However optimistic they may have been when the Airbus project first began back in 1965, I'm sure the directors of the company could not have foreseen that thirty years later Airbus would take more orders in a single year than that great plane maker Boeing. (During 1994 orders placed for Airbus Industrie aircraft exceeded those of Boeing by one.) Airbus Industrie was set up in December 1970 to manage the development, manufacture, marketing and support of the twinengined A300 medium-haul wide-bodied airliner; the prime contractors were Aerospatiale, Deutsche Airbus and HawkerSiddeley (later British Aerospace). These were later joined by CASA of Spain. Components manufactured by these companies are transported to the assembly line at Toulouse, where all flight testing and pre-delivery work is undertaken prior to the aircraft being handed over to the customer. The first A300 took to the air at Toulouse on its maiden flight on 28 October 1978, with the smaller A310 following in April 1982.