[Aircraft]Airbus A300-600ST (Airbus Beluga)

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ABOUT THE AIRCRAFT

The Airbus A300-600ST (Super Transporter) or Beluga is a cargo plane, developed based on the Airbus A300, capable of carrying fuselage sections of other planes and large loads. However, we should mention that, since its maximum load capacity is only 47 tons, it carries large loads in volume, not so much in weight.

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The cargo version with large volumetric capacity of the Airbus A300-600 was designed to replace the old and obsolete Super Guppy from Aero Spacelines. These planes were, until the entry into operation of the "Beluga" (as the A300-600ST were nicknamed) used by Airbus to transport wings and fuselages of its aircraft between the factories located in Germany, France, the United Kingdom and Spain. The development of the A300-600ST began in August 1991 and only three years later the first prototype rolled out in Toulouse. The first flight, in September 1994, began the approval process, received in mid-1995 after 400 test flights. The first unit, the old prototype, went into operation at Airbus in January 1996. The delivery of the fourth unit took place in June 1998, when the Super Guppy were finally retired.

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Essentially based on the A300-600, it has the same wing, engines, lower fuselage, main landing gear and cockpit. The main change is the huge fuselage, equipped with a "clamshell" port in front, which forced a repositioning of the cockpit. The tail was also modified, with the use of small vertical stabilizers installed on the horizontals. However, the original vertical stabilizer has been maintained. The rudder was only in the main vertical stabilizer.

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The control and management of the Belugas fleet is done by SATIC, a company formed in partnership between Aérospatiale and DASA. In addition to transporting parts to Airbus, SATIC also offers the large volumetric capacity of the aircraft (1400m3) for the transport of bulky cargo, which ended up justifying the introduction into service of a fifth aircraft, incorporated into the fleet in 2000.