What is the Airbus A350?

credit: airbus.com

Yesterday the Airbus A350 completed its first flight from Airbus HQ Toulouse. So my personal celebration of this momentous occasion in aviation history is to explain what the A350 is.

WHY?

In 2004 Airbus began the long journey of designing their greenest, most cost effective aircraft. With the aftermath of September 11 2001 and rising fuel costs, Boeing and Airbus had to rethink their future prospects and what aircraft they would be offering their customers. Boeing's Dreamliner was announced in 2003 and is Boeing's attempt at greener air travel.

A year on, Airbus starts work on its own greener aircraft. Original designs were a rebirth of their current A330 model, basically lighter and more fuel efficient. Airbus were reluctant to start from scratch as the A380 was taking up a lot of the companies resources, it included its own problems leading to launch and delivery. Airbus could not afford to start a brand new aircraft, however the Boeing Dreamliner was gaining a lot of attention and early orders due to its greener appeal. A couple of years into the A330 overhaul, Airbus met a lot of criticism and decided to start with a clean sheet.

HOW?

Almost 7 years on the latest addition to the Airbus family sat proudly on the runway at Toulouse yesterday waiting to release brakes, apply takeoff power and prove what it could do. An aircraft with a carbon composite fuselage coupled with advanced alloy and titanium materials boasts a saving of 25% on fuel including a reduction in noise and emissions to a level below current limitations. 

To aid with in the mission of becoming greener, Airbus looked to the highly successful Rolls-Royce to design and build engines for the A350. Rolls-Royce designed the incredibly large Trent XWB engine. Two Trent XWB engines will power the A350, each engine capable of producing up to 97,000lbs of thrust. Early testing has showed that the engine works better than expecected when ramped up to 100,000lbs. The Trent XWB is the sole engine for the A350 and is setting records as the fastest selling engine of its type ever. A lot of new technology has been included in this vast engine, able to suck the air out of a squash court in 1 second and fit the fuselage of a Concorde inside its fan casing.

The Airbus A350 will come in three variants '800, 900, and 1000', holding between 250-440 passengers. So far to date 613 aircraft have been ordered since 2006, Dreamliner has orders for 890 since 2004.

Below is a basic break up of various specifications between the 3 Airbus variants and 2 Boeing variants.

From here we can see that the A350-800 and Boeing 787-9 are similar aircraft with the major, if only difference really being the thrust available. The A350-1000 and 787-8 bring interesting differences however. The A350-1000 has almost 52% more thrust available but requires almost 25% more fuel to travel a similar distance. The 787-8 also has a max capacity for 381 passengers to the -1000 variants 350. To be honest there are subtle differences between the Airbus and Boeing. I will leave the airlines to decide which is best for their purposes, like so many have already. By mid 2014 the -900 variant is due to be delivered with -800 in mid 2016 and -1000 mid 2017.

WHEN?

11 Billion Euros is the estimated cost for the development of the Airbus A350 and I think Airbus have delivered a fantastic aircraft, like the A380 before it I think this is going to be a popular sight at airport gates and skies above. Although like Airbus, Boeing have also produced a fine aircraft and both are set to impact the future and begin the long road towards more cost effective and greener flight.

I leave you with the flight poster for yesterdays maiden voyage and the video from Airbus' YouTube Channel.

credit: airbus.com

Thanks again for reading and please leave me comments and feedback, I want to make this a successful informative blog. Follow me on twitter @Altitudefree