16 June 2015

A350-1000 “very challenging” but “on track”.

Airbus has commenced work on all 3 development aircraft for the A350-1000 test campaign, as it expects to begin final assembly in the first quarter of next year.




Head of A350 program developments Bruno Hernandez said that the A350-1000 is “on track” but acknowledges that bringing the components together to meet the final assembly schedule is “very challenging”.




·   Work is under way on the centre wing-box, he said, not only for the 1st development aircraft but also the 2nd and 3rd.
·   The rear spar, supplied by GKN Aerospace, entered assembly on 12/May.
·   US firm Spirit AeroSystems had begun manufacturing panels for the central section 15.



·   Assembly of the forward fuselage section 13-14 door surrounds – which will be composite, rather than the -900’s metallic ones – is also progressing, he said: “This concept is fully mature.”
·   Pylon assembly is under way.
·   The type’s Rolls-Royce Trent XWB-97 powerplant will begin a 120h test campaign on the A380 in October.



Hernandez said structural design maturity has been achieved and systems installation architecture is complete, adding that -1000 production work has started “in all the plants”.


All pictures. Source: Oliver Louis.

Based on the article “Work under way on all A350-1000 test aircraft” published in FlightGlobal.

4 comments:

  1. Great news,first bit about A350-1000 for production!

    ReplyDelete
  2. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  3. This comment has been removed by the author.

    ReplyDelete
  4. If its challenging for parts on this model then perhaps that deletes any possibiIity for the A350-1100?

    ReplyDelete