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PARIS- The first flight of Beluga XL the huge cargo plane of Airbus shaped whale capable of carrying a load of 51 tons on a nonstop route from to 4,074 kilometers was successfully completed on landing at Colomiers, near Toulouse
The cabin crew consisted of French commander Christophe Cail , the Spanish co-pilot Bernardo Sáez-Benito Hernandez and a flight engineer, also French Jean-Michel Pin, said the company in a statement.
Two flight test engineers, Laurent Lapierre and Philippe Foucault, were in charge of monitoring the systems and checking the behavior of the aircraft.
This is the first of the five Beluga XL they should be manufactured and will come into service gradually by the middle of the year 2022. The certification of the first, at the end of the period test, is expected to take place by the middle of next year.
The Beluga XL program was launched in November 2014 to meet the growing need for the transportation of aircraft parts between its various plants and to take over from the five Beluga STs with which it operates Currently
With the increase of its dimensions compared to the ST (7 meters longer, 5.5 more span and 1.7 more height) it may, for example , move two wings of the A350 at the same time, not one.
The Beluga XL is derived from the cargo version of the A330-200, while the ST was based on the A300, the first aircraft developed by the group European. (ECHA Agencies)
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