Airbus A350 makes milestone first flight

 

The aircraft is described by the European manufacturer as the world’s most efficient large twin-engined commercial aircraft and the timing of this major milestone coincides with the build-up to the world’s largest air show at Le Bourget. The launch customer is Qatar Airways.

The first A350 was powered with Rolls-Royce Trent XWB turbofans, and crewed by an international team of two Flight test pilots, one test flight engineer and three flight test engineers.

At the controls of the A350 XWB’s first flight were Peter Chandler, Airbus’ chief test pilot, and Guy Magrin, project pilot for the A350 XWB. Accompanying them in the cockpit was Pascal Verneau, the A350 XWB project test flight engineer. At their flight test stations in the main aircraft cabin and monitoring the progress of the flight via an extensive array of flight test instrumentation are the three flight test engineers: Fernando Alonso, head of Airbus flight & integration test centre; Patrick Du Ché, head of development flight tests; and Emanuele Costanzo, lead flight test engineer for the Trent XWB engine. 

At the controls of the A350 XWB’s first flight were Peter Chandler, Airbus’ chief test pilot, and Guy Magrin, project pilot for the A350 XWB. Accompanying them in the cockpit was Pascal Verneau, the A350 XWB project test flight engineer. At their flight test stations in the main aircraft cabin and monitoring the progress of the flight via an extensive array of flight test instrumentation are the three flight test engineers: Fernando Alonso, head of Airbus flight & integration test centre; Patrick Du Ché, head of development flight tests; and Emanuele Costanzo, lead flight test engineer for the Trent XWB engine. 
It completed its maiden flight in just over four hours during which time it retracted its landing-gear for the first time. "It's a great day for Airbus and the A350," said Airbus chief executive Fabrice Bregier. "I set this target to fly before the Paris air show nine months ago. It was not easy to achieve. They did it."
Toulouse airport had only one of its runways operating on the day, which meant it was closed to other traffic for 30min while the Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-powered A350 departed. After validating all the flap configurations, chief test pilot Peter Chandler signalled that the aircraft was "behaving extremely well", cruising at 13,000ft, and that the crew was preparing to climb to 25,000ft to explore a higher speed regime.

 This first flight marks the beginning of a test campaign which will total around 2,500 flight hours with a fleet of five development aircraft. The rigorous flight testing will lead to the certification of the A350-900 variant by the European EASA and US FAA airworthiness authorities, prior to entry into service in the second half of 2014 with first operator Qatar Airways. 

 The A350 XWB is Airbus’ all-new mid-size long range product line comprising three versions and seating between 270 and 350 passengers in spacious three-class layouts. The new family will bring a step change in efficiency compared with existing aircraft in this size category, using 25 per cent less fuel and providing an equivalent reduction in CO2 emissions. To date the A350 XWB has already won 613 firm orders from 33 customers worldwide.