Birth of the Airbus Family: The A310

The Airbus A310 prototype takes flight on 3 April 1982.

In the days following the start of the 1973 Yom Kippur War in Middle East in October that year, the oil producing nations of the Middle East responded to American materiel support of Israel with an oil embargo that sparked a worldwide economic crisis as the price of oil abruptly shot upwards from $3/barrel to over $12/barrel in a short period of time. As a result, the airline industry worldwide embraced fuel efficiency as the new driver for future aircraft designs. While there were high-bypass ratio turbofans that powered the new widebody designs that were entering service (Boeing 747, Douglas DC-10, and Lockheed L-1011 Tristar), turbojets and low-bypass ratio turbofans were still commonplace in the short to medium-haul fleets worldwide. Many airlines indicated to the major manufacturers that there was a market need for a fuel-efficient aircraft in the 150-200 seat range over short to medium haul ranges. Of the big three manufacturers in the United States who dominated the world commercial airliner market, Boeing's plans were the most ambitious with the launch of not just one aircraft, but two aircraft with a common cockpit with the Boeing 757 and 767. It was in many ways the biggest gamble Boeing had ever undertaken, bigger than building the Dash 80 demonstrator that led to the 707 and even bigger than the launch of the 747 ten years earlier. News of Boeing's plans put pressure on Airbus Industrie to respond as all it had produced by that point was the A300. While there were a range of A300 variants with varying engines, payload and fuel capacities, they were all still essentially the same aircraft and hardly a family of aircraft. Two of the primary founders of Airbus and their heads, Roger Béteille (technical director) and Henri Ziegler (general manager), strongly believed that Airbus needed to emulate Boeing's strategy of building a whole family of different aircraft for different markets if the whole enterprise was to have a future beyond the A300. Boeing's idea for commonality with the 757 and 767 designs resonated with the Airbus team who was commonality among varied designs as a way of proving value to the airline customers, not to mention it would be a strong incentive for an Airbus customer to stay loyal to Airbus in the future.

Part of the problem Béteille and Ziegler faced was that most of the Airbus consortium partners saw the A300 as the end result of cooperation instead of the starting point for future cooperation. A lot of that was driven by the atmosphere of fiscal austerity of the 1970s in the wake of the 1973 oil crisis- Airbus' partner nations were hesitant of putting up more money into the venture, particularly when Airbus was still a bit player on the world market despite the success of the A300. In 1978, for example, Airbus delivered 15 aircraft, all of them A300s. That same year Boeing delivered 203 aircraft across three product lines- the 727, 737, and 747. In fact, it wouldn't be until 2003 that Airbus would deliver more aircraft in a single year than Boeing. When Boeing launched the 757 and 767 programs, they were also capitalizing on market vulnerabilities experienced by McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed in the wake of their trijet programs- Airbus wasn't really on Boeing's radar screen at the time. Despite the market effects on McDonnell Douglas and Lockheed, they were still delivering aircraft as well which were entering service on top of Boeing's numbers. You can imagine what a tall order it was for Béteille and Ziegler to convince the Airbus consortium partners that there was value and potential for the long haul beyond the A300 at a time when they were only building less than 5% of the world's commercial jetliners. It wasn't until mid-1975 that the board of Airbus Industrie endorsed the plan for a family of aircraft- and that endorsement is a testament to the persuasive powers of Roger Béteille and Henri Ziegler. In his book Close to the Sun: How Airbus Challenged America's Dominance of the Skies, author Stephen Aris calls that 1975 decision as the most critical decision in Airbus' history. If Airbus failed, then it was only one aircraft, the A300, that failed. But if they became successful, then that one aircraft wouldn't be enough. The leadership of Airbus Industrie by that point had proven themselves remarkably adept in getting the A300 into production and to market while balancing the interests of the partner nations in the consortium. 

Winning a Swissair order was a strategic priority for Airbus

With the backing of the consortium to expand the Airbus product line beyond the A300, the next task at hand was to determine the configuration of the new addition. The first iteration dated back to the oil crisis of 1973 when A300 sales were near dormant (only four A300s were delivered in 1974). In response to what was seen as an evolving market for something smaller than the A300, what was designated the B10 was a minimum-change variant of the A300 that had a shorter fuselage but the same wing and empennage as the larger aircraft. However, the B10 proposal created a significant amount of discord at all levels of Airbus as the consortium partners argued whether it was needed or not. Lufthansa in particular was keen for a smaller A300 derivative and this had gotten the support of Swissair. In those days, Swissair was one of those flagship customers every commercial airframe builder wanted as a customer. They were a tough customer known to be one of the most difficult airlines to negotiate with- but a Swissair order was badge of prestige for any commercial aircraft design and with Swissair now allying with Lufthansa on interest for a smaller A300 derivative, winning Swissair as a launch customer soon became one of Airbus' primary strategic goals. 

By the time the two airlines were briefed on the B10 proposal, Boeing was well on its way to launching the 757/767 program and compared to those aircraft, the B10 had no fans with either Lufthansa or Swissair. Their objections of the proposal stemmed from two points- the first one was that by the time of proposed service entry, the B10 design would be based on technology and a design that was at least a decade old and more importantly, it had a worse payload fraction than the A300. The payload fraction is one way of measuring an aircraft's efficiency- how much payload can it carry compared to its weight. Since the B10 design had a shorter fuselage married to the A300's wings, it had less passengers (therefore less revenue) to offset the costs of carrying a heavier wing structure. This is one of the reasons why shrinks of commercial airframes tend to not do well in the market- like the A318, 737-500, or 747SP, for example. If the B10 proposal was ever going to get off the drawing board, it needed a lighter wing and whole host of improvements over the A300 to win over the airlines who were being offered the latest in technology with the 757/767. In an unusual twist of history, the prospect of trans-Atlantic cooperation offered an potential answer to Airbus' dilemma. Why not combine Airbus' growing widebody fuselage expertise with the technology and industrial muscle of the United States? The first feelers on such an idea came from McDonnell Douglas in the spring of 1975 for a joint venture for a 200-seat design called the DC-X-200. McDonnell Douglas had long been considering a twin-engine version of the DC-10 and the DC-X-200 was the latest iteration along those lines. However, once discussions moved beyond engineering to management, the talks quickly collapsed. That summer another offer came from Boeing who thought there would be some synergies with the B10 proposal and the 767 program. Whether Boeing was serious or just trying to distract Airbus is still a source of debate to this day, but the proposal would have consisted of the A300-based fuselage and 767 wings and empennage. At the end of the day, however, Airbus lost interest as it became apparent that they would end up a Boeing subcontractor in the joint venture. 

Lufthansa was an early A300 customer who drove the design of the A310.

Still keen to win over Lufthansa and Swissair, Airbus decided to follow as Boeing had done with the 757/767 and go with a two-crew flight deck and CRT displays. That would prove to be a relatively easy step to take but it still provoked the ire of the pilots' unions of several European carriers. The need for a new wing, however proved to continue to be problematic. I had posted previously that it had taken the personal intervention of a German politician, Franz Josef Strauss, to fund the A300's wing development and construction by Hawker Siddeley as a result of the British government's withdrawal from the Airbus consortium. Hawker was still the center of the most advanced wing design work in Europe and was in the process of merging with several other entities to form British Aerospace (BAe). With British Aerospace being majority owned by the government, there was considerable anguish at Airbus as to whether or not BAe would participate in the B10 project given the British pull out of the Airbus consortium in 1969.  When Hawker elected to remain an Airbus participant despite the pullout, they had absorbed a portion of the costs of wing development. Now that Hawker was part of BAe, no one was sure that the new entity was willing to front such costs again for the B10 project. Airbus decided at that point to turn to its partners for a wing design- Aerospatiale and VFW-Fokker each submitted wing designs and Roger Béteille was sure that whoever was chosen, it would be the end of Airbus as the other partner would feel jilted. As it turned out, neither was chosen- the German design was aerodynamically superior but the French design was structurally superior. A joint-wing design center was established to combine their efforts and word of this got back to BAe quite quickly that their replacement was in the works. 

The exact political machinations in the UK that resulted will be the subject of a future blog article, but they were contentious with pro-Airbus factions in the British government and those who favored a joint-venture with Boeing on the 757. At the end of the day, however, BAe did end up designing and fabricating the wing which was not only lighter, but was of supercritical section which made it not only more aerodynamically efficient but also offset the smaller size with a deeper airfoil section which offered more fuel capacity. Getting the wing also meant that the British eventually rejoined the Airbus consortium with a 20% share. On 9 June 1978, Lufthansa and Swissair issued a joint specification for the new aircraft and within a month announced intentions of placing orders for what was launched as the Airbus A310. On 15 March 1979, Swissair announced its launch order for 10 aircraft and 10 options with plans to use the A310 as a replacement for its legacy DC-9 fleet on its major intra-European routes. Lufthansa quickly followed with an order for 10 aircraft and soon after Air France and Iberia also placed orders, assuring the production and success of the A310. When the A310 prototype flew, it would later wear Swissair's colors on the right side and Lufthansa's colors on the left side. Many of the advances of the A310 were later incorporated into an upgrade of the A300, the A300-600. 

Further reading: 

How American Airlines Shaped the A300

How Rolls Royce Scuttled British Participation in Airbus

The Early Days of Airbus Industrie and How the A300 Got Its Name

Franz Josef Strauss: The Bavarian Politician Who Saved Airbus
How a Lot of Airbus Jets Were Born on Boeing Wings

Related reading:

American Airlines Picks the DC-10 (American's pick of the DC-10 is intertwined with the early history of Airbus)

Source: Close to the Sun: How Airbus Challenged America's Domination of the Skies by Stephen Aris. Agate Books, 2002, pp 90-95. Photos: Wikipedia

How the Boeing 757 Almost Became a Joint US-UK Program

Following the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the Airbus consortium and the A300 program, the 1970s were times of significant uncertainty for the British airframe manufacturers. Some in the British aircraft industry advocated for return to the Airbus consortium, some pushed for an indigenous airframe and yet others suggested joint ventures with other nations, even if that meant working with Europe or even the Americans. The indigenous solution was the least likely of the day in light of the UK government's unwillingness to invest in the promising BAC Three-Eleven program. In 1974 the French laid down the conditions for the return of the UK to Airbus- not only would the UK have to make a substantial contribution to the development and production costs of the A300, but British airlines would also have to purchase the A300 jetliner. It was the low point of relations between the French and British that once rode the wave of cooperation with the Concorde program. Accusations were even aired in the press of the day with each nation belittling the other's aerospace industry. 

Politics complicated the equation with the recession following the 1973 Yom Kippur War and the Arab oil embargo on the West. The West German government called for increase in financial commitment to Airbus as financial austerity in that nation called for a need to decrease the West German government's financial stake to 25% of what it was at the time. The suggested solution was to expand the Airbus consortium to include the UK and Italy to offset domestic decreases in the financial investment in Airbus by the Bonn government. In the UK, the bankruptcy of Rolls-Royce and the difficulties of the Lockheed Tristar program put the preservation of British aviation jobs as a top political priority. In 1976 further consolidation of the British aviation industry took place with the formation of British Aerospace with the merger of BAC and Hawker Siddeley. The new company's priority under the leadership of Lord Beswick was a new commercial airframe. 

At the time the French were holding discussions with McDonnell Douglas on a successor to the Dassault Mercure, the CFM56-powered Mercure 200. However, the leadership of McDonnell Douglas wasn't convinced the Mercure 200 was the aircraft to launch a trans-Atlantic venture. As a result of wanting to see what other European manufacturers had on the table, discussions were also held with British Aerospace. At the time there were several promising designs from Dassault, Aerospatiale, and BAC (which again was looking a new version of the One-Eleven provisionally designated the X-Eleven). Britain at the time was keen on the JET program (Joint European Transport)

In August 1976 a team of BAC/Hawker engineers (now in the employment of the new British Aerospace entity) visited Boeing in Seattle to review the progress on what would be come the Boeing 757. At the time work was taking place on what was provisionally designated the Trident Five which by coincidence shared a lot of features with the Boeing 757. Like the early 757 design that had a T-tail and 727 nose, the Trident Five had a Trident nose and T-tail combined with a stretched fuselage with a moderately swept wing mounting two RB.211 engines in underwing nacelles. Boeing's president at the time, the colorful Tex Boullioun, offered BAe design work on the wing, engines, RB.211 nacelles and landing gear on the 757. In fact, Boeing was willing to even have final assembly of the Boeing 757 in the UK with flight testing taking place there. "I can't understand why any would want final assembly- it's 7% of time spent on the aircraft with 97% of the problems" as Boullion put it to BAe's head, Lord Beswick.

The British investment to the Boeing 757 was less than what the French wanted for re-entry into Airbus and the potential value to British industry was well in excess of US$3 billion. Boeing went as far as to extend an invitation to British subcontractors to visit Seattle and discuss specific areas of involvement. British Airways was already discussing an order for the 757 and it wasn't a state secret that Lord Beswick disliked the French. But once again, politics sidelines the deal. Despite the new RB.211 engine variant for the 757 being key to Rolls-Royce's recovery, the political winds of the day called for cooperation with the Europeans and with Hawker Siddeley designing an all new supercritical wing for the upcoming A310, it was felt at the highest levels of the government to continue along with what Hawker Siddeley had started with Airbus. The UK had joined the European Economic Community in 1973 and a BAe deal with Boeing to design and build the 757 was unacceptable in light of the spirit of the EEC which pushed pan-European business and industrial cooperation.

 

Source: Flight of the Titans: Boeing, Airbus, and the Battle for the Future of Air Travel by Kenny Kemp. Virgin Books, 2006, p100-106.

Tupolev's Own Tristar Design

Amongst the Russian aircraft design bureaus (called OKBs), it's common practice to reuse designations for aircraft projects that have been previously used for aircraft that never made it past the design stage. The Tupolev Tu-204 twin jetliner, for example, is the third design to use the Tu-204 designation. Work on the first Tu-204 project began in 1973, at which time OKB Tupolev was studying the concept of a family of related aircraft designs that shared common features, powerplants and systems. At the time the Tu-134 and Tu-154 were the main domestic jetliners in the Aeroflot fleet as well as in the Soviet client states. The first Tu-204 project was for a short-haul transport carrying up to 180 passengers with two Kuznetsov NK-8 low-bypass turbofan engines (the same powerplant used on the Tu-154) mounted under a T-tail on the aft fuselage. In keeping with Tupolev's ideas for a family of related airliners, this first Tu-204 design would have shared many features of the Tu-134.

By the mid-1970s, though, the design bureau's work and moved towards a medium range airliner with comparable performance to the Airbus A300, the Lockheed L-1011 Tristar, and the McDonnell Douglas DC-10. The expected growth in air travel made a larger-capacity aircraft a more attractive proposition and efforts were made for this new, second Tu-204 project to embody many of the same cabin comforts of the Western wide-bodies. Work began in 1975 on this newer and larger Tu-204 project.

The second Tu-204 project would have had a large fuselage on par with that of the DC-10 and Tristar and underfuselage cargo holds that could accommodate LD-1 and LD-3 containers. A 28-degree sweptback wing with a supercritical airfoil combined with an extensive array of high-lift devices offered good field performance and efficient cruising speeds. A significant amount of time was spent on determining the ideal number of engines, location of the engines, and the type of engines to be used. Again returning to the idea of a family of airliners, Tupolev's designers created to variants of the Tu-204- a twin-engined version and a three-engined version. Both designs used the Soloviev D-30 turbofan (also used on the Il-76 airlifter). The trijet version had a longer fuselage and had its third engine mounted in the end of the aft fuselage and fed by a curved S-duct with its intake ahead of the vertical fin. For all intents and purposes, it strongly resembled the Lockheed Tristar.

Interestingly enough, in 1974 British charter operator Court Line flew one of its Tristars to Moscow along with cadre of Rolls-Royce engineers for a series of demonstrations for Aeroflot that took place over three days. While debatable about how serious Aeroflot's interest in the Tristar was, Aeroflot's engineers were given full access to the aircraft for close examination. This would have been just a year before the launch of the second Tu-204 project.

In the late 1970s the Soviet Council of Ministers issued a directive for a more comfortable and technologically-advanced jetliner that had efficiency as its key selling point. It had to be on par with what was seen as the most advanced jetliner of the day, the Boeing 757/767 series that were under development in the late 1970s (the 767's first flight was in 1981, the 757's was in 1982). As a result, in 1979, the Tu-204 family were redesigned with the more advanced Soloviev D-90 turbofan. Work on the two versions was done in parallel, but Tupolev's designers were steadily starting to favor the twin-engined design as the D-90 was showing promise and growth potential as a powerplant. By 1981 disputes emerged between differing design viewpoints at OKB Tupolev. One group felt that the twin-engined design was just as safe as the three-engined version and that design work should focus on a wide-body twin. Another group wanted to pursue the three-engined design for safety reasons and that the power of three engines offered more growth potential. And a third group emerged that favored a twin-engined design, but felt that the only way to match the 757/767's fuel economy was to use a narrow-body design.


In 1986 the third group won out the internal battle over the Tu-204's design. After a shuffling of design and engineering heads on the project, the Soviet Council of Ministers gave its approval for the Tu-204 to be a twin-jet narrow-body design that strongly resembled the Boeing 757 in layout. That marked the third use of the Tu-204 designation and that is the aircraft that made its first flight on 2 January 1989.


Source: OKB Tupolev: A History of the Design Bureau and Its Aircraft by Yefim Gordon and Vladimir Rigmant. Midland Publishing/Ian Allan, 2006, p267-273.

During the development of the Boeing 757, once it was decided that both the 757 and 767 flight decks were to be common, the original design for the 757's cockpit that was based on the 727 now faced the challenge of having to fit the widebody cockpit of the 767 onto the single-aisle design of the 757. In a rare move for Boeing, the design of the 757's nose was reconfigured after program launch in an effort to achieve a common rating for both aircraft.

Using the same forward windshield, related structures and cab geometry as the 767, the design was then altered to suit the narrower fuselage of the Boeing 757 with the goal of having the same visual and ergonomic geometry for the flight crew as that of the larger 767. The 757's nose section curves upward more dramatically than past Boeing jets as the point of nose is actually below the fuselage centerline with the flight deck floor a step down from the main deck.

The result was a cockpit with more visibility than past Boeing designs and aerodynamic noise also improved, with a 6 dB drop over the aerodynamic noise of the 727. The wider cockpit improved storage space with more room as well as improved air conditioning circulation patterns and the by providing a wider space at the front of the aircraft, there was more space for the forward lavatory and galley.

The extensive changes to the 757's nose and cockpit were all driven by the need for a common type rating for both aircraft and as the 767's cockpit had been designed first, it was adopted for the 757 with modifications. But with an identical windshield and instrument panel, much of the associated structure was also nearly identical in many ways.

Source: Boeing 757 and 767 (Crowood Aviation Series) by Thomas Becher. The Crowood Press, 1999, p33-35.