The A350-1000 takes off from Toluouse
The A350-1000, the largest twin-engined wide-body aircraft in Airbus’s portfolio, is touring the Middle East and Asia-Pacific regions for three weeks.
The tour follows the completion of a successful flight test campaign, which lasted less than one year and culminated in joint EASA and FAA type certification in November 2017. The first customer delivery of an A350-1000, to Qatar Airways, is expected next month.
The tour is using flight test aircraft MSN065 and will cover 12 destinations over 30,000 nautical miles (55,500km), before stopping for static display at the Singapore Airshow on February 8. The demonstration flights will be operated by Airbus flight test crews.
MSN065 is one of the three Airbus A350-1000 test aircraft and is equipped with a fully functional cabin.
The flight test aircraft accumulated over 1,600 flight hours, of which 150 flight-test hours were completed with the same aircraft in an airline-like operational environment to demonstrate its readiness for entry into service.
Intensive flight test trials taking the airframe and systems beyond their design limits to ensure the aircraft successfully meets all airworthiness criteria were also carried out.
The A350-1000 has a longer fuselage to accommodate 40 more passengers than the A350-900 and also features a modified wing trailing-edge, new six-wheel main landing gears, and more powerful Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-97 engines.
The additional capacity of the A350-1000 is intended to be used on long-haul routes and to compete against Boeing’s 777 aircraft. To date, 11 customers from five continents have placed orders for a total of 169 A350-1000s.
January 29, 2017
