Why does a340 have 4 engines

The best answers are voted up and rise to the top. Stack Overflow for Teams — Collaborate and share knowledge with a private group. Create a free Team What is Teams? Learn more. Why does the A have 4 engines instead of 2? Ask Question. Asked 6 years, 1 month ago. Active 1 year, 8 months ago. Viewed 42k times. B On a jumbo jet like the B four engines are a requirement.

Improve this question. Ethan Ethan 9, 19 19 gold badges 75 75 silver badges bronze badges. However Airbus was designing a and rejected the proposal. Add a comment. Active Oldest Votes. The Boeing , on the other hand, was developed with twin engine operation in mind. Improve this answer. This was to help increase the flying power of the aircraft allowing it to carry more weight and to factor in redundancy. For journeys far away from any airport or in the case of the Pacific Ocean, away from any land full stop!

However, today only the freight version of the Boeing is still in production. The A and A have since been discontinued and replaced by twin-engine variants. This is due to a variety of factors, such as the approval of twin-jet aircraft to fly more remote routes away from diversion airports and a focus on fuel efficiency. On paper, the Airbus A has an equal range and can carry plenty more passengers. This makes it ideal for popular routes in the hour range as the fuel burn per seat cost would be significantly lower than the A In terms of range, both aircraft match relatively close, with the A having the advantage of newer technology at the time of its development.

RE: Why does an A have 4 engines and an A - 2 engines? I'll try to answer. Last time I was in Toulouse was in , I'm sure that events have progressed since then. My information is most probably out of date.

A useful aircraft since you have "cross-crew" checking between it and the A and A series. It's not a B and that's not it's mission, a competitor to the BER yes. Besides, it would take an unusual runway to get the A off the ground in an A configuration. The wings are different. I grant you that these were mostly demonstration flights.

Not fully loaded. You are right; 4 engines takes more maintenance than 2. Not many if I recall. I'll be this comes down to the engine power at the time of development. The specs of a fully loaded A are getting closer to the than the , so maybe Airbus was limited in engine choice.

The expense of an all new jet engine to carry that weight was cost prohibitive. So maybe they thought -the only power that can get the A off the ground was to combine four A engines? I'll be that's the answer - a twinjet of the heft of an fully loaded nm-capable A was impossible at the time. With the new GE engines, I wonder if Airbus would've done things differently. A derated GE for a super A that would've had the range and capacity of the A? Simon Evans Guest.

A primary factor was that most engine failures occur at take-off or at critical stages of flight when pilot workload is at its highest. In a single engine aircraft the choice is already made - land straight ahead, or return to base if conditions permit.