The Airbus Flying Whale Beluga XL Aircraft Has Taken Flight

Airbus has never been a company to shy away from injecting a bit of fun into their functional airplanes. They also seem to have a thing with animal names and designs–see the Airbus Bird of Prey Concept Airliner–and that’s never been as true as it is with the Beluga XL. This updated version of the original Beluga aircraft has been affectionately dubbed “The Flying Whale” on account of its resemblance to the bulbous nosed aquatic creature that it looks like. Airbus didn’t stop at the bulbous design either, they took it one step further by painting on eyes and a smiley face. Unfortunately, the Beluga XL isn’t a plane that will ever be used for commercial travel because it’s essentially an enormous cargo bay with a very low flight deck positioned at the bottom of the nose that was designed and built explicitly to transport Airbus parts between production facilities and assembly lines in Europe and China.