helldog

Whats the bump near the nosewheel for?

Photos: Airbus A330-223F Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net

forget

Curious myself, so answer nicked from another site.

The A330 normally has a slight nose down attitude when on the tarmac. Not a problem for passengers, but a bugger when you are handling freight apparently. So the solution is rather than a longer nosewheel strut, to move the mounting point lower for the existing nosewheel, unfortunately that means that it no longer retracts to be flush with the existing airframe - hence the bulged fairing. The quoted height of the freighter is .50cm lower (same tail same fuselage length as the A330-200) due to the fuselage being level.

stilton

Surely it would be higher

forget

Longer nose wheel - lower aft fuselage.

Devil Man

helldog

forget, thanks for that. Very interesting indeed. I am way to lazy to have reasearched that myself.

413X3

first flight YouTube - A330-200F first flight

stilton

Is the height of the Aircraft measured at the lower aft fuselage then..

forget

Errrr. No. But as the A330 has a nose down attitude when on the tarmac the whole back end will be lower if you make the nose leg longer. Gerrit?

stilton

Err, still no.


The standard A330 has a pronounced nose down attitude which I understand is a problem for Cargo loading.


The -F version has a different nose wheel arrangement and modification (with resultant fairing) allowing for a basically level fuselage while on the ground by 'elevating the nose'



If you measure the height of the fuselage at, for example the forward door on the freighter then it is only logical that it would be higher than the passenger version, after all that was the intent of the modification.



I can see that the tail height of the Cargo version will be lower than the passenger version but that was not what was implied.

Dual ground

Stilton, what is the highest point on an aircraft? Where would it be logical to measure the height from? Think about it....

stilton

The original post stated the height of the freighter version is .50cm lower.



Since the modification discussed is to raise the nose of the Aircraft to allow a level attitude on the ground the implication is the forward fuselage is higher which it is !



As you accurately point out 'Dual Ground' the top of the vertical stabiliser is the highest point of the Aircraft and this is lower on the cargo version but not of primary importance to operators.


The higher, level loading height is, it seemed backward to me to mention the lower tail height