How an Astronaut Saved Airbus – Economy

Christian Scherer can still remember the day well after 50 years. “I stood on the roof of the old Toulouse airport terminal, holding my mother’s hand, and watched the take-off and landing.” The landing was particularly impressive: the crosswind was so strong that pilot Max Fischl had to push the new aircraft with his nose downwind to stay on course. The machine then jumped again after the first contact with the ground, but then came to a safe stop.

That during the flight of airbus A300 on October 28, 1972, exactly 50 years ago, everything went well was also of great personal importance to Scherer. His father Günter was on board as a flight test engineer and was therefore part of the crew that flew an Airbus for the first time. And the fact that the 60-year-old son was later able to make a career for himself at the aircraft manufacturer – he has been Sales Director since 2018 – has at least indirectly and in several respects also contributed to the A300 to do.

the A300 has a turbulent history behind it. In the 1960s, the project almost failed several times before it even started. When the machine then completed the flight tests and was approved, it initially sold so poorly that four years after the first flight it was threatened with extinction again. It became economical A300 itself was never a success, and yet it is immeasurably important for the history of European aircraft construction: the machine was the reason for the founding of Airbus, that amazing European joint project that ultimately became a great success story despite all the difficulties and the dominance of the American Manufacturer impressively broke. It was also new territory technologically – the A300 was the first wide-bodied aircraft with only two engines, all others had three or something like that at the time Boeing 747 even four. Today the concept is an industry standard.

From around the mid-1960s, the idea of ​​an Airbus was in the air – a large aircraft jointly developed and built by European industry. But the resistance was great and the interests often contradictory. Much of British and French industry worked on the supersonic Concorde, which promised to be the future of passenger travel and soon became a major economic flop. In Germany and France there were also national projects such as the VFW 614 of the Vereinigte Flugtechnische Werke in Bremen or the Mercure by Dassault, which tied up money and attention. When, despite everything, a breakthrough became apparent, Rolls-Royce demanded moon prices for the engines that had actually been planned, and again they stood A300 before the end. In October 1968, Airbus co-founders Roger Béteille and Henri Ziegler found the solution: the aircraft, originally planned as a 300-seater, was downsized by 20 percent, making the CF6 engines from General Electric big enough for the machine. And it could finally start.

Soon after the successful first flight, and in the midst of what was, in hindsight, a fairly smooth certification process, Ziegler sent the A300 on a world tour. There was nothing like it before or after, but Airbus and the new aircraft first had to be known. With a demo tour, Airbus wanted to inspire the airlines for the new jet, first in South and North America, later in Africa and Asia. “We flew from city to city,” says Gérard Guyot, who was the flight test engineer at the time. “Nobody knew us.” Barbara Kracht, Airbus press chief for many years and daughter of Airbus founder Felix Kracht, felt like she was in an “autonomous circus”. Everything that could be needed was on board: spare parts, mechanics, engineers, pilots, aircraft salesmen.

“The Americans told us we were crazy”

However, the desire for a new aircraft, especially from a completely unknown manufacturer with what was considered a daring technical concept at the time, was felt by hardly any airline shortly after the oil crisis. “The Americans told us we were crazy,” Guyot recalls. After all, they were used to three- or four-engine wide-body jets. But also in Europe, and even in the Airbus home countries France and Germany, the airlines were very shy. “If someone wants to force me to buy this Airbus, then I’ll take my hat off and leave tomorrow,” said Herbert Cullmann, Lufthansa boss at the time. After all: In May 1974, Air France took over the first machine and initially used it on the route from Paris to London. Lufthansa, however, took over their first A300 only in 1976.

Open detailed view

It was the year in which the program could have tilted again. Since 1972, when production slowly ramped up in parallel with flight testing, Airbus had built far more aircraft than it had sold. So-called “White Tails” were parked in Toulouse, unpainted machines waiting for a buyer. Airbus boss Bernard Lathière had production cut to less than one machine per month, and jobs were cut in many departments. And even if Lufthansa is the arrival of the first A300 celebrated with hundreds of guests in a hangar at Frankfurt Airport, despite Cullmann’s skepticism, it was clear that things couldn’t go on like this.

That the A300 and with it Airbus survived, is ultimately due to Lathière and the former American astronaut Frank Borman. Lathière knew that if Airbus was to stand a chance, he had to somehow gain access to the large American market. Borman had switched to free enterprise after his Nasa career (Gemini 7 and Apollo 8) and also took over the chief post at Eastern Air Lines in 1976. The airline was struggling financially but needed new aircraft. Lathière made Borman an offer he couldn’t refuse: he would have four months for six months A300 test it for free on the Eastern route network and then decide whether he would buy it or not. Airbus also paid for the expansion of a runway at New York-La Guardia Airport so that the large jets could take off and land there. In the end, Eastern ordered 23 of the machines, and Airbus was saved.

Open detailed view

The Eastern order gave Airbus an enormous boost in credibility worldwide and provided the necessary impetus to invest in further versions of the A300 to invest. Above all, Airbus dared in 1984 after the A300 now running reasonably well, to take the next big step: the group started the short and medium-haul series A320 and attacked the big competitor Boeing directly for the first time. Today, almost four decades later, the current variant A320neo a world market share of about 60 percent in the division, while Boeing is in massive trouble.

Production stopped in 2007, but 229 machines are still flying

Of the A300 Airbus itself has only sold 561 machines over time, of the smaller ones A310 255 again. For comparison: the long-haul jet launched later A330showing the fuselage cross-section of the A300 has comes to almost 1800 orders that A320 and A320neo even to 17,400. In 2007, Airbus stopped production of the first model after 35 years, but there are still 229 machines in service. Most of them fly as freighters with Fedex and UPS. More than 20 are deployed in Iran. Because of the economic sanctions imposed by the West, Iranian airlines can hardly renew their fleets.

Open detailed view

Incidentally, Christian Scherer joined Airbus in 1984 as an intern in the contract department. One of his first jobs was to do the documentation for the first A300-to finish deliveries to the then US airline Pan Am. On December 21, three brand-new Pan Am Airbuses took off on their ferry flights to New York, with young Scherer aboard one of the planes. At the refueling stop in Gander/Canada, the three jets were standing on the apron in a snowstorm, but they had literally made it to North America. “That was one of the most emotional moments of my career,” says Scherer.