of four countries to...

The Airbus Military A330 MRTT has successfully passed fuel to receiver aircraft using the Fuselage Refuelling Unit (FRU) for the first time – meaning that all of the aircraft's refuelling systems have now been demonstrated. In a three hour 10 min sortie from Getafe near Madrid on 21st January, the Future Strategic Transport Aircraft (FSTA) variant for the UK Royal Air Force conducted a series of “wet contacts” with two F-18 fighters of the Spanish Air Force. Contacts were successfully performed with both fighters at an altitude of around 15,000ft and at speeds from 250kt to 325kt. The FRU is...

An Airbus Military aerial refueling tanker for the Royal Australian Air Force lost part of its refueling boom during a training flight Wednesday. The incident involved Airbus Military employees refueling a Portuguese Air Force F-16 fighter with a new A330 Multi-Role Tanker Transport. "The incident resulted in the detachment and partial loss of the refuelling boom ... which fell into the sea," the Australian Defense said in a statement. "Both aircraft suffered some damage but returned safely to their home airfields." Airbus Military and European military airworthiness authorities will lead the investigation in to the incident, with the participation of...

Even as Boeing continues to struggle with the 787-8 program, future planning calls for resurrecting plans for the 787-10 that have been on indefinite hold while working through technical issues and delays of the current model. Airbus has sold more A330s since the 787 program was announced than in the period leading up to the 787's launch. The A330-200 has been improved to now have an advertised 7,200nm range-nearly matching the low-end of the 787-8, according to Airbus estimates-and the A330-300 now has a 5,850nm range with more improvements planned to provide a few hundred miles more range. Nicole Piasecki,...

Brazil to seek deal for A330 tankers After issuing a request for proposals in September, the Brazilian air force's KC-X tanker/transport procurement has taken an unexpected turn. Despite having initially forecast the participation of at least three bidders, sources in Brasilia indicate that Airbus Military's A330 multi-role tanker/transport might be selected before the end of the year. Launched earlier in the decade to replace the air force's four Boeing KC-137 (707) tanker/transports, the use of which has been hampered by low availability rates over the last few years, the KC-X programme was fast-tracked early this year. © Airbus Military Problems...

In April 2004 the Australian Defence Forces selected EADS's Airbus A330-200 Multi-Role Tanker Transport as a replacement for its ageing Boeing 707-based aerial tanker aircraft. Aside from supportability issues, the 707s had only a probe and drogue refuelling capability. Whenever its General Dynamics F-111s needed to air refuel, the Royal Australian Air Force had to rent a tanker with a boom. Several additions to the RAAF fleet, such as the Boeing 737-based Wedgetail, Boeing C-17 and future Lockheed Martin F-35 need a boom-equipped tanker to fully exploit their capabilities.Additionally, inter-operability with allied nations would be enhanced with a dual mode...

European aerospace giant Airbus has cut its prices in a bid to win a fight with US rival Boeing for a 40-billion-dollar US Air Force contract, a German business daily reported on Monday. Airbus has cut the proposed cost for the contract to build 179 aerial refuelling tankers by at least 10 percent from the level in a previous offer in 2008, the Financial Times Deutschland (FTD) reported, citing industry sources. Last week, the two competitors submitted their offers to Washington, setting the stage for a high-stakes transatlantic trade scrap. It will be the third time the contract has been...

Demonstrably proud of their bid on the KC-X tanker, EADS NA officials turned it in one day early and the company’s chairman slammed Boeing for “wasting a lot of time trying to derail” the competition “because someone thinks their plane is inferior.” Boeing’s attacks amounted, said company chairman Ralph Crosby, to a lot of “crap.” EADS flew five paper (and one CD) copies of its 8.800-page bid to Wright-Patterson Air Force Base on a chartered prop plane, expecting them to arrive at 2:40 p.m. The company filmed the copies being loaded aboard and the takeoff for employees to watch later....

Airframer data for the crashed Afriqiyah Airways Airbus A330-200 shows that it had accumulated just 1,600 flight hours before the accident. Airbus has confirmed the carrier's identification of the airframe as serial number 1024, adding that it had conducted some 420 flights since delivery in September. "Preliminary reports indicate that the aircraft crashed short of the runway threshold during approach," it adds. There is no information on the level of experience of the cockpit crew. Afriqiyah confirms that a child was the sole survivor from among the 93 passengers - mainly Dutch nationals - and 11 crew on board. Video...

France has found what could be the first concrete clues to the location of black boxes missing from last year's Atlantic jet disaster, but warned on Thursday there was no guarantee the breakthrough would lead to their recovery.The defense ministry said the boost had come through detailed follow-up analysis of sonar readings taken in the first few weeks after an Air France jet crashed into the Atlantic killing 228 people on June 1 last year. Finding the black boxes is seen as essential to help crash experts and relatives understand exactly what caused flight 447 to plunge into a remote...

Boeing’s biggest supporters roared out of the gate Tuesday after the World Trade Organization issued a final ruling that Airbus enjoyed unfair subsidies from European governments. “Enough is enough. For too long, workers in Washington state have had to fight an uphill battle. Instead of competing just with Airbus, they’ve been forced to compete with the deep pockets of European governments that supply Airbus with illegal launch aid,” Sen. Patty Murray of Washington said in a statement. Then she aimed straight at the tanker competition. “It’s clear that the A330, the very plane Airbus would offer our military, has received...

Resumption of the search for the flight recorders from crashed Air France flight AF447 has been delayed, but French investigators expect a US detection vessel to arrive in Brazil next week. The Bureau d'Enquetes et d'Analyses states that the vessel, the Anne Candies, is predicted to reach Recife around 24 March. Its departure for the scene had been held up by "administrative and technical difficulties", says the BEA, as well as poor weather conditions. Recovery teams are planning to use deep-water search equipment in a bid to find the wreckage of the Airbus A330 which came down in the South...

The crash of Air France flight 447 from Rio to Paris last year is one of the most mysterious accidents in the history of aviation. After months of investigation, a clear picture has emerged of what went wrong. The reconstruction of the horrific final four minutes reveal continuing safety problems in civil aviation. One tiny technical failure heralded the impending disaster. But the measurement error was so inconspicuous that the pilots in the cockpit of the Airbus A330 probably hardly noticed it. snip . . .

July 29, 2009: Saudi Arabia has ordered another three Airbus A330 tankers, for aerial refueling and carrying cargo. The Airbus MRTT is based on the twin engine Airbus 330-300, which normally sells for $160 million each. The 233 ton MRTT carries 111 tons of fuel, plus 43 tons of cargo (26 pallets).