Airbus briefing

AIRBUS VP Training and Flight Operations Capt Jean-Michel Roy delivered the Ray Jones Memorial Lecture at the Royal Aeronautical Society last week, his topic the A350XWB.  He said it was on schedule with a target first flight in 2012 and a 15-month flight test programme was envisaged.  Airbus has 493 orders to date from 31 customers.  From a passenger point of view besides the very latest in interiors it will have noticeably larger windows than existing aircraft (as will the Boeing 787), very large overhead bins, and LED lighting.  The aircraft is 53% composite and it will fly at Mach .85, quicker than most current jets.  In a very well presented lecture Capt Roy emphasised Airbus commonality strategy pointing out that conversion training from an A380 was just five days, from the A330, ten days, and the A320 series a day longer. www.airbus.com

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