FLUG REVUE February 2004: A340-600 enters Lufthansa service

LUFTHANSA INRODUCES A340-600

By Sebastian Steinke

A windowless briefing room at Lufthansa's base in Frankfurt. In the rainy first light of dawn of 28 November 2003, a group of senior Lufthansa pilots is debating where today's special excursion should fly. According to the weather report, there is dense rain cloud above every 3,000m runway in Europe, from Malta to Dublin. And the planned alternates of Leipzig (which they flew to yesterday) and Palermo are still reporting dense fog. Dieter Hensel, who, as Chief Training Captain A330/A340, heads the three-day internal Lufthansa type conversion course and is the longest serving and most senior of all the 24 instructors, makes a decision: we will follow the original plan and go to Söllingen near Karlsruhe, where visibility is expected to improve to at least six kilometres.

The reason the weather is so important is that, at least at the destination, the plane is to be flown manually under VFR rules. For today's small selection of five A340 training captains need to get to know their latest aircraft, the A340-600, so intimately that they can then provide induction training to and supervise the other cockpit crews. The plan is that in future all A340 Lufthansa pilots will be freely interchangeable between the different versions of the A340, including the longest version.

Naturally the five long-serving professionals, with thousands of flying hours to their names, are not starting from scratch when it comes to flying the A340-600. Rather, it is a matter of experiencing for themselves the last few differences of detail, which only manifest themselves in the real aircraft. Hence every pilot has to complete at least three circuits using the sidestick. Those who took part in the acceptance and ferry flights give their colleagues a few last tips at the pre-flight briefing: they should not be surprised by the apparently sharper rotation movement on takeoff in the cockpit, as this is simply due to the longer lever arm of the ultra-stretched fuselage. Again, they should not climb out too steeply after takeoff with the powerful four-engined aircraft, which today has a very light payload, but, instead of using the sidestick to contain the rapid build-up of speed, they should depart with greater speed and hence with a flatter angle of climb. The $190 million A340-600 takes off at around 140 knots and ideally rotates at between 2.5 and three degrees per second. Compared with the already stretched A340-300, the -600 has been stretched by a further 5.87 metres in front of the wing and 3.2 metres to the rear.

For noise abatement reasons, circuits in Söllingen are flown alternately towards the right and towards the left, and at the same time a markedly zigzag route is followed so as to circumnavigate clusters of housing and even individual houses. Another thoughtful requirement is that at least 2,000 feet of altitude (approx. 600 metres) must be maintained in the downwind.

An airfield apron bus takes us to a remote spot on the apron behind the cargo terminal in Frankfurt, where the brand-new A340-642, serial number 517, registration D-AIHB, aptly named “Bremerhaven” is waiting for us. It is fuelled for a take-off weight of just under 260 tonnes, so as to ensure that we arrive in Karlsruhe with exactly the right maximum permitted landing weight of 254 tonnes. Without passengers, cargo and the new Business Class reclining seats, which after certain technical modifications will not be installed in the front cabin until just before scheduled services commence, it is possible to take off today with almost 25% less thrust.

But before the plane can get going, a screen display in the cockpit warns that the second starboard door is not pressure-tight. Immediately the technicians look into the problem and once again put the fuselage under pressure to test it. The door sensor still reports that it is “not sealed”, but actually that is not a problem for us today. The very short run to Karlsruhe can be carried out at low altitude without pressure cabin until the technicians specially flying along with us can fix the problem, which they do before our return.

With a waterfall-like veil of spray on the cabin windows, D-AIHB is propelled forward by its four mighty Trent 500 engines from Rolls-Royce, each generating 249kN of thrust. Having thundered its way down Frankfurt runway 18 West, it effortlessly takes off into the grey Hessian sky. In the cabin and also on the ground being overflown, it is pleasantly quiet, for the noise footprint of a A340-600 taking off with a 368 tonne mass radiates an area of only 3.5 km² at 85 dB(A), compared with the 14,5 km² area of ground that is similarly affected by a departing 747-200 that weighs 378 tonnes. The kerosene consumption of an A340-600 is about 18 to 20 percent lower than that of a 747. Moreover, the power generated by the three-shaft Trents on the A340-600 is monitored and regulated in the cockpit via the engine pressure ratio, whereas on the CFM engine for the A340-300, this is controlled instead by the percentage rpm N1 of the low-pressure compressor.

After about a quarter of an hour, with picturesque grey condensation stripes on the wing tips, we already find ourselves at 150 knots on the final approach to Söllingen, where we touch down beautifully softly and come to a halt after 1,300 metres of runway or so. Dieter Hensel's recipe for a successful “break landing” (as opposed to a “flare landing”) sounds simple: “You approach forcefully, pull her back so that she doesn't sink, throttle out and then you set her down. Don't take the nose forward until after touchdown, and hold off with the reverse thrust until all the wheels are in contact with the ground. But if you were to land the plane like a Cessna, you'd get a tailstrike.”

Like the DC-10-30 before, the A340-600 has an extra central landing gear below the fuselage, whose two pairs of wheels only set down after the landing gear legs to either side are on the ground. Because of the bigger engines and longer fuselage, the -600 has slightly longer legs than the A340-300. The first landing is a “full stop”. With the aid of the two television cameras below the forward fuselage and on the vertical tailplane, the pilots taxi skilfully across the narrow Söllingen taxiways that were originally designed for Canadian F-104 fighters. We park the aircraft somewhat to the side since, due to its enormous length of 75.3 metres, which makes it the longest passenger aircraft in the world, only a specially assigned apron area is available to us. Our four-engined plane with its 63.45 metre wingspan needs a massive turning circle of 55 metres. After a short break, the A340-600 then takes off on about 20 circuits, with due changes of cockpit crew and task allocation.

But before that, a visit to the spacious underfloor cabin of the A340-600 is in order. As the launch customer, Lufthansa's chosen configuration accommodates an impressive 345 Business and Economy Class seats in the 60.95 metre long main deck. At the level of the last but one pair of doors, a passenger staircase protected by two waist-high swing-doors leads nosewards into the “cellar” where most of the Economy Class toilet cabins are located. Further to the rear, behind a door, is the separate Economy main galley with a small service lift up to the main deck, behind which, through a pressure-sealed sliding door – a novelty in aircraft construction – one reaches the rest room container with eight bunk beds for flight attendants.

Meanwhile, up to two relief pilots can be accommodated in the crew rest room directly behind the cockpit. Dieter Hensel, once chief Boeing 737 instructor at Lufthansa, enthuses over his new baby: “This here is S Class. What you got before on a single level is now even better. The ergonomics is perfect. A cockpit for pilots with SATCOM, GPS and FANS. Everything you need is here.” When asked if there were anything else he would have liked, Hensel comments, “It would have been nice if we could have had less paper in the cockpit.”

As of the end of December, Lufthansa had taken delivery of four A340-600's. Deliveries are to continue at the rate of one per month until the fleet stands at ten aircraft. At the end of January deliveries of ten A330-300's that Lufthansa has also ordered will commence.

From page 32 of FLUG REVUE 2/2004

Last updated 10 January 2004

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