A330 – Norebbo

Airbus A330-200F blank illustration templates with Pratt & Whitney and Rolls Royce engines

4 Comments August 30, 2018 Standard

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Those of you who have been patiently waiting for my long-promised templates of the 737 family should know that it’s going well so far and I am just about ready to start posting them here to the blog. Unfortunately, you also need to know that I’ve got a wickedly short attention span and I start to get restless when I work on one thing for too long. Combine that with the fact that I’ve received three separate requests for the A330-200F over the past few weeks, and I just couldn’t resist digging into it and creating the templates.

This all-cargo version of the Airbus A330-200 has some very interesting differences compared to the passenger version, and of course I didn’t know about any of them until I started doing the research to create these drawings.

The biggest and most obvious difference is the bulge (officially referred to as a “blister fairing”) at the connection point of the front landing gear to the fuselage. This additional piece serves the purpose of raising the nose of the aircraft so that the cargo deck remains level during the loading process. It always struck me as being odd that the A330 had a natural nose-down angle while on the ground, and I’ve never really understood the reasoning for it. I’d love to know the answer, so if there is anybody out there reading this who knows why the A330 was designed that way, please leave a comment and let me know!

Technical side profile line drawing of an Airbus A330-200F with Pratt & Whitney engines

The other major difference that I didn’t know about was the fact that General Electric does not supply engines for this freighter version of the A330. Again, this strikes me as being very odd since they do offer the option (and a very good one at that) for the passenger version. What exactly is so different about a freighter which would make an engine supplier drop out completely? I can’t imagine that there would be any type of performance requirements that would be different from an all passenger version to make it a complete game changer, so it really makes me wonder.

Other than that, there aren’t any other major visual differences between the A330-200 and A330-200F (other than the lack of windows and the cargo door of course). I did find it interesting that the cargo loading door is located so close to the main boarding door though. On Boeing aircraft such as the 777 and 747, the cargo door is located in the aft section of the fuselage away from any other holes in the structure. I guess it doesn’t really matter to have major openings in the fuselage so close together, and the fact that I questioned it at all is a pretty good indication of how little I know about aerospace design.

I can totally imagine all of you rocket scientists out there holding your head in shame as I spew off these ignorant questions (which I’m sure are totally elementary to anyone in the aviation industry). Hey – I just draw these airplanes based on reference material I find on the Internet, and trust me…that’s a good thing. You don’t want this art school graduate anywhere near a calculator or a physics book!

Here’s the all white A330-200F with Rolls Royce engines

…aaand the line drawing with Rolls Royce engines

One final point I’d like to make about the A330-200F is the fact that I’m surprised that it hasn’t sold better than it already has. At the time of this writing, there have been 42 firm orders for this cargo variant of the hugely popular A330, which trails far behind competitors such as the 767–300F and the 777F. On paper it seems like it would sell like hotcakes considering that it’s size and performance capabilities are placed squarely in between those two other aircraft, so it’s just another confusing question I have about this bird which remains unanswered.

As always, thanks for your continued support of this ongoing side-profile airliner template project that I’ve been working on for about five years now, and I’m feeling rather proud of what I’ve managed to accomplish so far. Yeah, it seems like I’m moving at a glacially slow pace at times, but these illustrations take a long time to create and most of you know that I’ve been quite busy trying to build a travel blog as well. It’s a lot to juggle! So much to do, and so little time…

And for those of you (still) waiting patiently for my templates of the 737 family, don’t worry – as I said earlier, I’m still working on them and I will begin posting what I’ve got fairly soon (starting with the 737-600). Get yourselves ready – they’re coming!

Airbus A330-800 NEO blank illustration templates

4 Comments June 20, 2018 Standard

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Well, here it is. The side view airliner template that nobody asked for! Don’t worry, I’m not going to feel bad at all if nobody downloads it – after all, it was super easy to create since it’s basically just an A330-900 NEO with a shortened fuselage (the same as the A330-200 actually). Chances are pretty good that I never would’ve created it in the first place if it wasn’t a simple variant of a template that I just created, so it wasn’t that big of a deal to crank it out and get it here posted to the blog and my online store.

Remember in my last post when I mentioned that I had a few suggestions for the Airbus Board of Directors? One of the most important would have to be the elimination of the -800 series of aircraft across the entire Airbus lineup. I mean, think about it. Every single -800 variant they have created so far has been a dud. We all know that the A380 started out as the A380-800, and sales of that aircraft never lived up to expectations. If it weren’t for Emirates and their conquest to be the world’s most obnoxiously over-the-top airline, it would’ve been a complete failure and likely not even existing at all anymore here in 2018.

Then there was the A350-800, which never even saw the light of day. The only airline that was somewhat interested in it was Hawaiian, but they backed out of thier initial order which left Airbus in a difficult position. With zero orders on the books and not a single other airline interested in making a deal, they were forced to cancel development and focus all of their efforts on the -900 and -1000 instead. Orders for both of those variants have been quite strong by the way.

Interestingly enough, I am seeing the same lack of support for the A350-800 here on the blog as well. It’s one of my least-download templates to date, and I haven’t even sold a single high-resolution version of it on my online store. Nobody (and I mean nobody) was interested in that bird.

And here we are with the A330-800 NEO in 2018. Total orders so far: zero, with none on the horizon. Compare that with the -900 variant, which has a solid backlog of 214 confirmed orders so far, and you can probably guess where things are headed with this. The only question now is when (not if) they will cancel the development of the -800 program altogether to focus on the larger variants only. I’ve got to admit that I find this all very fascinating since it’s the smaller variants which typically have the better performance numbers (overall range, fuel efficiency, etc) and you would think that there would be a lot of airlines interested in that sort of thing. But I guess not. In the real world, it all comes down to cost per seat and it’s only the aircraft with more seats which are economically viable. I don’t really understand it, but that’s just the way things work.

Side profile line drawing of an Airbus A330-800 NEO

I guess what I’m trying to say here is simple: Airbus, I think it’s time to give up on aircraft with the -800 extension. It’s proving to be the mark of bad luck for you, so from now on just start with the -900s and don’t even waste your time with anything else. Gosh I’m smart, and I can’t wait to check my email tomorrow morning and see an official email from Airbus offering me a position on their Board of Directors!

OK, so, now that I’ve wasted my time writing a complete blog post for an aircraft template that nobody is going to download, it’s time to get back to work and do something more productive. The ATR 42 is next, driven by the fact that I’ve got a paying client who needs it for a project he’s working on. Look for that one soon!

Airbus A330-900 NEO blank illustration templates

6 Comments June 12, 2018 Standard

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Does anybody know how I could apply for a position on the Airbus Board of Directors? You see, I’ve got a lot of opinions about the A330 NEO (both good and bad) and I’d love to sit down and chat with the people who made the decision to go ahead with this next-generation variant of the A330. I’d also like to offer a few suggestions as well, and I know that the only way that anybody at Airbus would ever listen to me is if I had a seat on the board. Hold on a second while I check Craigslist to see if there’s an opening…

My biggest issue with the A330 NEO is how much overlap there is with the A350, and I can’t help but to wonder if Airbus is competing against itself and driving customers away from the more expensive aircraft (one that I assume has higher profit margins). But then again, my assumptions could be totally off base and perhaps it’s the A330 NEO that generates more revenue?

But what about all the development costs that went into revamping this old airframe? It couldn’t have been cheap, and I’m still scratching my head as to why they would spend all that effort and money putting lipstick on a pig when they could’ve used those resources to drive more sales to the A350.

The A330-900 NEO is basically an A330-300 with larger Rolls Royce Trent 7000 engines and A350-style blended winglets. The cockpit windows are all new as well, and are very similar to what’s on the A350 – black bandit paint included (which looks totally cool by the way). These changes were significant enough to make the creation of this template very time-consuming, and in order to get the blended winglet looking correct I basically had to re-draw the entire wing. And as I’ve mentioned before, the wings are the most complicated part of any of my templates. The rest cake.

Technical side profile line drawing of an Airbus A330-900 NEO

Speaking of the Rolls Royce Trent 7000, all I can say to that is: wow! The A330 never really looked right to me from any angle, but this huge new engine gives the aircraft a completely different look and it’s really impressive to see the size comparison of this engine compared to some of the older variants. I’m still not sure what I think about the blended winglet, but this new engine is enough for me to consider the A330 NEO to be one of the best looking commercial airplanes available at the moment.

Despite my reasoning to question the existence of the A330 NEO, it seems as if Airbus has a hit on their hands and they made the right decision to go forward with the program. A quick check of Wikipedia reveals that there are 214 confirmed orders for the -900 at the time of this writing, which is very respectable and solid proof that it’s a viable product that the airlines want. Malaysia Airlines is leading the demand at the moment with 66 firm orders. Delta and Iran Air are number two and three, but each of them are way back with roughly 25(ish) orders each. Oh – and a quick check of the A350 reveals that there are 847 confirmed orders at the time of this writing, which is impressive, but I would bet that number would be much higher if the A330 NEO didn’t exist.

Do I even have to tell you what my next template is going to be? Most of you should be able to figure it out without any hints from me, but I’ll say it anyway. It’s the A330-800 NEO! Yes, I know that Airbus has exactly 0 orders for that variant so far, but I’m going to template it anyway just so that I can have it as part of the full collection. It’ll be posted in just a few days!

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

4 Comments February 18, 2016 Standard

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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

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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

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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

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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.