Aerospace Design: The Beluga Airbus, a Monster Aircraft

The Beluga Airbus is the world’s most volumetrically cavernous aircraft and is named after the similarly shaped Beluga whale. This Airbus is almost exclusively found in the skies of Western Europe and has been well documented by scientists. Considering that only five exist, one might consider it an endangered species.

The specifics:

• This monster of the skies measures a humungous 56.15 m ( 184ft ) in length and 17.24 m (56ft) in height, with a wingspan of 44.84m (147ft). It’s vast insides measure 37.7m in length, 7.1m in width and 37.7m in height (which racks up to a 1,400 square meters, roughly 14,000 square feet)
• It weighs 86 tons empty and can carry a volumetric payload weight of 47 tons
• One of its main uses has been the transporting of large Airbus parts
• It can swallow helicopters and international space station modules whole.

At first we thought it was an ordinary Airbus fuselage with a gigantic box bolted on the top… but then we noticed how the front section tilts downwards. Perhaps it’s bending under the weight of all that stuff on its head…  🙂

Nevertheless, TMG looks forward to the day when its expertise in mechanical engineering will play an important part in the design of such landmark machines!