Down the pipeline now...

[mabe54 17]

http://travel.cnn.co...a350-wxb-522396

 

Cheers,

[Airbus Commander 563]

Only two and a half years till we're supposed to get our first one. I for one am sure looking forward to getting behind the wheel of that bird. HUD included as standard... ^_^

 

Regards,

Ró.

[Cessnaflyer 56]

I like how it is called an extra wide body when it is only a half a foot wider. Wonder how many seats they can pack in that space

[japascoe 98]

Only two and a half years till we're supposed to get our first one. I for one am sure looking forward to getting behind the wheel of that bird. HUD included as standard... ^_^

 

Regards,

Ró.

 

Knowing modern airliner development, that means it'll probably be more like 4 years before you get it . Will you be allowed on to the A350 automatically by virtue of seniority or do you need to get lucky?

Got to see the fuselage test rig on a visit to Airbus Hambrug last year (from afar unfortunately). Pretty impressive piece of kit.

 

Edit: Just read the article, pretty decent except for the bit about composite materials making maintenance easier; the reporter needs to speak to some engineers, rather than marketing people, next time.

 

Cessnaflyer: That's marketing for you, how many do you think they would sell if they called it the 'only-a-little-bit-wider-body'. Both Airbus and Boeing spend lots of money on telling people how great their planes are, and coming up with fancy names like 'Dreamliner' or 'Extra wide body'. It pays to take any claim made by either manufacturer with a grain of salt.

[Airbus Commander 563]

I'd say we'll have a bit of a delay on ours, it's due early Q2 2015, but I'd say late Q2 2016-Q3 2016 will be closer to the mark. Will probably be senior enough to fly on it, I'd imagine it'd just slot straight in with our A330 ops. As far as I know they'll hold the same type rating, but that's yet to be finalised. If they do then they'll just be treated as an A330 in the eyes of seniority. Beside, in 3 years time I should be well and truly near the top of seniority, there'll be a wave of retirements in about a year and a half where we'll have a fair few pilots hit 60. I'm already a "Senior" Captain since March this year, so I should be well able to hold an A350 line come the time if it does have a seperate group of pilots.

 

The XWB thing is a bit of a farce to be honest, when it was first launched everyone was calling it the XWB, but now it's just referred to as the A350 or just the 350, similar to the 787, to begin with it was all "Dreamliner this" and "Dreamliner that", now it's just the 787. Similar as well to the Queen of the Skies. That XWB thing will fade fairly sharpish once they start rolling them off the production line.

 

Regards,

Ró.

[Movieman162 0]

I'd say we'll have a bit of a delay on ours, it's due early Q2 2015, but I'd say late Q2 2016-Q3 2016 will be closer to the mark. Will probably be senior enough to fly on it, I'd imagine it'd just slot straight in with our A330 ops. As far as I know they'll hold the same type rating, but that's yet to be finalised. If they do then they'll just be treated as an A330 in the eyes of seniority. Beside, in 3 years time I should be well and truly near the top of seniority, there'll be a wave of retirements in about a year and a half where we'll have a fair few pilots hit 60. I'm already a "Senior" Captain since March this year, so I should be well able to hold an A350 line come the time if it does have a seperate group of pilots.

 

The XWB thing is a bit of a farce to be honest, when it was first launched everyone was calling it the XWB, but now it's just referred to as the A350 or just the 350, similar to the 787, to begin with it was all "Dreamliner this" and "Dreamliner that", now it's just the 787. Similar as well to the Queen of the Skies. That XWB thing will fade fairly sharpish once they start rolling them off the production line.

 

Regards,

Ró.

 

If you would be amongst the first to fly the A350 how long before introduction to service would you have to start training and everything?

[Airbus Commander 563]

If you would be amongst the first to fly the A350 how long before introduction to service would you have to start training and everything?

Not sure, depends on how long the difference training takes, could be anywhere from 3-7 days. I'd imagine our training on it would take place in TLS as it does for our A330s, so I'd say the likelyhood is we'll start getting trained in anywhere from a month to a week before it's introduced to the fleet then probably the last crew to do their training on it would ferry it back to Dublin for the delivery flight, have it outfitted there in our hanger and maintainence facility with all our own brand specific stuff and our engineers can work their magic on it. Then I'd imagine a months or so of it being used on short haul flights to get the crew used to it before it's sent out to work on the Atlantic and whatever other new long haul routes we may have.

 

That's how it was when the 330 was brought in back in '94, but then we all had to do the full 28 day training as it was the first Airbus type introduced to our fleet.

 

Engineers will probably be trained in some time before that, and depending on the differences, there may be slim to none training for the CC, only a classroom course run in the training department.

 

Regards,

Ró.

[fencer 16]

The XWB thing is a bit of a farce to be honest, when it was first launched everyone was calling it the XWB, but now it's just referred to as the A350 or just the 350,

 

Not really. As you know, it was first launched as A350 but some of the most important potential customers criticized the design. So Airbus went back to the drawing board, designed a new "extra large" fuselage and relaunched the project under the new XWB name.

 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Airbus_A350

 

So the XWB name is definitely not a farce. It's an acknowledgment of the fact that key customers told Airbus : don't try to sell us this thing : it's not good enough ; it's not what we need and therefore it's probably not what the market needs.

 

So the supplier listened to the customer and changed not only the name, but the product itself, with a penalty of (at least) two years in time to market.

 

Bruno

[Airbus Commander 563]

I'm of the firm opinion that it's a farce, it is the 350. Fine, when they launched it to seperate it from the previous design, it was the xwb, but now it's only the A350 as the original was never produced. The only reason I'd accept it being called the XWB, is if there was a version out there that actually flew and had a narrower body, in that case I could accept differenciating between the standard A350 and an A350 WXB, but as things stand the "XWB" is the standard version.

 

Regards,

Ró.

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

This one should be pretty straight forward for Airbus as - "A350 in its technology is kind of like a smaller A380,” says Bob Lange, Airbus VP of marketing.

 

“A lot of the technology we’re putting into the A350 we pioneered on the A380 first. The big difference is that we’re using a lot more carbon composite material in the A350 than we are in the A380. It’s a steady evolution rather than revolution. It’s focused on efficiency."

 

Not like they are reinventing the wheel with this one. The biggest challenge is increasing production times if anything.

[fencer 16]

I'm of the firm opinion that it's a farce, it is the 350. Fine, when they launched it to seperate it from the previous design, it was the xwb, but now it's only the A350 as the original was never produced. The only reason I'd accept it being called the XWB, is if there was a version out there that actually flew and had a narrower body, in that case I could accept differenciating between the standard A350 and an A350 WXB, but as things stand the "XWB" is the standard version.

 

Regards,

Ró.

 

I agree with you that, in ten year's time (and probably long before that) nobody will remember the XWB suffix. In fact, even today, it doesn't really matter anymore.

 

But the fact is, at the time the project was stopped and relaunched, it was of utmost importance to use it so that :

 

1- Customers all around the world could feel that Airbus had indeed listened to them and taken corrective action.

 

2 There was no confusion possible and the plane mentioned was indeed the revised design.

 

So I understand what you mean by "farce" but I disagree with the use of the word since XWB was NOT used as a simple marketing trick or as an attempt to mislead people.

 

It really is a different plane with an enlarged fuselage. Whether the original project became a real plane or not, doesn't really matter.

 

Regards,

Bruno

 

PS (edit) : Another way to say the same thing : Airbus could very well have said : OK the A350 is dead (or stillborn), here comes the A360 with a larger fuselage. They chose to just add the XWB suffix. As you know, their numbering system is not always very logical (for example the A330 and 340 should have been numbered differently as the four-engine was released first, but then Airbus marketing said that customers would have a hard time understanding a 340 with two engines and a 330 with four !

[Airbus Commander 563]

The biggest challenge is increasing production times if anything.

Indeed, the production rate of the A380 is tediously slow, only 30 a year when the envisioned rate was closer to 50, after 6 years you'd have thought they'd have sped it it a but but alas, they're still stuck barley pushing out 3 a month...

 

Regards,

Ró.

 

I agree with you that, in ten year's time (and probably long before that) nobody will remember the XWB suffix. In fact, even today, it doesn't really matter anymore.

 

But the fact is, at the time the project was stopped and relaunched, it was of utmost importance to use it so that :

 

1- Customers all around the world could feel that Airbus had indeed listened to them and taken corrective action.

 

2 There was no confusion possible and the plane mentioned was indeed the revised design.

 

So I understand what you mean by "farce" but I disagree with the use of the word since XWB was NOT used as a simple marketing trick or as an attempt to mislead people.

 

It really is a different plane with an enlarged fuselage. Whether the original project became a real plane or not, doesn't really matter.

 

Regards,

Bruno

Indeed, but I think we're making the same point here, at the launch the XWB thing was a valid name as it was comparing the XWB to the previous drawing board idea of the A350, but now at this stage there is no confusion what so ever about it, everyone knows the specifications for the A350. To continue calling it the XWB is a farce, what is it wider than? There is no "original A350" anymore that this "XWB" is wider than, those plans have been thrown in the bin...

 

Regards,

Ró.

[fencer 16]

 

Indeed, but I think we're making the same point here

Yes

To continue calling it the XWB is a farce, what is it wider than?

 

Well... the non-XWB of course :lol:

 

More seriously, pls see the PS I added - afterwards - to my previous post (probably while you were answering, you need to give more time, Ró)

 

Bruno

[tf51d 284]

Only two and a half years till we're supposed to get our first one. I for one am sure looking forward to getting behind the wheel of that bird. HUD included as standard... ^_^

 

Regards,

Ró.

 

The current 360 degree view demo Airbus put out doesn't include a HUD, and it appears the overhead is a bit wide. It doesn't look like there would be room for one, at least not of the type currently used either on Boeing's or Airbus aircraft?

 

http://www.a350xwb.com/#x-tra/360-cockpit-view/

[Matthew Kane 1,343]

The current 360 degree view demo Airbus put out doesn't include a HUD

 

That would be just a CG Mock up for marketing purposes. Quite common to have images like that out before the aircraft details are being finalized. They may also be holding back on releasing images of that system to the public at the moment.