AviTech Reader

In the beginning there was the Airbus A300-600 variant which was then modified to become the Airbus A300-600 ST(Super Transport). However, with time, the name Beluga just became more popular than the Super Transport name such that the name Beluga was officially adopted. The plane was designed and manufactured to specifically carry huge loads with awkward shapes that could not fit in the normal cargo aircraft. It was meant to serve multinational companies like Airbus itself which is a consortium made up of specialized companies in Spain, Germany, Britain and France. Each of these companies makes unique parts which have to be shipped to a central assembly point for n integration into a functional aircraft. Normally, the individual details of each design are different but the general trend is normally that the wings and landing gear are made in the UK, the tail and doors in Spain, the fuselage in Germany, and the nose and center-section in France, with final assembly in either Toulouse, France; Hamburg, Germany; or Seville, Spain.

So, at the beginning when Airbus was found in 1970, the transport of the parts was by road…so slow because as the production rate increased with time, there was need for a faster and more efficient form of delivery. This called for the air transport to come in. Airbus actually used four highly specialized "Super Guppies", just modified from the  Boeing Stratocruisers of the 1940’s. Again with time, they became less efficient, for instance, the fuel consumption was quite high due to the age and as Air bus ferrying capacity distended, their load could not be carried well by the modified fuselage structures and turboprop engines. This generally distraught their production capacity as they had schedules to meet and ended by necessitating the development of better carriers.

As Airbus embarked on a course of action in 1991 Aérospatiale and DASA, two of the major Airbus partners,expediently came up with a company to facilitate the project. They commenced by designing  a wide-body twin-engine Airbus A300: the wings, engines, landing gear, and the lower part of the fuselage is an exact replica of the A300 while the upper part of the fuselage is a colossal horseshoe-shaped structure of diameter 7.7 m.To enable access to the cargo area from the front without having to disconnect or mar any electrical, hydraulic and flight control connection(without mentioning the lengthy recalibrations before each flight), the standard A300 cockpit was lowered below the cargo floor level, and the tail structure was enlarged and strengthened to maintain directional stability.

The design of the Beluga, with reference to the Airbus A300, was mainly meant to carry lighter but huge loads. Its construction began in September 1992 and it was ready for testing after two years. After 335 hours of testing, it received restricted certification in October 1995. Four other airbus A300 ST’s were made at an average 1 per year.

Compared to the C-5 Galaxy or the Antonov An-124 , it has a larger main deck cargo volume but still below that of the Antonov An-225.On the other hand, it has a low cargo weight capacity of 47 tonnes compared to 122.5 tonnes of the  C-5 Galaxy and 150 tonnes of the An-124. Still, though it has a huge fuselage, it cant carry many parts of the Airbus A380 and they have to be ferried by ship and road.It is not totally useless though, as it can transport a few of those parts.