General Background

In July 1978 the European manufacturer Airbus began work on their second aircraft, the A310. It would be a medium-to long-range wide-body airliner based on the Airbus larger first aircraft the A300. The first flight of the A310 took place on April 3, 1982 with the first service flight in April 1983 with Lufthansa. In 1985 the A310-300 production began as a longer range version of the A310-200 and is capable of carrying an additional 15,430 pounds of fuel in its tail-plane. The last A310 was delivered in June 1998.