Ahuriri Aerospace R520
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| First prototype R520 after first successful test flight | |
| Role | Wide-body jet airliner |
| Manufacturer | Ahuriri Aerospace |
| First flight | 1989 |
| Introduction | 8 April 1990 with Royal Continental Airways |
| Status | In service |
| Primary users | Onekawa Skylines Air Kermat Royal Continental Airways Royal Redisan Airlines |
| Produced | 1990-2015 |
| Number built | X00 |
The R520 family are large, quadjet wide-body jetliners formerly manufactured by Ahuriri Aerospace. The first quadjet developed by Ahuriri Aerospace, its size made it one of the largest passenger aircraft in the world in the world on its release, and is the largest aircraft ever manufactured by Ahuriri Aerospace or in Ngati Onekawa-Nukanoa. With the R500 and R510 focused primarily on short to medium range routes, the R520 was from the outset intended to establish Ahuriri Aerospace in the long range market, and to take a significant share of the long-and-wide routes. It remained in continous production for over 25 years and variants remain in service around the world.
Development
With the commercial success of the R500 and R510, Ahuriri Aerospace had firmly established itself as a significant player in the commercial aviation industry. However despite continued refinements of the R500 and R510, resulting the the R510 'ER' exntended-range variants have a total range of 8,700km , Ahuriri Aerospace still lacked a product for the lucrative long range market. So in the 80's Ahuriri Aerospace began preliminary design work for the R520, which occurred alongside the VTS program and helped to inform the R520 design.
The R520 from the onset was an ambitious developmental program, significantly larger and more capable then the R510 or R500. Several different designs were explored and was initially focused on adapting the R510 fuselage in an attempt to minimise cost. It was quickly decided that a totally clean sheet design was needed, and by 1985 the first firm designs that would become the R520 would come to light.
Focused primarily on "long and wide" routes, it had an range goal of at least 13,000km for its primary variant, enabling it to fly direct flights between Malaio and Oxidentale, or allowing Belisarian operators to effectively reach anywhere in the world. It was also focused on the 350-400+ passenger market. These requirements would require an aircraft on a scale not previously developed by Ahuriri Aerospace and would result it being the first and only commercial quadjet in the Ahuriri Aerospace catalogue.
However these significant expectations and the scale of the aircraft resulted in significant delays and massive cost overruns for the program. Originally planning for an 1987 introduction and would be the introduction for the VTS program, it wouldn't be until 1990 that the R520 would enter commercial service and the program was eventually 70% more expensive then predicated. This massive increase in R&D costs eventually required the Ngati Onekawa-Nukanoa government to bailout Ahuriri Aerospace with large government loans.
Design
Variants
R520
The primary variant, first entering service with Royal Continental Airways in 1990. With a range of 14,000km and capacity for 415 in a standard 3-class configuration, the R520 would go on to be the workhouse for many airlines high demand long-range routes. Using four AA3377 turbofans, a developed variant of the engine used the the R510 family, these each produced 55,000lbf.
Because its development coincided with the VTS program, the R520 was the first Ahuriri Aerospace wide-body to make use of a fully-glass cockpit and increased used of CFRP materials then if it had been designed conventionally, allowing for a decrease in weight and better fuel burn then it might have had otherwise. In total over X00 R520 would be sold, with X0 still in service today.
The R520F was a dedicated freighter variant that quickly followed the baseline R520. Able to carrying a payload in excess of 270,000lb, it offered nearly three times as much payload as the freighter equivalents of the R510. It would see entry into service in 1992 with Ozeros Express, and sell X00 units, with X00 units still in service today.