TN/QF A300s
 

The A300 seems an interesting aircraft in Australian service. I think they were ordered around the same time Ansett took the 767-200. They were delivered in a heavy premium 3 class configuration and served as the flagship of the fleet in the 1980s. By the time TN was acquired by Qantas they were in a 2 class config and seemed to be confined to MEL-SYD-BNE sort of routes - were they a "successful" aircraft in the Australian industry? QF got rid of them by '98 so I assume they didn't meet the needs of Qantas domestic in the 1990s.

The TN A300 in 1981 was well before the AN 767. They served the country well for almost 20 years. A HUGE jump from the then biggest aircraft in domestic ops (727). They were great for freight and pax loved them. Although remember this was a different era when they could operate at 70% average loads and still survive charging fares that were 4 or 5 times todays discount fares (in adjusted terms).

Correct, the A300s were in service about 2 years before the Ansett 767s

When QF took over TN, TN had already ordered A320's and paid deposits on them, QF quickly cancelled the A320 order and were about to lose the deposit already paid, an agreement was reached with Airbus to use the deposit money as payment for refurbishment of the A300 fleet, Airbus agreed, as it was the only way to keep the QF livery on an Airbus type at the time, QF were going to toss the A300's out, if Airbus didn't come to the party.

The first TAA A300 arrived in middle of 1981. It was two class configuration - I think it started off as 40/229. The first Ansett 767 arrived two years later. Business Class arrived after the first planes.

The first four A330s arrived fairly quickly, but the fifth plane was delayed. TAA had ideas of leasing it out to Air Pacific, but Air Pacific decided to carry on buying seats on Qantas planes. (Air Pacific had a short lease of a DC-10, but that is another story).

Just after the Qantas Australian Airlines merger, Airbus had some spare A300s which had been used by Philippine Airlines. These aircraft were offered to Qantas (new management, who had arrived from Australian Airlines) and Airbus found they were half interested. This might have added another four planes to the Qantas fleet.

The biggest problem with the TAA A300s was their short range (due to being early model B2's - later A300s had significantly better range). Winter SYD-PER services regularly diverted to ADL due to their inability to carry sufficient fuel reserves to reach PER direct. On the east coast, they were very successful aircraft with the capability to carry significant amounts of cargo in addition to a full load of pax & baggage.

When QF bought TN, they were able to compare the operating costs of the A300 against the B767-200 & -300 which didn't come out favourably for the A300. Apart from the huge disparity in range, the A300 burnt approx 1 tonne per hour more than the B763 and the cost of spares and engineering support was horrendous because of the small fleet size. The figures that James Strong gave in 1995 was that the four A300s had $10m per aircraft in spare parts whereas the eighteen (at that time) B747-400s had only $3m per aircraft in spare parts. He went on to say that the minimum number of aircraft for a fleet to be viable was 12-15. (this was confirmed later when QF bought Impulse which had a fleet of 8 B717s & B1900s - QF was able to lease 6 more B717s without any increase in the spare parts inventory).

In 1995, Strong wanted to get rid of the 4 A300s ASAP but because the TN Board had overvalued all of its assets in preparation for the Federal Governments sale of Australian Airlines, the book value of those aircraft was significant and Strong said that shareholders would not accept writing off that amount in one financial year (Continental Airlines in the US had just parked 30 A300s in the desert so there was no market to sell them to another carrier). The aircraft were placed on an accelerated write-down so that they would be worth nothing by mid 1998 - the aircraft left QF service circa August/September 1998. During the last few years of A300 operations, the serviceability rate decreased (mainly Landing Gear related) which may have been due to QF reducing the spares inventory.

TN A300s
 

The TN A300s were B4 models. The poor fuel economy was due to being CF6-50 engines. The CF6-80 was on the B767-300, hence the better fuel economy from that aircraft model. However the CF6-50 was more fuel efficient than the B767-200 JT9 powered aircraft. The reason they were good for freight was they had the full width holds enabling two LD3s side by side. You couldn't do that with the B767.

total B767-200 fuel uplift MEL-PER was same as fuel BURN MEL-PER on A300..

Carried a few more bums with higher fuel burn per pax..

Emal, my apologies, you're right re the model #. The fuel burn was not only due to the different engine model - the A300 wing was significantly shorter than the B767s and wasn't as advanced a supercritical airfoil section. Also, the A300 had larger flap track canoes which increased the drag.

Wrt the JT9D powered B767-200, its fuel burn at domestic loads was about 4,500kgs per hour (in cruise) whereas the A300 was about 5,700kgs per hour. There was no doubt about it though, the CF6-80 was the better engine by a big margin.

Airbus designed the aircraft to be compatible with the B747 wrt cargo containers which is why you can get 2 LD3's side by side in the cargo hold. The B767 was designed by Boeing originally to be a fuel efficient trans-continental domestic aircraft so a slimmer twin aisle fuselage was deemed to be a better option despite the lack of compatibility with cargo containers. The efficiency, along with a lot of growth potential in the original design allowed it to grow into an intercontinental airliner and in QF service was operating sectors as long as SYD-PEK.

As a line maintenance engineer at TAA / AA, I remember working many long night shifts on the A300's - fan blade lubes, reverser cables jamming, fan trim balancing ....... all the fun stuff!

For info - all of the old AA A300's are still in service as follows:

VH-TAA (MSN 134) - now freighter with Midex, Reg: A6-MDF
VH-TAC (MSN 157) - now freighter with Midex, Reg: A6-MDA
VH-TAD (MSN 196) - now freighter with Midex, Reg: A6-MDB
VH-TAE (MSN 218) - now freighter with Midex, Reg: A6-MDC

VH-TAB (MSN 151) - now in pax service with Iran Air, Reg: EP-IBI

An amasing a/c at the time. Remember TN was flying the 9 and 727 when the A300 rocked up. It was like a 747 on domestic routes. The first ever wide body plane to serve domestic - they looked enormous beside a DC9. To many pax it was almost unbelievable that a huge wide body plane could have only 2 engines.

Pic Photos: Airbus A300B4-203 Aircraft Pictures | Airliners.net

The A300 was designed back in the 1960's and to see these ex TN birds still flying, well after 30 years after first their flight, is a credit to the design and maintenance of TN

Were they well liked amongst pilots and cabin crew?

I recieved a very nice delivery a fortnight ago which is now on display in my office.

It is a 20 inch long fibreglass model of VH-TAA that used to adorn the desk of the Manager of TAA Devonport.

The model is number 2 of a production run of 6 in the Trans Australia "camel" livery and sits very well with the other 70 units in the office.

Hate to think what it would be worth on the open market, but I am very happy to have the addittion.

Only happy thoughts about the A300s. They were a lovely aeroplane to ride on and it is good to see the entire fleet is still out there and hasn't been reduced to teaspoons or bicycle frames.

Best all

EWL

Don't remember much about the specifics of my time on the B4, however I do remember:

Holding to cross ML 27 as the AN 767 departed. Taxied and takeoff from ML 16. Landed in PER 23 minutes ahead of the 76. Talked to the crew in the bar that night. Fuel burns near enough the same.

We went at 25/26,000 they went at 36,000 + from memory.

Seats were effectively the same as capacity control was still in force.

Maui

TN definately had the A300 before AN got the 767's.

At the time TN got the A300, AN had a big advertising campaign about how they had more smaller jets and so better frequency.

I guess this must of hurt TN more then they ever actually let on because when AN did get their 767's TN ran advertisements....

"We'd like to congratulate the airline that said small airplanes are better then big airplanes on getting their big airplanes" !!

ST

maui.

The TN A300B4's were fitted with 269 seats at delivery. The original 5 AN B767-200's were fitted with 211 seats. The B767-200 was a piece of cake between SYD-PER whereas the A300B4 struggled with fuel calls at ADL.

Ansett found it easier to get target load factor with the smaller B767-200 and the aircraft was a frequent visitor to places such as ASP, CNS, DRW, HBA, HTI, LST and OOL.

Ps. I do not believe AN ever got a MTOW from MEL to PER.

B772

I was on it for about 3 years. I do not recall ever dropping in to ADL for fuel, nor have I rècollection of others having to do it. But many years of good reds may have dulled the grey matter?

Maui

My TAA/ QF A300B4 Models...
 

Hi guys,

Long term reader, occasional poster.

Having decided to not go down the path of flying as a Career, I now work as a Flight Dispatcher for a major Australian Airline. I fell in love with our Airline industry back in the 1980's and as such I'm quite passionate about the Aircraft and paint schemes that plied our Airways back then. Unfortunately I just don't see a viable return on investment when it comes to training for a flying Career based on the current (and future) state of the industry. Sad, but that's life. Anyway, I digress...

Having collected Aircraft Models since I was a kid, I started a small business out of it a while back. These days I work with many manufactuerers Worldwide in order to commission my own range of unique Australian Airline Models. This encompasses Qantas, Ansett-ANA, Ansett, Eastwest and TAA subjects.

I'm not sure if the Mods allow this, but I thought that some of you might like to see one of my commissioned Models: a 1/200 scale TAA A300B4 in the Camels Hump (delivery) colours- (click on the Photo to enlarge).
Hogan 1/200 TAA A300 | Flickr - Photo Sharing!

It's something that I'm passionate about, and thought some of you would be interested in looking at. I've also produced the A300 Model in the final QF scheme, and will be doing the Australian Airlines version at some point. The TAA Museum at Airport West here in Melbourne were a huge help in terms of colours/ fonts etc.

Anyway Mods, if you want to delete my Post and tell me to PO then that's OK. I just thought there would be some of you out there interested in the fact that someone is out there keeping our history alive.

Cheers all,
Gearup.