Airbus smiling beluga takes off (photos, video)

The first of five BelugaXL landed at Toulouse-Blagnac airport at 14:41 hours Friday, after having made with his first flight lasting 4 hours and 11 minutes.

The crew on the flight deck to accomplish this inaugural flight on July 20, 2018 in Toulouse consisted of Captain Christophe Cail, co-pilot Bernardo Saez-Benito Hernandez, and flight test engineer Jean-Michel Pin. During this flight, Laurent Lapierre and Philippe Foucault monitored the aircraft's systems and performance in real time from the flight test station located in the aircraft. Following its first flight, the BelugaXL will undergo a flight test program of 600 hours over a period of 10 months to obtain Type Certification, with commissioning planned for the year 2019 .

The BelugaXL program was launched in November 2014 to meet Airbus' transport capacity requirements with a view to ramping up of the A350 XWB and increases in the production rates of single-aisle aircraft. Five aircraft will be produced from 2019 to 2023 to gradually replace the five BelugaSTs, and will be operated to 11 destinations to transport the large aircraft components of Airbus.

Derived from the A330-200 Freighter (cargo version), the BelugaXL is powered by Trent 700 engines from Rolls Royce. The lowered cockpit the structure of the cargo hold as well as the rear part and the empennage of the aircraft were newly developed in collaboration with the suppliers and give this aircraft its distinctive appearance. It sports the special livery " smiley " making it look like the eponymous cetacean. This livery was one of six choices submitted to Airbus employees through a survey involving 20,000 people; it had collected 40% of the votes.

?✈️First takeoff of #BelugaXL from the runways of the airport – Impressive! Bravo @Airbus !! ? #avgeek #aviationphotography #planespotting pic.twitter.com/7GEnkGym48

– Toulouse Airport (@airport_tls) July 19, 2018

LOWPASS! ?? #BelugaXL pic.twitter.com/OVfs0IgUxE

– Airbus (@Airbus) July 19, 2018