Airbus A300

what is it?

The Airbus A300 is Airbus' first production aircraft and the world's first twin-engine, wide-body airliner. It was developed by Airbus Industrie GIE, now merged into Airbus, and manufactured from 1971 to 2007. In September 1967, aircraft manufacturers in France, West Germany and the United Kingdom signed an initial memorandum of understanding to collaborate to develop an innovative large airliner.

🔎How to recognise it: jet engines · retractable tricycle gear · 44.8 m wingspan

base stats

• speed 917 km/htop speed
• range 5,375 kmwithout refuelling
• size 88.5 tmax take-off weight
• built 561made in total

Bars compare against all aircraft: 3,500 km/h, 20,000 km, 850 seats; size and number built on a log scale up to 640 t (An-225) and 45,000 built (Cessna 172).

fun facts

• 🎂First flew 54 years ago, in 1972.
• 🏎️Top speed is 7.1× a car on the Dutch motorway (130 km/h).
• 🚗Wingspan of 44.8 m: about 10 cars parked nose to tail.
• 🐘Fully loaded it can weigh as much as 15 African elephants (~6 t each).
• 🌍Range of 5,375 km: 30× Amsterdam to Brussels.
• 🏔️Can fly 1.2× higher than Mount Everest (8,849 m).

jet: Gas turbine pushing air out the back (turbofan or turbojet): fast and high-flying.

spec sheet

first flight

1972-10-28

introduced

1974

number built

561

role

wide-body airliner with 2 jet engines

origin

🇫🇷 France

makers

Airbus Commercial Aircraft

engines

Pratt & Whitney PW4000 / General Electric CF6 / JT9D

length

53.6 m

wingspan

44.8 m

height

16.5 m

max take-off weight

88.5 t

top speed

917 km/h

cruise speed

847 km/h

range

5,375 km

ceiling

11,000 m

wings

monoplane

landing gear

retractable tricycle gear

ICAO code

A306, A30B

Specs are for the version in the Wikipedia article's specification section. Blank means the sources don't say.

family