Paul Lewis and Max Kingsley-Jones/LONDON
Airbus Industrie's search for a new 200-seat widebody jet is focusing on a further shrink of the A330 as a possible alternative to earlier studies of updating the A300/A310 family or developing an all new design.
Internal attention is now focused on an A300 sized derivative of the twinjet under the project name A330M19, representing a nine-frame fuselage shrink of the 250-seat A330-200, which is itself a 10-frame reduction over the original 300-seat -300. It is understood the double shrink design is being tentatively designated the A330-100, but industry sources say it is a study and not yet a firm proposal.
The principal design changes comprise a five-frame shortened forward fuselage and the removal of four aft of the main wing to shave around 4.8m (15ft) off the overall 59m length of the A330-200. The aircraft would retain the -200's strengthened wing and enlarged empennage. As with the larger A330-300, the centre fuel tank in the wing box would be deactivated.
Airbus is targeting a maximum-take-off weight (MTOW) of 217t (480,000lb) for the 200-seater, in line with the baseline A330-300. While the aircraft's MTOW is 13t lighter than that of the -200, it will have the same 11,850km (6,400nm) maximum range capability, and similar take-off performance. The aircraft will require an engine in the 60,000lb-thrust (267kN) range and competing manufacturers are already manoeuvring to be on the A330-100.
Pratt & Whitney is believed to be looking at either a derated version of the A330's PW4168 or the proposed PW8160 geared turbofan. Selection of the latter could give P&W a "backdoor" into the A340-500/600 programme, suggests an industry source. R-R and General Electric would probably offer a derated Trent 700 and CF6-80E1, respectively.
Source: Flight International
