Airbus' own aircraft

[BWBriscoe]

Apart from 'Beluga' and the A340-300 testbed, do Airbus operate any other aircraft in the Airbus livery?

For what purpose are these aircraft used?

Cheers!

[A-FLOOR]

One particular aircraft comes to mind:

The bigger-better-faster-badder A340-600 prototype F-WWCA. Besides being used as a testbed for new technologies you can see it on basically every major airshow on the planet, and this weeks it's on the ILA2004.

And then there are ofcourse the few Privatair A319 ACJs that are operated between the main Airbus 'bases' in Yurop. :)

[Ace Rimmer]

I was down there last week playing with ATRs and noticed that they had a house colours baby bus

[Kerosene Kraut]

They have at least the 346 and two A318 (CFM plus PW version). Shuttles and ACJ are outscourced AFAIK. The Belugas seem to be run by a "separate" internal company.

[panda-k-bear]

And they still have the first A320 dwon there in house colours. I saw it at Florence a few months ago before they resurfaced the runway.

Does anyone know if the A346 and A318 will eventually be delivered to an airline? The Frontier chappies took the 2nd A318 a few weeks ago, apparently. It was originally painted up in house colours.

[BahrainLad]

F-WWCA (A340-600) lacks the overwing exit common to the production models so it's doomed to a life of modifications and test flying. And blimey, do they give it some at airshows......whoosh!

The A340-300 testbed currently has a Trent 900 hanging off the l/h wing ready for testing for the A380 program.

[uy707]

The Belugas are operated by Airbus Skylink division
Other aircrafts contracted by EADS-Airbus are a pair of SN601 Corvettes, initial use of which is air-to-air pictures.
Alain