The fuel efficient plane is a direct competitor of US rival Boeing 787

Airbus A350 ready for maiden flight



14/06/2013 - 9:59am
The French-built Airbus A350 is about to take off for the first time from Toulouse, France. On 14 June,  the direct competitor of US rival Boeing’s Dreamliner will take a short trip to carry out tests, and land again at Toulouse airport.
According to CNET, the EU company has taken 617 orders for the three different variants of the Airbus A350. Finnair was one of the first airline companies to make an order for the A350 XWB, followed soon after by Aeroflot, Qatar Airways, Aer Lingus, Singapore Airlines, and many others. The first plane will be delivered at the end of next year.
Airchive.com reported that in order to avoid, the battery problems of Dreamliner, the plane will rely on nickel-cadmium batteries rather than lithium-ion, even though the first three test A350s use lithium-ion batteries. Still, Boeing managed to fix the battery problem, as the technicians of the US company installed reinforced lithium-ion battery systems.
At this point we should emphasise that the Dreamliner is ahead of Airbus A350 in term of orders -890 versus 617. Moreover, at the end of May Boeing had delivered some 57 planes. However, Airbus managed to dethrone the US company in the medium-haul segment, but it still needs to catch up with Boeing in the long-range market, where the US firm dominates with its 777 and Dreamliner.
In regard with the first test flight of Airbus A350, Nick Cunningham, an aviation analyst at the London-based Agency Partners told France 24. “All recent programmes before it, both by Airbus, Boeing and others, have had reasonably horrendous technical problems and delays…So every time you hit a milestone (such as a test flight), it's good news because it means that you've missed an opportunity to have another big delay.”   europe on line

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