STELIA Aerospace has delivered the fully equipped nose section of the first BelugaXL from its Méaulte site. Based on the A330, the BelugaXL will replace the current BelugaST.
STELIA Aerospace’s plant in Méaulte, France, has delivered to Airbus the fully equipped nose section of the first BelugaXL.
Transferred from Méaulte to the Beluga Final Assembly Line in Toulouse by BelugaST, the 12m-long, 6m-wide, 4m-high section weighs in at 8.2 tonnes.
The BelugaXL will replace the current BelugaST under a programme launched in November 2014 to address the increasing transport needs due to the production ramp-up. In this context, Airbus decided to increase the capacity of its existing BelugaST fleet and to develop and manufacture five new BelugaXLs, derived from the A330.
After the design by STELIA Aerospace engineers in the Toulouse design office, the Saint-Nazaire site manufactured the pipes and managed the stretching and forming of the panels, as well as the manufacturing of several complex mechanical parts, while the Tunis site produced several metallic parts, and the Méaulte site managed the assembly and equipment of the section.
This is the first time the Méaulte site has delivered a fully equipped “Plug and Fly” nose section. This summer, the company is due to deliver the first BelugaXL upper fuselage section/cargo door assembly, currently in production at Rochefort.