The A340

 

Hello Aviators 

Welcome back to the blog, today we will be taking a break from American aircraft since the last 2 blogs were on American aircraft, today we will be discussing an aircraft that many may describe as a pioneer for the A380, it is the one and only Airbus A340.

History of the A340

In 1986, Airbus started production of the A340 family of aircraft, the A340 was built in order to compete with aircraft such as the 747 as well as the MD-11 which was not necessarily meeting the demands of certain customers such as Singapore Airlines. The aircraft was designed with 4 engines and has multiple variants including the A340-200, A340-300, A340-500, and the largest of them all being the A340-600. When the aircraft was designed, it seemed like the product that was needed, in the 1980s, twin-engine aircraft like the Airbus A300 and the Boeing 767 could not really fly for a long time over the oceans as authorities were skeptical of the abilities of twin-engine aircraft. So in theory, the A340 was the perfect aircraft to fly long distances because although there were twin-engine planes that were cheaper to run and more than capable of flying long distances, they weren't allowed to. This meant that if airlines wanted to fly long distances over the ocean, the A340 would be the way to go because it has 4 engines and was slightly cheaper than the 747 in terms of operating costs.

Specifications of the A340

For the purpose of today's blog, we will be discussing the A340-600, the largest variant of the Airbus A340. The A340-600 has a length of 75.35m a wingspan of 63.45m and a height of 17.93m. The aircraft can fly a maximum range of 14450km and can typically carry around 450 passengers. The aircraft is powered by four Rolls Royce Trent 500 engines each producing 55 000 pounds of thrust that push this aircraft to its top speed of 913km/h. The aircraft costs $275 Million and 97 of the -600 variants were built.

The Fall of the Airbus A340

As stated earlier on in the blog, in theory, the A340 was the perfect aircraft, but what Airbus didn't factor in when developing the aircraft is that a few years later, Boeing would release the 777 which is a competitor of the A340, the 777 can fly just as far, carry nearly the same amount of passengers and has a lower operating cost because it uses 2 engines instead of 4. The final nail in the coffin for the A340 was the removal of the law that restricted planes from flying over the ocean, this meant that there was simply no longer a need for the gas-guzzling 4 engine A340. A total of 377 variants of the A340 were built across all variants which is low, especially when compared to the 777 with 1695 aircraft built and more potential future orders with the development of the 777x.

It is sad that such a beautiful aircraft was not more of a success, as of 2022 there are less than 80 of the type that is still in service globally with South African Airways and Lufthansa being a few of the airlines still using them. If you would like to fly one of these 4 engine beasts, you have to act quickly because airlines are going to retire them very soon. That's all from me for today aviators, till next time, STAY FLYING HIGH.