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The A350 XWB’s new engine – the Rolls-Royce
Trent XWB – has successfully made its maiden flight aboard Airbus’
dedicated A380 Flying-Test-Bed aircraft.
The aircraft took off from Airbus facilities in
Toulouse on Saturday and performed a flight of more than five
hours during which the engine covered a wide range of power
settings at altitudes up to 43,000ft.
The Trent XWB development engine,
specially fitted with test sensors to measure hundreds of
parameters, was mounted on the A380’s inner left engine pylon,
replacing one of the aircraft’s Trent 900 engines.
The crew on
board this first flight were: Airbus Experimental test pilots
Terry Lutz and Frank Chapman; Experimental Test Flight Engineer
Pascal Verneau; and Flight Test Engineers Emanuele Costanzo and
Tuan Do.
“The A350 XWB’s engine performed excellently
during its first flight-test, just as we expected,” said Charles
Champion, Executive Vice President of Engineering at Airbus. “This
is a promising start to the Trent XWB’s flight-test programme
which will ensure a thorough real-life testing of the engine,
nacelle and its systems.”
Commencing around one year prior to the A350
XWB’s first flight, this engine flight-test programme is scheduled
to accumulate around 175 flight hours – some three times more
airborne flying hours than on previous programmes. This will be
accomplished over a seven month period and will include hot
weather as well as icing condition testing campaigns. It will also
test the advanced nacelle and thrust reverser system provided by
Goodrich.
The overall objective of these flight-tests is
the early and systematic validation of all performance aspects of
the engine and also the associated systems. In turn, this will
contribute to significantly ‘de-risking’ the A350 XWB’s
development well ahead of entry-into-service. The first results of
this flight-test campaign are expected this summer.
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