For 54 years, the American-based Boeing company enjoyed a monopoly of the skies. That all ended in 1970, though, when several European manufacturers came together to form a corporation that would not only rival Boeing's jet production but, as of 2019, would establish itself as the number-one supplier of large commercial aircraft worldwide. We've already explored Boeing's history, so it's only fair we pay the same respects to its closest competitor. This is the evolution of Airbus

The foundation of Airbus can be traced back to a meeting between ministers of France, Britain and Germany in July 1967. At a time when Boeing was planning its new, long-range 747 "jumbo" aircraft, there were fears that European manufacturers would become too dependent on the United States, putting hundreds of thousands of European aviation jobs at risk. Britain had already build aircraft such as the comet, the BAC1-11, and the trident, while France had produced the Caravelle, Both countries had collaborated on Concorde, the world's first supersonic airliner. 

However, none of those aircraft were viewed as viable long-term options to deal with a growing demand for public air travel, let alone to compete with Boeing's far more popular jets. Throughout the 1960s, the British and French began developing newer aircraft to cater to frequent travellers. The problem was they were still largely competing against each other, and the Americans held more than 80% of the world market. Europe needed to work together to stay in the game, hence the meeting in 1967. Within days of that meeting, a French engineer by the name of Roger Beteile was appointed technical director of the A300 programme, a project aimed at developing a 300-seat Airbus.

Henry Ziegler, then president of France's sud Aviation, was later brought on as general manager, and a German politician named Franz-Josef Strauss was named chairman of the supervisory board. Along with a young German engineer named Felix Kracht, these men would come to be known as the "fathers" of Airbus. In May 1969, the A300 launch agreement was officially signed between France and West Germany. Britain was initially going to provide engines for the A300 aircraft via Rolls-Royce; however, due to concerns over mounting costs and still hurting from the failure of Concorde,

the British withdrew from the project. Seeing the opportunity to rebuild its civil aviation industry, which had been devastated by World War 2, Germany stepped up to provide 50% of the overall costs, with France committed to doing the same, British aviation company , Hawker Siddeley, did remain to develop and produce the wings for the A300 aircraft, thanks in part to a 35-million-pound loan from the West German government. Meanwhile, it was proposed by technical director Roger Beteille, that the French would make the cockpit, control systems, and the lower section of the A300's fuselage while the Germans would make the forward and rear fuselage sections, plus the upper part of the center section.

The Dutch would be called upon to make the moving parts of the wing, such as flaps and spoilers, and in years later, the Spanish would be responsible for the horizontal tailplane. Beteille would later recall that he "wanted to use all the available talents and capacities to their utmost without worrying about the color of the flag or what language was spoken," The technical director also realised partway through development that a 300-seat aircraft may be too big for the projected market. He, therefore, began working in secret on a scaled-down aircraft, one that would seat 250 passengers and have a range of 1,380 miles.

This smaller aircraft, once revealed, would become known as the A300B, and it had a major benefit in that it could be flown with less-powerful engines that were already available at the time. Seeing as how the A300 was without an engine after the withdrawal of Rolls-Royce this was a very welcome result! The twin-engine A300B would also be smaller, lighter, and more economical than its three engined American counterparts, namely the McDonnell Douglas, DC-10 and the Lockheed L-1011 TriStar. The A300B's fuselage was reduced from 6.4 meters to 5.6 meters in diameter,

and its length was shortened from 53.9 meters to 48.3 meters. Consequently, it was 25 tons lighter than the original A300. Raising the cabin floor allowed for enough space in the hold to accommodate standard LD3 freight containers side by side, meaning airliners could carry more cargo, and specially designed wings provided greater lift and improved the aircraft's overall performance. The A300B was touted as being able to climb faster and attain a level cruise altitude sooner than any other passenger aircraft, giving the cabin crew more time for the in-flight service.

The engines selected for the A300 were the American-made GE CF6-50As, but a deal was struck for the engines to be made with the assistance of a French firm called Snecma. The engines could produce up to 49,000 pounds of thrust, as powerful as anything else on the market, yet they were more economical. On 3rd September 1970, Air France signed a letter of intent to buy six A300s; the first-ever order won by Airbus. The A300 was a new type of aircraft, and Air France was the first airline to believe in its potential. Fun Fact: Airbus uses a unique numbering system for its aircraft, which makes it much easier for both organizations and individuals to identify its planes.

Each aircraft is given an alphanumeric string for its model number, for example, A310. This is followed by a dash and then a three number code representing the aircraft series, engine manufacturer, and engine number, respectively. So let's use an A310-300 with Pratt & Whitney engines as an example. The code is 3 for series 300; then, for the engine codes, there is a list for the different manufacturing companies. Here we can see that Pratt & Whitney engines would be code 2. The engine version is 1; thus, the aircraft number is A310-321.

While work on the A300 had already been underway for years, the founding of Airbus as a partnership didn't actually take place until December 1970, when it was officially established as an Economic interest Group. France's Aerospatiale and Germany's Deutsche Airbus each took a 50% stake, and the headquarters were established in Paris before moving to Toulouse 4 years later. The first official test flight occurred on 28th October 1972, on month ahead of schedule, despite many delays due to bad weather. It lasted one hour and 23 minutes, Having already reduced the size of the original A300, Airbus realised that 250 seats weren't enough for Air France.

So, the fuselage was stretched to accommodate 270 passengers, and the A300B1 became the A300 B2, which entered service on the 23rd of May, 1974. While testing out the A300", Airbus began talking to Korean Airlines about producing a longer range version, the B4. It would have a larger, central fuel tank and a Maximum Take-Off Weight or 'MTOW' of 157.5 tons compared to the 137 tons of the B2. In September 1974, Korean Airlines signed a deal for four A300B4s, becoming Airbus' first non-European customer. The A300B4 would soon be known as the B4-100,

and a B4-200 model with an additional optional fuel tank in the rear cargo hold, plus a raised MTOW of 165 tones would be certified in April 1979. In total, 561 Airbus A-300s were produced between 1971 and 2007, with airlines such as South African Airways, Scandinavian Airlines, and German Air among the first customers for different variants. Fun Fact: To test its planes, Airbus set up an international team of test pilots, with the German Airbus team given lead responsibility for conducting the actual flight test. Bernard Ziegler, the son of Airbus co-founder, Henry Ziegler, was a test pilot tasked with organizing the A300 flight "on the basis that it was a European organization," and he set about recruiting top veterans

from France, Britain, and Spain. Catering to the demand of aircraft smaller than the A300, Airbus launched the A310 on the 7th of July 1978. Both Swissair and Lufthansa placed initial orders for the smaller plane, which performed its maiden flight on the 37d of April 1982. The A310 was 7 meters shorter than the original A300 variants and featured a smaller 219 meters-squared wing. Notably, it was during the production of the A310 that Britain re-committed itself to Airbus. There were talks of the smaller wing being produced elsewhere, so Britain put up a 50-million-pound loan towards development costs, and from January 1979, British Aerospace took up a 20% stake in Airbus industrie.

France and Germany's shares were reduced to 37.9% each, with the rest owned by Spain. The A310 could seat 218 passengers in two class configuration and could travel a longer distance of up to 5,000 miles. This was very impressive compared to the Boeing 737 Max, its closest competitor. Even the Boeing 737 Max didn't come close with a range of 3,300 miles, meaning the A310 could go 1,700 miles further! The A310 made use of a lighter-weight carbon fiber-reinforced plastic on secondary structures such as spoilers, airbrakes, and the rudder, with the A310-300 later using composites primary structures too. It also employed drag-reducing wing-tip devices to improve fuel efficiency.

The cockpit of the A310 introduced a two-crew glass design, using six computer-driven cathode ray tube displays to provide the captain and co-pilot with centralized flight and navigation information as well as monitoring and warning data.