Aircraft

Airbus passed two important milestones in the A380 test programme last week – the virtual first flight of the first fully furnished aircraft (MSN002) and the completion of 10,000 flight cycles on the A380 fatigue test airframe in Dresden. The 5h virtual first flight, at the Hamburg Finkenwerder plant, simulated a 15h flight with 474 passengers and 20 crew during which all cabin systems were tested. Meanwhile, the achievement of 10,000 cycles during structural load tests is “already twice as much as we need for certification”, says Charles Champion, Airbus chief operating officer and head of the A380 programme. Testing started in September last year, and will continue until 2008 to simulate a total of 47,500 flights.