PPRuNe Forums - View Single Post - A340 Freighter conversion?
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Old 23rd March 2005 | 16:42
  #14 (permalink)  
Hunter58

Freight God
 
Joined: Sep 2000
Posts: 307
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From: LS-R54A
JV

maybe I shoudl clarify myself here. AI did use a A300 to simulate the nose down of any possible freighter derivative of the A330/340. The results were so desastrous (in engineering terms) that AI did use the last three years to come to a good idea of how to build a new NLG that would not require a moyor rework of the nose area and still allow them to offer the A330-200F (ok, they were also sidetracked by the development of another 'baby'). The kink is not the problem, the problem is that worst case the baby sits with a 3.8 degrees nose down. The video AI did during the tests is actually rather hillarious to watch...

Also AI is NOT looking into the A330-300F but into the A330-200F. The -300F was never a real option.


T2
You are right and wrong. The problem is the shear loads on the fuselage. Without reinforcement (which adds a lot to empt weight) you cannot have anything but very light pallets in the A330/340 fuses. AI would actually build the A330-200F with the technical fuse of the A340-600 to absorb the shear-loads and be able to offer a 65t freighter. Any other non OEM conversion would be limited to some 55t due to that.

You can't compare A300s with A330/340s. They may look the same, but in the detail they are not at all.
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