A330 – Norebbo

Airbus A330-300 blank illustration templates with all three engine options

4 Comments February 18, 2016 Standard

I really wish that I could work on these side view airliner templates full time, because things would happen a whole heck of a lot faster than they are right now. I’m almost embarrassed that it has taken this long to create these A330-300 illustrations – after all, it’s basically an A330-200 that’s just a little bit longer. My apologies for dragging my feet on this one.

That’s not to say this was super easy and it only took me ten minutes to put together. The fact that the vertical stabilizers are different between the -200 and -300 made this a slightly more involved project than simply stretching the fuselage, and it did take a bit of time to make sure that I illustrated the differences correctly. Making matters worse was the fact that I realized that the vertical stabilizer on my original A330-200 illustrations wasn’t totally correct so I had to go back and update those as well. It wasn’t a big deal, and it actually felt very satisfying to have made those updates. Like I said – the more accurate these illustrations are the better. I still don’t recommend building actual airplanes from my drawings though. They aren’t that accurate.

The image at the top of this post is the all white version of the -300 with General Electric (GE) engines. Here is the wireframe line drawing for that model:

A330-300 line drawing with GE engines

Next up is the Rolls Royce Trent option. This is the version that the designer in me likes the least, as I just can’t seem to get over the fact that the long and thin shape of this powerplant looks out of place on a modern airliner. But the “Trent” name is super cool – I can’t put my finger on exactly what it is about it, but to me the name is powerful and fitting for a large aircraft engine.

All white A330-300 with Rolls Royce engines

A330-300 line drawing with Rolls Royce engines

Last but not least, here is the A330-300 with Pratt & Whitney engines. The proportions of this powerplant look the best to me, and is perfectly matched (aesthetically) for a large airliner like this. She’s a good looking bird, for sure.

All white A330-300 with Pratt & Whitney engines

A330-300 line drawing with Pratt & Whitney engines

On a side note, I’m still planning on creating templates for the A330-200F. I’m also still working on gathering reference material for the next generation A330 (-800 and -900), but I haven’t been able to find much other than low resolution renderings from odd angles that don’t provide much detail. I’ll continue to keep looking though, because the A330 is one of my favorite commercial aircraft types at the moment and I’m looking forward to having a full set of templates covering the entire lineup.

Airbus A330-200 blank illustration templates with Pratt & Whitney engines

0 February 16, 2016 Standard

Finally. Here is my third and last template for the Airbus A330-200 series! Rounding out the set is this illustration with those big Pratt & Whitney engines looking good and hanging low under that large swept wing. I claimed that I liked the look of the GE CF6 engine the best on the A330, but I may have to retract that statement in favor of these PW4000’s instead. These are the largest-diameter engines currently available on the A330-200, so in my opinion, they are more in proportion with the fuselage (and overall size) of the aircraft. Note that these engines are the shortest of the three – but I don’t think that makes any difference. It’s the diameter that gives the impression of power and strength.

Now that I’ve completed the illustrations for all three engine options, the thing that surprised me the most is how different the connections are to the wing. The Rolls Royce Trent 700’s appear to be bolted right to that connection without much complexity, but both the CF6 and this PW4000 are actually blended into that structure in a way that I’ve never seen before on any other airliner. The Pratt & Whitney version is the most pronounced, as it looks to be seamlessly integrated into that wing connection without any hard breaks in the exterior surfaces. I can only imagine how long the designers and engineers spent refining this in the wind tunnel, but all I know is that it looks really great and it’s one of the most interesting things I’ve ever seen on any aircraft. Yes, I think it’s that cool!

A technical side profile line drawing of an Airbus A330-200 with Pratt & Whitney engines over a white background with and without the landing gear deployed

It’s the discovery of these interesting little details which keep me interested and pushing forward with this side view airliner template project. I’ve learned so much about these airplanes since my first DC-10 illustration back in 2012, and it’s a lot of fun noticing new things that I never would have paid attention to before. There is a lot of work that goes into the design of these airplanes, and I’m certainly appreciating that fact with each new template that I create.

Now that my A330-200 set is complete, it’s time to move on to the stretched -300 variant. I just finished all three versions of that one (yes, the same three engines are options) and I’ll be posting those templates very soon. After that I think I’m going to tackle the A340, which makes sense since it shares so many components with the A330. My fingers are crossed that it’s going to be relatively simple and won’t require me to start from scratch. Using existing components will make things go much faster…

Airbus A330-200 blank illustration templates with GE engines

0 February 15, 2016 Standard

This has been a long time coming, but I’ve finally decided to go ahead and finish out my Airbus A330-200 templates and create versions with the other two engine options. The first illustration I created way back in 2014 had the Rolls Royce Trent 700 engines, but I’ve been getting a lot of requests for the others lately and I don’t think it can wait any longer. So here it is: an updated version with the much fatter and tougher looking GE CF6 engine option.

I guess I never realized before how weird those Rolls Royce engines look on the A330. They are very cigar-like; long and lean, sort of like a scaled up version of the original Pratt & Whitney JT8D engines on the old 737-100 (which looked more like rockets than engines). But now that I’ve spent so long researching and illustrating this General Electric CF6 engine, it seems “normal” to me and I can’t help but to raise an eyebrow or two when looking at my original A330 RR drawing.

A technical side profile line drawing of an Airbus A330-200 with General Electric engines over a white background with and without the landing gear deployed

Another thing I like about this GE engine is the way that the exhaust protrudes out the back. It has a very aerodynamic look to it compared to the similar-shaped Pratt & Whitney engine option that I just finished as well (coming to norebbo.com soon), and I like the way that the entire structure is broken up into three parts. There’s the fat main section, a step down to the thinner mid-exhaust section, and finally the pointy exhaust tip protruding out the rear. It’s a good looking powerplant – the best looking by far on the A330 as far as I’m concerned.

From a styling and design point of view, my only gripe is the overall diameter. It was really hard for me not to take some artistic license as I was drawing this to increase the size of the engine a bit to make it look even tougher, but my desire to keep these templates as realistic as possible trumped that urge. This is why I’m looking forward to the A330 NEO (New Engine Option) so much – that airplane features much bigger engines, and you can bet I’m going to do a template of that one as soon as I can get my hands on some decent reference material. It’s going to make these A330-200’s look weak (and probably a little bit funny) in comparison!

Anyway, I’m going to upload a template of the -200 with Pratt & Whitney engines next. The longer -300 series is coming after that – with all three engine options of course.

Airbus A330-200 blank illustration templates with Rolls Royce engines

0 March 14, 2014 Standard

It’s been a long time since I’ve uploaded any side view airliner templates, but I’m feeling inspired to start working on my collection again. Next up in this series of illustrations is the Airbus A330-200 with Rolls Royce engines. Why did I choose this as the next aircraft template to create? Simple. I really (really) want to do a detailed illustration of the Hawaiian Airlines livery, and I think it looks the best on this aircraft.

The problem was that I actually started this template right after finishing my 747-400 set last year. I started the project with a lot of vigor – all I could think about was the end result, but I quickly realized that I didn’t have the energy (and time) to create yet another detailed template. The wireframe line drawings take a long time to do, and then creating a blank all white shaded version is a pretty big effort on top of that. I just didn’t have it in me at the time.

But now that I’ve been away from this for so long, I decided to dig out what I started and power through it to completion. And now that it’s finished, I’m feeling pretty good about it. After all, the Airbus A340 shares the same fuselage as the A330, so I basically killed two birds with one stone on this one. Of course the wing and engines are slightly different, but the major structure is largely the same.

A technical side profile line drawing of an Airbus A330-200 with Rolls Royce engines over a white background with and without the landing gear deployed

I’d like to mention one final thing about these A330-200 drawings. This aircraft, when sitting on the ground, has a very pronounced nose-down attitude which is very unique from a lot of other aircraft. I debated whether or not I should include that downward slope in my templates, as these drawings are intended to be base-layer starting points for anyone wanting to edit them or add their own livery. It’s more difficult to add graphics to an angled object such as this, so it was a tough call to make. In the end, I decided to keep the flat angle for both the wireframe and shaded white illustrations. If you would like to angle it as it sits on the ground in real life, rotate it counterclockwise 6 degrees.