History

The Airbus A.300 was the first design of the European construction consortium established to compete with American airliner manufacturers. It introduced wide body services to Australian domestic flights in the 1980s

The Airbus A.300 was the first airliner designed and built by a consortium of European aircraft manufactures.

The first A.300 made its first flight on 28 October 1972. Sales were slow initially but when production ended in 2007 a total of 561 had been made.

TAA ordered four A.300s in 1974 and the first one, VH-TAA was delivered in 1981.

However, declining passenger demand soon after it arrived meant the airline had to lease some of its A.300s to other airlines during the 1980s and VH-TAA was leased to other airlines before returning to TAA in 1989.

This model represents VH-TAA flying in Trans Australian livery between 1981 and 1984.

Airfix 1/144 kit with Hawkeye decals completed by Leigh Edmonds in June 2019.

Data

MODEL: Airbus A.300B4 (TAA, VH-TAA, 1981)

ROLE: Large capacity short/medium commercial transport

TIME PERIOD: 1972-

ENGINES: two General Electric CF6-50C turbofan engines of 23 814kg thrust each

WING SPAN: 44.84m

LENGTH: 53.62m

MAXIMUM TAKE OFF WEIGHT: 165,00kg

CRUISING SPEED: 911km/h

RANGE: 7,040km

PAYLOAD: up to 345 passengers

CREW: 3

SCALE: 1/144

KIT:

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