Airbus A310

what is it?

The Airbus A310 is a wide-body airliner designed and manufactured by Airbus Industrie GIE, then a consortium of European aerospace manufacturers. Airbus had identified a demand for an aircraft smaller than the A300, the first twin-jet wide-body. On 7 July 1978, the A310 (initially the A300B10) was launched with orders from Swissair and Lufthansa.

🔎How to recognise it: 2 jet engines · low wing · retractable tricycle gear · 43.9 m wingspan

base stats

• range 9,538 kmwithout refuelling
• seats 243passengers
• size 164 tmax take-off weight
• built 255made 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 44 years ago, in 1982.
• 🚗Wingspan of 43.9 m: about 10 cars parked nose to tail.
• 🐘Fully loaded it can weigh as much as 27 African elephants (~6 t each).
• 🌍Range of 9,538 km: Amsterdam to New York (≈5,850 km) without stopping.
• 🏔️Can fly 1.4× 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

1982-04-03

introduced

1983

status

still flying

number built

255

role

airbus a300

origin

🇫🇷 France

makers

Airbus Commercial Aircraft

engines

2× Pratt & Whitney PW4156A / Pratt & Whitney PW4000 / General Electric CF6 / JT9D

crew

2

passengers

243

length

46.7 m

wingspan

43.9 m

height

15.9 m

max take-off weight

164 t

top speed

—

range

9,538 km

ceiling

12,530 m

wings

low wing

landing gear

retractable tricycle gear

ICAO code

A310

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

family