Tarbes LFBT
 

I was passing by Tarbes airport last week and decided to pop in for a look-see. As expected there were quite a few stored aircraft, some waiting to be parted out and in various states of being cannibalised. Amongst these was a seemingly perfect A350, minus engines, which was surprising. Would anyone be able to shed light on why this would be ?

Also, within a line of stored, but viable A340's, were perhaps 5 or 6 unused examples, still with their pre-delivery registrations (F-WXXX etc). I think that they were A340-300 variants. Were they ordered and never taken up ?


SHJ

Several of the A340-300s are the examples originally delivered to Air China. I don't know whether the F-W... registrations that they are currently wearing are the same as their pre-delivery ones.

Clearly they are never going to go back into service - you can't even give A343s away nowadays. :O

The A350 is probably msn 004 (F-WZNW) - the one painted in hybrid Airbus/Qatar colours. I don't know whether it's to full production standard, but in theory it's available for sale and I suspect it will end up with a corporate/VIP operator rather than an airline.

The storage & dismantling operation at Tarbes is run by Tarmac Aerosave, a joint-venture between Airbus and some components companies. They also operate the long-term storage facility at Teruel in Spain ( whither the Transaero fleet fled last December ).

Edit: here's an overview from 2009:

http://www.ainonline.com/aviation-ne...usiness-tarbes

“Employing a diamond cable has several benefits,” head of deconstruction Sébastien Medan said. “There is no hot spot and no spark, and it uses water cooling which absorbs the dust.”

Thanks for the replies chaps. Had a bit of free time and no disturbances, so i went through my SD card, and despite most of the photos being artistic, a few registrations became apparent which might shed some light on the A340's. There were 2 Air China examples, with one reg visible F-WJKO, another EI-FMH and CS-TWT, all with smaller 'hairdryer' engines and the new looking all white A340's at least 5, only reg visible F-WJKK and these all had the larger engines (RR Trent ?) and on closer inspection look like -600 variants, as the angle of viewing foreshortened them optically. There were also a few Air Namibia A340's further along.

The A350 on the breaker's side of the airfield minus engines has a small '04' on the lower tail, hidden under the 'A' of the 'A350', so it would appear that it was indeed msn 004. It looks in the photo as though it's been mothballed temporarily and ready to go at short notice engines allowing! It appeared to be in Airbus' colours, perhaps the other side had Qatar colours ?

The breaker's compound was very full, many airbus present, Air China, Cathay, DHL, Air France, Virgin Atlantic, Nordwind Airlines and TAM. Surprisingly there were a few 747's and 767's being cannibalised, bearing in mind the proximity to Airbus' homeland.


SHJ

I suspect the latter may have been A330 CS-TMT, formerly with Hifly and various other airlines on lease and now in storage at Tarbes.

It was, i must've been looking at it upside down ;) On further digging today, it would seem that the 6 white 'new' A346's are in fact A340-541's, a version which was delivered to both Emirates and Etihad amongst others. I'm curious as to if these are 'new and unused' or have had previous owners ? They did look in very good condition.


SHJ

There were few, if any, whitetails remaining when the A340 production ended.

One of those A345s that you identified - F-WJKK - is a former Singapore Airlines example, as are two of the others stored at Lourdes.

It's amazing the difference a fresh coat of white paint can make. :O

It must do, because they looked in very good condition all over. What a shame that they are sitting there languishing, rather than being used as ULH VIP steeds for various countries governments. No doubt I'm missing the fineries of the operating costs and depreciation aspects, but still….


SHJ