hers an artical bout the new humungus airplane, Airbus! u dont havta read it, it for ppl who are interested! ^-^
AIRBUS ACJ CORPORATE JETLINER, EUROPE
Airbus has developed the ACJ business jet that can easily be converted to commercial passenger service. The Airbus
Corporate Jetliner is based on the airframe of the A319, a twin engine, single aisle, medium range airliner. Airbus
Industrie, headquartered in Toulouse, is owned jointly by EADS and BAE Systems.
The A319 airframe is a short-bodied version of the successful Airbus A320 family of aircraft. The main differences
between the ACJ and the A320 are the length of usable cabin, two less fuselage plugs shortening the length by nearly 4m
or 12ft, a modified rear cargo door and the deletion of a bulk hold door and forward overwing emergency exit.
In June 2003, Airbus increased the baggage capacity on new ACJ models from 3m³ to 10m³ by modifications to the
auxiliary fuel tanks arrangement.
About 30 ACJ have been delivered. It is operational with: launch customer Qatar Airways, based at Doha; EADS Deutschland
GmbH in Stuttgart: Twinjet Aircraft with headquarters in Bedfordshire, UK; Aero Services in France; Al Kharafi group of
Kuwait; DaimlerChrysler of Germany; Blue Moon in the US; PrivatAir of Switzerland; Air Luxor (Masterjet) of Portugal and
with a number of other governments and private customers. Two aircraft are in service with the government of Italy, one
with the Venezuelan Air Force, two with the French Air Force, one with the government of the United Arab Emirates and
one with the Royal Thai Air Force (delivered in July 2004). One ACJ was ordered in July 2004 by Alpha Tours of Dubai and
one in September 2004 by AZAL of Azerbaijan. In May 2004, National Air Services (NAS) of Saudi Arabia ordered two A319
Executive (an ACJ variant).
In October 2002, the ACJ received Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) approval for scheduled and private operation in
the USA.
FUSELAGE
The primary structures of the Corporate Jetliner are of composite construction with aramid fibre (AFRP), glass fibre (GFRP) and carbon fibre (CFRP) reinforced plastics.
CABIN
The spacious 24m long cabin has a floor area of nearly 80m². The cabin layout can include executive suites, equipped
offices and meeting rooms, a bedroom, a family living room or sitting room area and bath or shower room according to the
needs of the individual client or corporate customer.
The cabin can also be designed to allow public transport flights, so that the aircraft can be operated to allow private
or commercial flights. In other words, the interior can be easily converted to provide seamless commercial passenger
service.
The cabin environment gives an exceptionally quiet and comfortable flight. The air conditioning system provides a
constant fresh air flow at low velocity as the air conditioning manifold is situated in the fuselage recess and
maintains the cabin pressure at 8.33lb/in².
The ACJ is fitted with airstairs to allow self sufficiency at airfields with limited airport facilities.
FLIGHT DECK
The ACJ 17 hour flight deck has twice the volume of typical business jets and easily accommodates the pilot and copilot.
The aircraft is fitted with Thales/SFENA fly-by-wire controls. The fly-by-wire system incorporates flight envelope
protection, reduces costs and pilot workload as well as improving the aircraft's performance. The aircraft has CAT
IIIB automatic landing capability.
Each pilot has a side-stick controller allowing single hand control. The fly-by-wire system incorporates many safety
features including a high level of redundancy, use of dissimilar redundancy with different computers, different
microprocessors, different vendors, division and separation of each computer, the segregation of power supplies and the
maximum segregation in signalling lines.
The Thales/VDO electronic flight and information system (EFIS) includes a set of primary flight and navigation displays
for each pilot. The primary flight display provides speed, altitude and heading data. Two Thales/VDO electronic central
aircraft monitoring (ECAM) displays are mounted in the centre section between the pilot's and co-pilot's
instrument panels.
Rockwell Collins supplies the communications and navigations suite including: ACARS (aircraft communications addressing
and reporting system), ADF (automatic direction finding), VHF omni-directional radio range navigation aid with data from
the distance measuring equipment (VOR/DME), multi-mode receivers (MMRs), TCAS ll collision avoidance system and weather
radar, as well as optional items such as satellite communications and data-links.
ENGINES
The aircraft is offered with two IAE V2527M-A5 engines or two CFM International CFM 56-5B7 developing 111.9kN. The fuel
tanks have a capacity of 6,260 US gallons (23,860l) giving the aircraft a range of over 6,500km with eight passengers.
The aircraft is approved for 180 minutes ETOPS operations (extended range twin engine operations).
The total usable fuel capacity can be increased to 10,640 US gallons by installing up to six auxiliary fuel tanks.
The aircraft is fitted with full authority digital engine control (FADEC). FADEC increases engine life and lowers costs
through providing fuel control thrust setting computation, engine limit protection, automatic start sequencing and
monitoring, thrust reverse control and feedback, flight deck indications and engine health monitoring.
SAFETY STANDARDS
The Airbus Corporate Jetliner meets the FAR Amendment 56 standards for protection against sudden decompression, damage tolerant and fail safe structure, structural fatigue evaluation, bird strike damage protection, emergency exits and access doors and ice protection.
