A350 flight testing

Airbus Prepares to Ramp Up Flight Testing of Next-Gen Passenger Jet


Over the course of just a few years, the global airline fleet will grow from no composite airliners, to three models: the Boeing 787, Airbus A350 and Bombardier CSeries. Airbus' wide-body jet made its first flight back in June, and the A350 XWB flight test program has been relatively trouble-free so far. A second flight test airplane is expected to make its first flight soon at Airbus' test center in France, and the composite airplane remains on schedule to enter airline service during the second half of next year.

The A350 XWB is slightly bigger than Boeing's 787 Dreamliner, and so far has enjoyed a smooth flight test program. The second airplane will begin flight testing in both cold and hot weather conditions. The cold-weather testing is normally used to simply find any issues that may arise when systems, parts, and materials get, well ... extremely cold. On the other hand, hot-weather testing does look at some of the straightforward issues related to something getting too hot, but it is also critical in determining aircraft performance limitations.

The lower density of hotter air reduces an airplane's performance. The engines don't produce as much power and the wings do not generate as much lift. Airplane makers must define these limitations during the flight testing so that when an airplane is operated in and out of an airport with high temperatures (and/or high humidity/high altitude), the pilots make the necessary adjustments to their performance calculations.

A third A350 flight test airplane is in the final stages of assembly and will include a full cabin interior. The first two aircraft are filled with flight engineer test stations, water ballast tanks to transfer the weight around the cabin during testing (a quick glimpse can be seen in the video below from Airbus), and other instrumentation unique to flight test. Equipped with a full interior, the third airplane will be used to test a the airplane and the cabin as if it were an airliner in service.

In all there will be five flight test aircraft in the A350 XWB program and Airbus expects to fly about 2,500 hours before receiving certification of the design next year. Qatar Airways is expected to take delivery of the first airplane sometime in the second half of 2014. That airplane will start its way down the assembly line by the end of this year.

Peter Chandler visits the A350 XWB cockpit