Airbus Reworks A320 Freighter Design

[cancidas]

from FlightGlobal:

A320 converted freighter's cargo door moves aft
By Andrew Doyle

Airbus Freighter Conversion revealed at the show revised designs for its proposed A320/A321 passenger-to-freighter aircraft, which now feature large cargo doors located in the aft- rather than forward-fuselage (as pictured).

The company's vice-president marketing and sales Michael Fuerst says moving the door to the rear fuselage "has advantages in terms of loadability, puts some weight in so that we can optimise our centre of gravity, and provides an additional pallet position".



http://www.flightglobal.com/articles...moves-aft.html

i don't really understand how it's better in terms of laoding. if the airplane is out of balance at the stand it'll be standing on it's own tail...

[stuart schechter]

If they load it incorrectly, it will go forward and put more stress on the nose gear. There is no pushing everything to the back and having the tail come down.

[Matt Molnar]

As long as they publish a strict weight limit for each container, it should be okay. Of course if someone were to break that limit, noses up! I can't imagine it would be easy to fit that much weight in a single container, though.

[PHL Approach]

I can't imagine it would be easy to fit that much weight in a single container, though.

I don't know what kinda weight of Pallets the real freight companies carry but on my company. I've put PMCs upwards of 10k each on flights. Will be very interesting how they handle that.

Question for someone that may know a bit more about this a/c. Will there be additional fuel tanks in the lower belly? If so, then that is how they will offset that initial Pallet. Additional fuel tank will be in the forward. When the first pallet is put on through the back door the fuel would offset the weight in the back thus allowing a correct CG until you can get some more heavy weight in the center.