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Agencia AFP.
The plane takes its name from white whales. The decoration, which includes cetacean eyes and a big smile, was decided by the employees during a vote.
The new Beluga XL, Airbus cargo ship shaped Whale Mouse made its first test flight this Thursday in the Toulouse region, in the south of France.
The aircraft Airbus A330-743 Beluga XL will be used to transport the parts of most Airbus aircraft from the various production sites of the European group (located in several countries, such as the 39; Germany, Spain or the United Kingdom) at the Toulouse factory, where assembly takes place.
The vessel will gradually replace the current Beluga ST of 2019 and "is part of our production system," said Bertrand George, director of the Beluga XL program, detailing the network of European factories involved in the puzzle. Airbus but that "they are two hours from Toulouse."
"All Airbus planes, apart from the A380, which has its own mode of transportation, spend two hours on the Beluga," said George .
The resemblance of the Beluga XL with the white whale, which it bears the name, is accentuated with the eyes of the cetacean and a big smile painted on the front of the plane. Decoration decided by group employees during a vote.
The program, launched in 2014, provides for the construction of five copies XL whose first will be operational in 2019.
To achieve this mastodon 18, 9 meters high , 63.1 meters long and whose fuselage has a diameter of 8.8 meters engineers left "an A330 base, from which we modified the wings, engines and the lower part of the fuselage "said George.
"This is an excellent platform, a solid foundation," he said, recalling that several hundred A330s fly around the world every day.
According to the program director, the new aircraft was needed for the production of the new A350 XWB long-range aircraft, which requires composite materials.
"Today we are carrying the wings of the A350 XWB one by one Tomorrow we will transport them by two," George said.
The test flight lasted four hours and the Beluga XL flew over the Pyrenees and part of the Mediterranean before returning to Toulouse.
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