Airbus BelugaXL maiden flight

[bristolbaron]

First time out for the BelugaXL today. The wife was interested in taking a look so we headed to Dick Lovett Bristol, which is located at the end of Filton Airports runway.

She tipped a wing, but looked very wobbly in the air. Seemed to land at Broughton on the third attempt too.

Certainly not the prettiest thing in the sky, but impressive!

[Eric Mc]

It did two flybys of Broughton before it landed. There were no issues as far as I was aware - just performing flypasts for the spectators.

[bristolbaron]

Eric Mc said:

It did two flybys of Broughton before it landed. There were no issues as far as I was aware - just performing flypasts for the spectators.

Ahh.. I was watching online and saw it loop! Thought there may have been problems but that makes sense.

[anonymous-user]

First low pass, second pass a bit higher + "waving" then it landed on the third.

Needed to perform some tests post runway upgrades (turnpads?) and to ensure timings, etc at the loadout facility.

[Sheepshanks]

Annoyingly missed this - the standard Beluga flew low (as it regularly does) right over our house on its way to Broughton at lunchtime. Looking at Flightradar (how accurate is it?) the XL was about 150 metres offfset on its initial approach and I didn’t notice it at all.

[wobert]

Some crappy phone pics from this morning’s departure out of Broughton (I live on the westerly departure route)

[hammo19]

Was in French Alps this week and caught the 747 Dreamlifter overhead.