Originally Posted by
ATC Watcher
It was public : there was an article in the Liberation newspaper in France in 2020 mentioning those flights , it said one apparently even went to Guyane to recreate the tropical conditions . The "interesting one " is supposed to have occured near Mt De Marsan in France in the Airbus test area . and was seen on radar by Civil ATC and mentioned on an ATC forum. . Then a serie of posts /rumors on a French Aviation forum ( Radiocockpit, now closed) mentionned this flight, one arguing they were close to evacuate ( this test A340 has an in-fligh evacuatuion door ) Rumors or exagerrations perhaps, but it would have been easy for Airbus to stop them , as some of their staff were on the AF447 thread on this peraticular forum at the time , all defending Airbus , but they did not on this occasion . More I do not know. .
SLF non-aviation engineer here. I'm curious, how relevant would the behaviour of an A-340 be to the accident flight that was with an A-330? I know the FBW and cockpit is the same between the two types, but the actual aircraft aerodynamics and behaviour, is that 'similar enough'? Or is it just that Airbus did not have an A-330 with and evacuation system and thought that they could learn something useful from the A-340?