The A310 prototype

[Sentinel Chicken]

Someone on my forum brought this question up and I thought I'd punt it over to the expert group over here- I've never seen any pics of the A310 prototype. I've seen it in service later on and there's one pic of it on Airliners.net under construction (but it's mislabelled) but I'm wondering if it even flew in Airbus house colors or went straight into airline service colors.

 

[Caravellarella]

Dear Sentinel Chicken, the first A310 prototype was the A310-221 registered F-WZLH c/n 162. It was first flew on 3rd April 1982 in a hybrid livery reflecting both launch customers; with the Swissair livery on the starboard side and Lufthansa livery on the port side. It was later converted to an A310-222; repainted in full Swissair livery and delivered to that airline on 21st March 1984 as HB-IPE.

The second A310 prototype was the A310-221 registered F-WZLI c/n 172; painted in full Airbus house livery. It was later converted to an A310-203 and delivered to Air France as F-GEMF on 14th March 1986.

Terry (Caravellarella)

 

[toura]

Hi Sentinel chicken
Airbus A 310 F.WZLI in full airbus color

 

[Caravellarella]

Hi Sentinel chicken
Airbus A 310 F.WZLI in full airbus color

Ditto......

 

[Caravellarella]

Dear Sentinel Chicken, the first A310 prototype was the A310-221 registered F-WZLH c/n 162. It was first flew on 3rd April 1982 in a hybrid livery reflecting both launch customers; with the Swissair livery on the starboard side and Lufthansa livery on the port side. It was later converted to an A310-222; repainted in full Swissair livery and delivered to that airline on 21st March 1984 as HB-IPE.

The second A310 prototype was the A310-221 registered F-WZLI c/n 172; painted in full Airbus house livery. It was later converted to an A310-203 and delivered to Air France as F-GEMF on 14th March 1986.

Terry (Caravellarella)

The port-side of F-WZLH in Lufthansa livery......

 

[Caravellarella]

Dear Sentinel Chicken, the first A310 prototype was the A310-221 registered F-WZLH c/n 162. It was first flew on 3rd April 1982 in a hybrid livery reflecting both launch customers; with the Swissair livery on the starboard side and Lufthansa livery on the port side. It was later converted to an A310-222; repainted in full Swissair livery and delivered to that airline on 21st March 1984 as HB-IPE.

The second A310 prototype was the A310-221 registered F-WZLI c/n 172; painted in full Airbus house livery. It was later converted to an A310-203 and delivered to Air France as F-GEMF on 14th March 1986.

Terry (Caravellarella)

At last, I found the picture I had been looking for. A view of the nose of F-WZLH showing both liveries......

 

[Stargazer]

Ha ha! Brilliant! So the black nose is only decoration? I always figured there must be a technical reason behind it... I was wrong it seems.

 

[toura]

HI ALL
The other side of F-WZLH - Swissair livery

 

[Caravellarella]

Ha ha! Brilliant! So the black nose is only decoration? I always figured there must be a technical reason behind it... I was wrong it seems.

It's not only decoration Stéphane. Fibreglass radomes were usually painted black, light grey or left unpainted, but then some airlines did start to continue the livery paintwork onto the radome itself. I don't know if this still requires special paint or if painting livery paintwork on radomes degrades radar performance. Oh no! I'm off-topic again

 

[Caravellarella]

The starboard-side of F-WZLH in Swissair livery......

 

[Caravellarella]

Hi Sentinel chicken
Airbus A 310 F.WZLI in full airbus color

Ditto......

Ditto......

 

[Deleted member 2278]

US report on the Airbus A300B10:

StateDeptcable1978-174292 : Free Download, Borrow, and Streaming : Internet Archive

archive.org

Interesting that Eastern had options.