{"id":57535,"date":"2024-10-24T21:10:25","date_gmt":"2024-10-24T19:10:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=57535"},"modified":"2025-10-24T03:29:55","modified_gmt":"2025-10-24T01:29:55","slug":"the-taxiing-and-takeoff-of-a-large-airbus-beluga-xl-transport-plane-in-getafe-spain","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2024\/10\/24\/the-taxiing-and-takeoff-of-a-large-airbus-beluga-xl-transport-plane-in-getafe-spain\/","title":{"rendered":"The taxiing and takeoff of a large Airbus Beluga XL transport plane in Getafe, Spain"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The European company Airbus is one of the world's leading manufacturers of commercial aircraft, and has several factories in Spain.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2018\/07\/22\/beluga-xl-this-is-how-the-giant-that-will-transport-future-airbus-planes-was-built\/\">Beluga XL: this is how the giant that will transport future Airbus planes was built<\/a><\/rel><br \/>\n<rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2024\/03\/21\/the-history-of-iberias-boeing-747-the-largest-aircraft-of-a-spanish-operator\/\">The history of Iberia's Boeing 747, the largest aircraft of a Spanish operator<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n<p><strong>One of these factories is in Getafe (Madrid), located next to an Air Force base,<\/strong> whose runway is used jointly by military aircraft stationed there and by aircraft operated and manufactured by Airbus. Due to its function, <strong>Getafe is a regular operating point for the large Airbus Beluga XL transport aircraft.<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54091292650_c14a4e4bdb_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/p>\n<p>The history of the Beluga dates back to <strong>1972, when Airbus purchased four Aero Spacelines Super Guppy transport aircraft<\/strong> to transport the fuselages and wings of its aircraft between its various factories in Europe. <strong>In 1992, Airbus began developing its own replacement for the Super Guppy, the Beluga<\/strong>, based on the fuselage of the Airbus A300-600 but with the addition of a large cargo compartment on top.<\/p>\n<p><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/live.staticflickr.com\/65535\/54091089273_b95f31ef8d_b.jpg\" style=\"width:100%; height:auto; border:0px;\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>The first Airbus Beluga made its maiden flight on 13 September 1994.<\/strong> Airbus built five of these aircraft. Two decades after its entry into service, <strong>Airbus began developing a larger transport aircraft, the Beluga XL,<\/strong> based on the fuselage of the Airbus A330-200F. The European company currently operates six Beluga XLs. <strong>The first of these, the Beluga XL1 (F-GXLG), made its maiden flight on 19 July 2018.<\/strong> This Thursday, the YouTube channel <a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/@flybywire-aviation\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Fly By Wire Aviation<\/a> (to which I recommend you subscribe if you like the world of aviation) has published a video showing this large transport aircraft taxiing on the runway at Getafe Air Base:<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Airbus Beluga-XL-1\" width=\"665\" height=\"374\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/xm4FGJgRhcU?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p><strong>The Airbus Beluga XL has a fuselage measuring 63.1 metres long,<\/strong> a wingspan of 60.3 metres and a height of 18.9 metres. <strong>Its cargo compartment has a diameter of 8.8 metres.<\/strong> It can transport up to 50,5 tonnes of cargo over a distance of up to 4,000 kilometres. I have seen some test flights of these aircraft over the Vigo Estuary and they are really impressive.<\/p>\n<p>---<\/p>\n<p><small>Main image: Fly By Wire Aviation. Rest of the photos: Airbus \/ S. Ramadier.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The European company Airbus is one of the world&#8217;s leading manufacturers of commercial aircraft, and has several factories in Spain.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19534,17020],"tags":[11913,11914],"class_list":["post-57535","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-defense-portada-eng","category-civil-aviation","tag-airbus-a300-600st-beluga","tag-airbus-a330-743-beluga-xl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57535"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=57535"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57535\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57535"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57535"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57535"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}