European planemaker Airbus’s latest airliner design, the A350 XWB, executed its maiden flight from Toulouse Blagnac Airport in southwest France on June 14. The aircraft, designated as MSN1 by Airbus, and with the registration F-WXWB, flew for some four hours, taking off at 10.01 South African time and landing at 14.06. Before landing, MSN1 made a fly-by (with lowered undercarriage) of the Airbus Delivery Centre at the airport.

The aircraft carried a crew of six, comprising two flight test pilots, one test flight engineer and three flight test engineers. The crew members were Airbus chief test pilot Peter Chandler, A350 XWB project pilot Guy Magrin, A350 XWB project test flight engineer Pascal Verneau, Airbus Flight & Integration Test Centre head Fernando Alonso, Airbus Development Flight Tests head Patrick du Ché (both acting as flight test engineers) and Rolls-Royce Trent XWB engine lead flight test engineer Emanuele Costanzo. The composition of the crew had been announced by the company in early June.

The test flight engineer sat with the pilots in the cockpit while the flight test engineers sat at consoles in the cabin. This first flight looked at the basic handling of the aircraft, with both undercarriage lowered and retracted and at different settings of the flaps. Throughout the flight, data was transmitted to engineers on the ground in the Airbus telemetry room. MSN1 was accompanied by a chase plane throughout its flight. The crew of the chase plane observed and filmed the A350 XWB as it went through various manoeuvres.

“I congratulate the whole A350 XWB development team for having completed the first flight preparation in a record time,” enthused Airbus President and CEO Fabrice Bregier. “I also wish to thank the first flight crew today for taking this aircraft where it wants to be – in the sky. I would also like to extend my gratitude to all our teams in the design offices, at programme and manufacturing level, the ground crews as well as our colleagues in airlines and suppliers and many others who helped define this all-new aircraft.”

The flight test programme for the A350 XWB will involve five aircraft and some 2 500 flying hours. This will result in the aircraft’s certification and entry into service. The first customer will be Qatar Airways, which is expected to take delivery of, and start operations with, its first A350 XWB during the second half of next year.

Airbus describes the A350 XWB as an “all-new midsize long range” aircraft which will come in three versions, with seating capacities – assuming typical three-class cabin layouts – of between 270 and 350 passengers. The three versions will be the A350-800, the A350-900 and the A350-1000. MSN1 is an A350-900. So far, 33 customers have placed firm orders for 613 A350 XWBs.

The A350 XWB airframe is mainly made from composites (53%), with aluminium and aluminium-lithium (20%), titanium (14%), steel (7%), and miscellaneous materials. Composites are employed in the fuselage, the wings, the belly fairing, and the empennage (vertical and horizontal tails); aluminium and aluminium-lithium are used in the fuselage frames, ribs, floor beams, and landing gear bays; titanium in the leading gear, pylons, and attachments, and steel is mainly employed in the landing gear.

The A350 XWB programme has significant South African involvement. The Council for Scientific and Industrial Research has been involved in research and development work for the project, looking at predicted aspects of the aircraft’s performance and in-flight characteristics.

South African company Aerosud, long a supplier to Airbus, has two work packages for the A350 XWB – one for frame clips and one for track cans. The frame clips, which are made from composites, attach the aircraft’s fuselage skin panels to its skeletal structure. Track cans house the mechanisms that extend and retract the wing flaps. (Aerosud has been, and is, a very successful supplier of track cans for the Airbus A320 family of single-aisle jetliners.) Cobham South Africa manufactures the satellite communications antenna systems for the A350 XWB.